5. James Harden
4. Russell Westbrook
Hold on, we have to let the Oklahoma City fans finish dry-heaving.
(Just a few more seconds.)
And we're good.
You already know how I feel about Westbrook, and Harden's breakout season in Houston was mildly jaw-dropping. The Beard (only 23, by the way) averaged a 26-6-5, with 44-37-85 shooting splits, for a team that didn't have a second All-Star. He's also wholly unique: a southpaw who's either jacking up 3s (6.2 per game) or getting to the line (10.2 per game, first in the NBA). He attempted 486 3s (the 59th-highest number ever by an NBA player) and made 179 3s (74th-highest ever). He also attempted 792 free throws (74th-highest ever) and made 674 (27th-highest ever). Pay special attention to the list of names who make up the top 30 for made free throws in one NBA season.
West, Wilt, MJ, Dantley, Oscar, Durant, Barry, Moses, Barkley, Mailman, Kobe, Pettit, Robinson, Schayes, Tiny, Elgin, Iverson, Harden.
In other words … GOOD GOD!!!! Every guy either made the Hall of Fame or is headed there. Throwing in the low number of true franchise players in 2013,19 the lack of crunch-time scorers and the overall dearth of 2-guards — really, it's Harden, then Wade, then Klay Thompson, then Kobe if he ever comes back, then we're suddenly looking at the likes of DeMar DeRozan and J.R. Smith — it's hard to believe Harden was ever on the market.
Think about where the Rockets were in October, when they were headed for 30 wins and looking at another season of "Don't worry, everyone, we have cap space and picks and assets, this is gonna work out, we swear!" Somehow they landed the league's best under-30 shooting guard, someone who is guaranteed to make the next seven or eight All-Star teams unless he gets injured, for one year of Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, the 12th pick in a lousy 2013 draft and a future Dallas pick. Let's be honest — that's a miracle. That was a franchise-saving trade. They didn't just give up three quarters and a dime for a dollar; they inadvertently got a $2 bill back.
And look, I've hammered Oklahoma City enough for one of my least favorite NBA trades ever — you can read my thoughts here and here and here. But I don't think the following point can be emphasized strongly enough.
You can't just assume in basketball that the window will always stay open for you.
In football, you can build around a franchise quarterback, draft smartly, protect your cap, repeatedly trade down for more assets and do everything else that Bill Belichick did since 2001. That mind-set doesn't work in basketball. You can find/afford three blue-chippers only if you're lucky. You can't "trade down" and assume you'll replace a blue-chipper with multiple pieces; it never really worked. You also can't assume that you're getting 10 more cracks at the Finals, or that your best players will stay healthy year after year after year. The '86 Rockets thought they had a perennial contender. So did the '88 Mavericks, the '91 Blazers, the '92 Cavaliers, the '93 Suns, the '94 Warriors, the '97 Bullets, the '03 Kings, the '05 Suns … but the truth is, you never know.
The Thunder easily could have kept together three of the top six guys on this list for one more year, then decided on their future this summer. They didn't. And they didn't because they didn't know James Harden was THIS good. That's why they kept Serge Ibaka over him, and that's why they didn't just say, "A year from now, we'll amnesty (the Soon-To-Be-Totally, Completely & Irrevocably Washed-Up) Perkins and keep Harden." It's one of the single biggest tactical mistakes any NBA contender has ever made — the modern equivalent of the Lakers freaking out after the '84 Finals, then dealing James Worthy to Detroit for one year of Kelly Tripucka, Tony Campbell and two future no. 1 picks.
In The Book of Basketball, I wrote an entire chapter about the 33 biggest "What Ifs?" in NBA history. What if Portland had taken Jordan? What if Kareem had gone to the ABA? What if Lenny Bias hadn't overdosed? What if the '77 Blazers had kept Moses Malone? Well, "What if Oklahoma City had kept Durant, Westbrook and Harden together?" has already leapfrogged into that NBA What If? stratosphere. What a bummer. I wish we could press a RESET button and do this one over.
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****OFFICIAL 2013 NBA PLAYOFFS THREAD****
(https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=272221)