It appears final roster decisions have been made. Donald Sloan and Jeremy Pargo make the cut. Micheal Eric and Kevin Jones get the proverbial guillotine. This makes sense, considering Pargo has a guaranteed contract and Sloan performed most adequately of the four players during the pre-season. I hope Sloan starts the season as the twelfth man, with Pargo in Canton. Byron Scott may disagree. I cannot be sure though; he has not called me to discuss yet.
It is possible that I have not posted a picture of Donald Sloan before. Well #15, it's your big day
I usually try to be supportive of the Cavs’ decisions, but keeping Pargo…terrible. Absolutely terrible.
Keeping Harangody was also terrible…. Absolutely terrible.
Holy crap! James Harden to Rockets in big swap:
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/8562868/oklahoma-city-thunder-trade-james-harden-houston-rockets
Primarily Rockets give up Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, 2 #1′s. Hollinger asks: Better than what Magic got for Dwight?
Could the Cavs have come close?
Rick in Boise,
Yeah, I am shocked. I can’t believe the Thunder made this trade two days before the season starts. They weren’t in the luxury tax this season; they are young and the defending Western Conference champs. I mean, they were serious contenders this year?!?!? Why not wait and either let him walk or make a sign-and-trade after the season? Is this part of the big Lebron-Kobe finals conspiracy? (just kidding)
The two first rounders are Toronto’s top-three protected pick this year and a pick that was originally Dallas’s and is top-20 protected until 2018.
So for this season, they trade Harden and Cook for Martin and Lamb; definitely a downgrade. As their reward moving forward, they get the 12th pick from 2012, probably the 10th pick in 2013 and a random pick in the twenties sometime in the next five years. Is that worth pulling the trigger today? Shocked…but I suppose, who am I to question Sam Presti?
The Cavs could have done better than this, right? After the season, as a sign-and-trade, Cleveland could have offered Varejao, Gee, two first rounders this year (including ours that will probably be better than Toronto’s), another future first rounder, and taken Kendrick Perkins’ contract off their hands.
Thunder end up with Westbrook, Durant, Ibaka, Varejao and a slew of draft picks, and are still under the tax. Cleveland builds with a Irving, Harden, Waiters, Thompson, Zeller core (plus still owning 3 first rounders total in the 2014 and 2015 drafts). Why couldn’t this have happened?
But Kevin why even bother keeping Waiters? Anderson Varejao if healthy is a much better option than perkins. Include waiters instead of this years pick.
Waiters was a fourth pick…it is extremely unlikely that they Cavs will pick that high again this year. I’m not sure how including him in any deal unless we absolutely have to would make any sense.
Kevin – even assuming that the Thunder wanted to act TODAY, we could have been competitive with our pile o’ picks alone?
Would have been nice to sneak in at least as the 3rd team (many on here loved Lamb)
I wonder if there is the proverbial “more to the story”….
Martin was probably the short term piece that OKC had to have to make this trade. No one on the Cavs outside of Irving would’ve offered any scoring replacement value for Harden. The trade with Houston keeps OKC a contender for this year while giving them a chance to become even better down the road.
I actually think this is a bold, outside-the-box move by Presti and I applaud him for it. Hey, ya can’t complain about the players dictating the moves in the NBA and then not get behind this kind of proactive move, IMO. They offered him a huge deal, he turned it down, and they got a borderline all-star (at his best) who CLEARLY needed a change of scenery, a top SG prospect in Lamb and draft picks in trade. All while not going into the luxury tax. This is a small-market team realizing they can make themselves relevant for more than a few years. I have not been one to over-praise Presti as so many do but I really like this move. It sends multiple messages to the league and all of them good, to boot. I’m telling ya, once these new salary cap rules come into being this is gonna be a very different league. This is the first sign of that…
Kj,
While I agree with much of what you say, my biggest issue with it is that OKC were legitimate title contenders this year. Even if they signed Harden to the max extension he wanted, he would have been tradeable after the season. Seems like they should have played the season out, then trade him after the season, before Harden and Ibaka’s extensions kicked in. They could have ended up in just as good a place.