The Lakers won't get past the Spurs without Kobe... be realistic Koop :P. CAUTION: OVER-ANALYSED WALL OF TEXT AHEAD.
I remember being pissed off when I saw Harden get traded:
OKC traded the beard?! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
But looking back at the trade it turned out quite alright for both teams. Kevin Martin couldn't quite match Harden's production for OKC but he played the role of 6th man just fine. Plus he's cheaper for OKC, which is good for them because they're not a big market team. Meanwhile Harden put up Kobe-esque numbers, and whilst his decision not to re-sign for OKC might hurt his chances of an NBA title in the short-term, in the long run he makes more money and now has a chance to win a title at some point in his career as 'THE STAR' instead of being a 6th man. Speaking of which, I know that Sefolosha has great defence which is why he starts but I would've liked to have seen how a starting line-up with Westbrook, Durant AND Harden would've played out. Me thinks it would've wreaked havoc on the opposing defences.
I can't help but compare LeBron and Durant to Magic and Bird respectively. LeBron James, despite being 6'8", is the primary ball-handler for his team similar to how Magic was a point guard despite being 6'9". Ok so LeBron is a 'point forward' and more of a scorer, but still he does run his teams offence. Kevin Durant meanwhile just shot 50-40-90 and 28.1 PPG for the season. The first person in NBA history to do so, and the only other person to date to have averaged 28+ PPG as well, was Larry Bird. Of course, Bird also played point forward, whereas Durant doesn't, having Westbrook... but you can definitely see some similarities between Magic-Bird and LeBron-Durant, right?
Either way, the two players both had MONSTER seasons and it would surely be a great NBA Finals series if it was a Heat-Thunder rematch, which is the most likely finals match-up, though realistically it could be any one of 5 teams from the West making the finals, whilst the Knicks still have a fighting chance in the East.
There's more I wanted to add to this post, but I don't want this wall of text to be tl;dr.
Last edited by Jay (OTT) at 4/19/2013 5:09:42 AM