In fairness they can have both. Again, though I'd rather have Harden, but don't see him being the difference this year. Unless, we made an Ibaka trade and scored post players that better fit.

OK, done now :)

Good Night!

BTW still a better trade than Alex Smith for 2 second rounders :)

If Westbrook doesn't get hurt....are the Thunder the favorites to come out of the West? I'd say yes. All this what if talk wouldn't be as strong without that injury. Most teams that rely on 2 superstars are sunk if one goes down. Just the nature of the beast. okcchief has argued for guys like Jackson and Lamb to get more time during the season to prepare them for the playoffs. They didn't get it, and now they're ill equipped to deal with the pressure. That's on Brooks, not Presti.

The Jeff Green trade was not a bad trade at the time. And until Green's rise from the dead this season, nobody would have suggested otherwise. The Harden trade? Well, there's probably more to that than we know. But it raised eyebrows at the time, and continues to do so.

But Presti drafted Ibaka 24th, traded for Thabo, picked Westbrook 4th to play PG (which MANY questioned), re-signed Collison, drafted Harden, etc. He's done more right than wrong by a large margin.

Perkins gave them a legit center in which they needed for Lakers, Spurs, and the Grizzlies. They had Ibaka in the waiting. Its been a good trade for the Thunder.

Speaking of the draft (looked up Westbrook's draft position), the Grizzlies have really ****ed up some recent drafts, but for some reason it hasn't killed them. They drafted Love right after Westbrook that season, then traded him and others for OJ Mayo. They took Thabeet 2nd over Harden, Curry, Tyreke, etc. The next year in the first round they took Xavier Henry, Dominique Jones and Greives Vazquez (best of the bunch, but they traded him for Pondexter).

Grizz have killed it on trades. Randolph, Gasol were huge. Rudy Gay was a trade as well if I remember right, then shipping him for Prince.

Both are on their equally questionable new contracts since the trade so it's also not that relevant to compare what ifs now. However, while Perkins still plays D he was still statistically one of the worst players in the league this year.

Rudy Gay was a great dump off to the Raptors. Still wonder whether Calderon would have been a better add than Prince but still a nice deal.

I've looked at all that before.

The Thunder also could have had Eric Bledsoe instead of Cole Aldrich and traded up the next year instead to get Fareed who I wanted them to draft at the time. Sure the organza ruins could have done some better things, but they are too of the best franchises so whatever.

If Westbrook was there the story would look much different, but he's not. However, this series might look exactly the same because this is what these teams always do to each other. I should just turn on the last five minutes Saturday. The good thing is players that shouldn't be there are being exposed right now without Russ covering them up. A few years from now this may have been awesome.

Yet at the time many said the Grizx are throwing away any chance in the playoffs. I wasn't one of those.

They've done well with trades. The trade of Gasols was thought to be one of the worst trades of all time. However, it got them Marc Gasol (lucky he turned out as well as he did, credit to him) and along with another move or two allowed them to trade for Randolph. Gay was a trade; they dealt Battier to the Gay with the 8th pick. That was a Jerry West move, and it was a good one. I loved it at the time. Accumulate talent. Tony Allen was a hell of a nice free agent signing. They did a great job bringing Conley along (Hollins gets a ton of credit here), and had the foresight to extend Conley with a contract that many ridiculed. Right players, right coach, right time with the right attitude is the story of the current Grizz.

I'm interested to see what the new regime does going forward. Bringing on Hollinger was interesting. There will certainly be a more data driven/analytical approach to decisions. That's my nature, but ironically it goes a bit against the strengths of this current team. They're all about attitude, old-school basketball. They don't shoot the 3, although they do try to incorporate the short corner three with Pondexter.

It's pretty easy to deal with Colangelo. Just offer up all of your overpaid, inefficient players and he'll give away draft picks and young assets.

Calderon would have been a great get for Memphis in that he's one of the best shooters in the NBA (and 3PT shooting is exactly what they need), but Detroit seemed to want him for some reason.

If Hollinger has any say at all, they're going to add perimeter shooters in the offseason. An open three with a high percentage shooter is the best shot you can get in basketball and most teams are figuring that out.

The players Phoenix ended up basically giving away were Rajon Rondo and Luol Deng.

Kyle Korver would be a perfect 2 guard for them.