James Harden trade idea

[Pelicanidae]

This sounds exactly like what the Lakers did last year. They traded everything that they had for a star player that never won big. I heard a lot of people say that the Pelicans won this deal. I’ am not really hearing that now. If we could just make a deep run you never know what could happen. Maybe the injury gods bless us for once and every starting point guard for each western conference team gets hurt like they did for the Warriors. Look what happened to Miami this year past year. You just never know.

The difference between AD and Harden, of course, is that AD was built to be a secondary and never had that primary guy to run things, whereas Harden is built to be a primary, refuses point blank to take a backseat, and is just simply not good enough at that to win on the highest level. It's a very different sort of player archetype. Poor comparison.

[tonej]

I think we need a primary scorer. I don’t think Ingram is ready to be that player yet, and I think Zion is more of a secondary unselfish player like AD is. This is how Coach K used Zion in college. Zion was the secondary option at Duke.

[Pelicanidae]

I think we need a primary scorer. I don’t think Ingram is ready to be that player yet, and I think Zion is more of a secondary unselfish player like AD is. This is how Coach K used Zion in college. Zion was the secondary option at Duke.

Coach K is, with all due respect, not the kind of coach who is about maximising any individual player's talent. Zion has the potential to be a primary: you want someone who has shown the flashes he has shown, that is as young as he is, and under cost control like he is, to be given the chance to maximise whatever skill he has in a given area. You don't look at someone with Zion's potential and, at the age of 20 with fewer than 30 NBA games under their belt, go ''yeah he's just a secondary, let's just not even try that''.

''We need a primary scorer'' Zion is 20 years old. Ingram is 22 and averages 25 a game. We have time. It's not like we're in the middle of these guys primes and we're on the clock: of course you want to start winning as soon as possible but you don't want to sell your future down the road because you panicked early and made irrational, rushed decisions.

[Darkhorse985]

The difference between AD and Harden, of course, is that AD was built to be a secondary and never had that primary guy to run things, whereas Harden is built to be a primary, refuses point blank to take a backseat, and is just simply not good enough at that to win on the highest level. It's a very different sort of player archetype. Poor comparison.

We dont have an alpha dog on this team. PFs don’t run offenses. Zion is still very unproven. Ingram is a secondary player. Jrue is a secondary player. I agree with MM. Just to be a playoff team for a few years would dramatically change the culture and perception of this team. I’d stay away from Westbrook, but Harden is still a very good player who won’t be coming here. He goes to Brooklyn or Miami if he is traded imo.

[Pelicanidae]

We dont have an alpha dog on this team. PFs don’t run offenses. Zion is still very unproven. Ingram is a secondary player. Jrue is a secondary player. I agree with MM. Just to be a playoff team for a few years would dramatically change the culture and perception of this team. I’d stay away from Westbrook, but Harden is still a very good player who won’t be coming here. He goes to Brooklyn or Miami if he is traded imo.

PFs dont run offenses?

I suppose that depends what you mean by power forwards, because on defense Lebron plays PF a huge portion of the time and has done for years, and he very certainly runs offense. Blake Griffin has also done a lot of offense running, at times, and of course historically guys like Charles Barkley were also fairly on-ball players at times in their careers. Ben Simmons today, also, is a guy who traditionally would have been thought of as a PF or SF but instead plays a more on-ball creation role due to his individual skills.

I'm not interested in looking at a 20 year old who, less than a year ago, everyone was thrilled to acquire and, less than 30 games into their NBA career, completely shutting down avenues of development. Just because Zion isn't the new shiny toy anymore doesn't mean we need to start searching for a fresh new novelty when we've yet to even see what we've really got.

''We don't have an alpha dog on this team'' we have a roster than is more than 50% under the age of 25, iirc. We don't know what we have right now, not really. And we never will if we just start jumping at shadows every single time something happens.

Patience is a good thing, actually.

[Pelicanidae]

Sources: The Rockets continue to tell teams that they plan “run it back” with Harden this season. So far, there have been no trade discussions between the Rockets and Nets. https://t.co/wHrTqvCPew

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 15, 2020