TripleThreat wrote:holfresh wrote:Why would you want to trade Durant when you are a Champioship contender with him??..You are not a contender without him..
I don't think trading Durant is out of the question, I do think it would require a lot of things to fall into place in a certain way, and in a certain order.
1) I think Durant needs to openly ask his front office for a trade. Make it clear he's not going to resign with them. And make it clear he won't sign an extension with any team that gets gutted. Refusing to sign and extension and becoming only a rental would pretty much negate any suitor he didn't want.
2) Durant has to get healthy first, at least in the short term, before he would get moved. Too complicated to trade a guy while injured.
3) For OKC ownership to OK something like this ( this kind of trade generally operates at the ownership level) the return needs to be a marketable player in his own right, to protect the value of the franchise and to ease the split fanbase. ( Splitting the fanbase would be as easy as just leaking to the press that there are fears Durant will have chronic long term issues with that foot, although Westbrook's injury history isn't spotless either)
In the West, Durant for some package involving Blake Griffin might actually work. The Clippers aren't going to get it done with their current team. Griffin is an exciting and marketable young player. Durant would be going to a major market, an established coach, playing with a top shelf point guard and the NBA can reward it's newest owner who just spent a boatload for the team. The hang up, of course is that going East might make more sense than going West in terms of winning opportunity.
In the East, crazy as it sounds, Philly is a major market, it has the massive amount of asset ammo to get a deal done and still build around Durant and they have the most flexibility of any team in the league.
OKC would never get true 100 percent value on the dollar in any trade, however if Durant says he's going and he's gone no matter what, then it's about triage. It's about salvaging what you can from the situation.
The trades this year for Waiters and Kanter were push now trades. OKC made those trades as an open concession that this might be their last true contention year with this core.
"You can't get to him ( Hyman Roth). It's impossible. It would be like trying to kill the President!"
"Tom, if history has shown us anything, if anything is certain. It's that you can kill anyone. ( Implying JFK) Rocco?"
"Difficult, not impossible"
"Good"
- Tom Hagen, Michael Corleone and Rocco Lampone discussing assassinating Hyman Roth, Godfather Part II
The circumstances in which Durant could and would be traded to a non Knicks team would be difficult, not impossible. The only thing for certain is that they won't trade him while he is hurt.
I didn't think about that..I have been saying the Clippers needs to do something..Interesting..
3/22/2015 7:34 PM
