There are those inside the NBA who understand why Presti — as smart and calculating as they come — did what he did. In today’s economic NBA climate with a small market like OKC and the league’s new luxury tax penalties hanging like the sword of Damocles, sometimes a team must take a step back now in order to keep moving forward in the future.
That didn’t mean it hurt any less when Parker lost Westbrook on the game’s last play and stuck the knife in the Thunder in their 86-84 loss opening-night loss. (more…)
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Contract extension talk between the Oklahoma City Thunder and reigning KIA Sixth Man of the Year James Harden took a wrong turn somewhere. How else to explain tonight’s shocking news, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports and Darnell Mayberry of the Oklahoman, that Harden has been traded to the Houston Rockets for Kevin Martin, rookie shooting guard Jeremy Lamb, two first-round Draft picks and a second-round Draft pick?
The Thunder will also send Cole Aldrich, Daequan Cook and Lazar Hayward to the Rockets to complete the deal.
This shakes up not only the Western Conference playoff chase but also the entire landscape of the league, what with the Thunder losing one of the most explosive scorers in the league as he enters the prime of his career. The Los Angeles Lakers remade their roster over the summer, adding Dwight Howard and Steve Nash to a nucleus of Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Metta World Peace. And the Thunder needed to keep the core of a team that had home court in The Finals last season intact if they intended to hold off challenges from the Lakers and San Antonio Spurs for the Western Conference crown.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Might things be heating up between the Oklahoma City Thunder and their prized sixth man James Harden regarding negotiations for a contract extension?
Thunder center Kendrick Perkins, speaking following an appearance at a Thunder Fit event at a local middle school, said the two sides are “getting close” on a deal that would keep the reigning Sixth Man of the Year in Oklahoma City.
“We’re doing good. We’re making positive steps going forward,” Perkins said of the organization’s off-season. “We got coach (Scott) Brooks locked in. We got Serge (Ibaka) locked in. And we’re getting close with James, and we’re getting close to keeping our unit together. And we’re still hungry.”
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – This isn’t about scare tactics or some sort of negotiating ploy on the part of the Thunder or anyone else.
The Oklahoma City Thunder’s quandary regarding reigning Kia Sixth Man of the Year James Harden is real. They have to figure out how to keep him in the fold when he’s set to cash in with a new contract while the franchise is already somewhat strapped due to big deals it handed out to its other young stars (Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka).
The luxury tax is a very real factor for some teams. If you paid attention during the first five minutes of Junior Achievement in middle school, you’d know that the numbers simply do not add up in favor of the team trying to keep a handful of young stars in their primes with generous contracts. The Thunder — a proud, small-market titan — happen to be one of those teams.
And there is a growing concern in Oklahoma City that Harden could end up being a casualty of the financial dilemma the Thunder will face at the end of the 2012-13 season. Thunder general manager Sam Presti addressed the topic Monday, courtesy of Jenni Carlson of the Oklahoman:
So, what about Harden?
“James is somebody we value,” Presti said Monday afternoon. “We think he’s an important part to what we’re trying to do with our team and we’re hopeful that he’ll be with us.”
No doubt about that. Harden is super talented, a rare combination of shooter, slasher and distributor. His offensive skills provide an amazing complement to those of Durant and Westbrook.
“By the same token, we’ve been very upfront and transparent with everybody that we have some inherent challenges that we face as an organization as a result of the new collective bargaining agreement,” the Thunder general manager continued. “I know we’d love to have him here. I think James would like to be here as well. But at the end of the day … you have to find a way to make it work for everybody.”
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS –Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the rest of their Oklahoma City Thunder teammates spent their entire summer with a nagging pain eating away at them, knowing that they didn’t finish last season the way they wanted to.
Losing to the Miami Heat in The Finals is a stain on their record that won’t be shoved aside until they get back to The Finals and break through. But in the absence of a championship won on the court, the Thunder can revel in the fact that they’ve finished on top in another race.
The Thunder rank first overall in ESPN The Magazine’s 10th annual ranking of pro sports franchises, a list that includes 122 franchises from all the major sports. Fourteen NBA franchises — the Thunder, Spurs, Pacers, Grizzlies, Celtics, Sixers, Bulls, Mavericks, Heat, Jazz, Nuggets, Hornets, Cavs and Rockets — made the top 51. The most notable omission from that group, the Los Angeles Lakers, came in at No. 89.
HANG TIME, Texas — The Thunder have ponied up $48 million over the next four years to keep Serge Ibaka in the fold. So they’re down to the last piece of the puzzle, James Harden, who could become a free agent next summer.
Based on everything they’ve done to this point, does anyone really think general manager Sam Presti is going to stop now, one step short of keeping the whole together for a run at the NBA championship?
The tax line is at $70.4 million now, and it will go up as league revenues rise. But most projections have the tax line somewhere around $75 million in the 2015-16, and very solid growth (about 3 percent) would have it jump only to $72.5 million in 2013-14 and $74.6 million in the following season. Note again: These are estimates.
Under the harsh new tax rates that kick in for the 2013-14 — just in time! — the Thunder would be paying a tax bill ranging from $7.5 million to $12.5 million or so, depending on the exact tax level and how much the team’s ownership is willing to spend on the back of the roster.
Is Oklahoma City, the league’s second-smallest market, willing to spend something like $85 million or even $90 million to fill a team? (more…)
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – This isn’t the first time a wild card team has been injected into the Dwight Howard conversation, and it certainly won’t be the last.
But we challenge you or anyone else to find a more intriguing twist than the Orlando Magic superstar joining the reigning Western Conference champion Oklahoma City Thunder in their quest for a Larry O’Brien trophy.
Sure, it sounds far-fetched, given that the Thunder have never been considered even a remote factor in the Howard discussion and Thunder general manager Sam Presti‘s well-versed championship plan is already in full swing without Howard.
Still, in a summer when basically anything goes when we’re talking theories, can you imagine a more imposing lineup than what the Thunder could throw at teams if Howard was the man in the middle?
John Rhode of the Oklahoman mentioned it in passing in his examination of Presti’s “slow and steady” championship blueprint, raising some interesting points along the way:
OKC could throw its name into the Howard hopper and offer Kendrick Perkins, James Harden and Eric Maynor in a Howard sign-and-trade with Orlando, but doing so would abandon the Presti Plan and give the perception he had gone about things all wrong.
Then again, it potentially could result in an NBA title or two with a starting lineup of Howard, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Thabo Sefolosha and Serge Ibaka, not to mention a season record for blocked shots and a high-dollar existence above the league’s luxury tax.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – We’ll keep this warning for the Oklahoma City Thunder brief, since everyone has plenty of other stuff on their plate on Draft day.
Be careful. And be patient.
Don’t be hasty in whatever decisions you make tonight and in the immediate future.
We’re sending this warning to Thunder fans really, because the sting of defeat in The Finals lingers. It’s an impossible taste to get out of your mouth. We know because we’ve seen it before. We’ve watched teams overreact and make rash decisions and pay for them later, as Thunder general manager Sam Presti and his staff are surely aware of.
This year, on the eve of what was shaping up to be the least suspenseful first round in the franchise’s Oklahoma City era, a report surfaced that said the Thunder has sought to trade into the top three.
The supposed target: Florida guard Bradley Beal.
It’s the second report in the past two weeks that has connected the Thunder with trying to move into the top three. Typically, where there is smoke around this time of the year there is, well, more smoke. But the Thunder can’t seem to shake this cloud of speculation.
And this time, the player provided a firsthand account of Presti’s plans.
“He told me he was going to decide what they’re going to do and considered getting up there,” Beal told ESPN.com on Wednesday, relaying a conversation he had with Presti during an interview at the draft combine in Chicago.
In response to these reports (which are cute but have no legs, according to the folks we’ve spoken to regarding the Thunder), we’ll take this time to remind everyone of the Orlando Magic’s actions in the wake of their unsuccessful trip to The Finals in 2009.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – If the Oklahoma City Thunder thought making The Finals with home court advantage and losing in five games was excruciating work, they haven’t seen anything yet.
James Harden, Serge Ibaka and Eric Maynor are all eligible for contract extensions on their rookie deals and Thunder boss Sam Presti has to come with a way to keep his roster intact.
With the changing landscape in the league and the new salary cap structure of the new collective bargaining agreement to consider, the Thunder will need a serious plan to keep Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook surrounded by one of the best supporting casts in basketball.
At their exit meetings over the weekend the players involved spoke of continuing a franchise trend of sacrificing their own financial ambitions for the greater good, surely a unique (and some might say foolish) approach when you talk about the business of basketball.
“Sacrifice,” said Maynor, “if we really want to continue. It feels like we got something special here. I feel like if guys sacrifice to get something done then everybody will be here still.”
HANG TIME PLAYOFF HEADQUARTERS – When the playoff pairings came into focus late in the regular season, we knew there was the potential for this when the Boston Celtics and Atlanta Hawks got locked into the No. 4-5 battle in the Eastern Conference.
An era was coming to an end. A five-year run for one of these two franchises would continue on for at least another series and that same five-year run (that began in their epic first-round series in 2008) for the other franchise would have run its course.
Well, it’s time for the Hawks to face the reality of their own situation and turn the page. The Hawks are facing more than just elimination after their disastrous 101-79 Game 4 showing in Boston Sunday night. Most compassionate observers turned away from when the Celtics’ lead grew to 37 points … with more than a quarter and a half to play remaining.
How many times can you hear about a team talk about “not responding” or “we just didn’t have it” or “our energy and effort was nonexistent” in a big game situation before it sinks in?
The Hawks have dropped 12 playoff games by 20-plus points since 2008, a staggering number that does not include all of the games they lost by 16, 17, 18 and 19 points.
They’d fight back with stats of their own — such as along with the Celtics and Lakers, they are one of just three teams to reach the second round in each of the past three seasons. But that would foolishly suggest that the Hawks belong in the same sentence with two franchises that have won championships in the past four seasons.
The Celtics won it all in 2008 while the Lakers won back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010. The Hawks, for all of their accomplishments during this same stretch, have been escorted from the postseason in an ugly fashion each and every time, without once truly breaking through with this current core group.
They’ll tell anyone willing to listen that this series is far from over at 3-1 with Game 5 Tuesday night at Philips Arena. And with their history against these Celtics, it might be worth a listen. They played seven games in 2008, with each team taking turns ruling their home floors all the way through to Game 7.
But this time is different. As much as you’d like to believe these limping Hawks have a chance to make a series out of this one, the stench of inevitability is floating in the air after that Game 4 debacle in Boston.
