Former OKC coach on if it could've worked with Harden: 'Easy question'
Fearing salary cap hell if they signed James Harden to the contract he wanted and deserved, the Oklahoma City Thunder organization shockingly agreed to trade Harden to the Houston Rockets just days before the start of 2012-13 season.
Just a few months earlier, the Thunder were coming off their first of what figured to be many more NBA Finals appearances. Then suddenly, the young trio of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and their super sixth man Harden was no more. Oklahoma City fans were distraught.
The Thunder haven't returned to the Finals since and the question will always linger: Would they have won a championship by now if Harden had never been traded?
We'll never know the answer, but it certainly would have been fun to find out. Harden, of course, has emerged as a superstar with the Rockets, finishing second in the MVP race last year while leading Houston to the West finals. The players OKC received in the trade, Kevin Martin and Jeremy Lamb, are no longer with the team. A first-round draft pick received was used to pick starting center Steven Adams.
The Thunder have endured three years of key injuries that derailed potential championship runs. Former Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks became a casualty of those injuries, fired after last season's failure to make it to the playoffs with Durant out most of the season because of a broken foot. For the first time in their careers, Durant and Westbrook would move on without Brooks.
Brooks discussed his firing and other Thunder issues recently with The Vertical. And this was his answer when asked if it could've worked with Harden:
In retrospect, there's really only one way to look at the Harden trade. It was colossal failure for general manager Sam Presti and the Thunder. Subsequent trades put the Thunder over the league's salary cap last season, something the franchise had vowed not to do. This season, OKC comes in with the second-highest payroll in the NBA behind Cleveland at $99 million.
Thunder ownership had no way of knowing that a new television contract was coming. The deal will dramatically increase the salary cap starting this summer and make it relatively workable to support multiple max contracts.
Who knows what would have transpired had Harden stayed. Perhaps the same injuries to Westbrook in 2013, Serge Ibaka in 2014 and Durant last season still happen, and the Thunder still don't make it back to the Finals.
Maybe.
We'll never know. But it sure would have been fun to find out.
