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Our young wings and James Harden

Would you have traded Hayward, Burks, and the Golden State Pick for Harden?

  • Yes

    Votes: 16 31.4%

  • No

    Votes: 35 68.6%
  • Total voters
    51
B

BYE

Well-Known Member
So, looking at James harden and where he's at offensively and defensively, I'd put him at the 3rd best shooting guard in the NBA. I put him above Ginobili and Gordon because of his age and since he doesn't get injured like Ginobili and Gordon even though these two might be better in a one to one match-up.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hardeja01.html
https://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball/fantasy/nba/playerstats/12/3/eff
https://weareutahjazz.com/lockedonjazz/2012/10/27/breakdown-the-impact-of-trading-james-harden-on-the-thunder/
https://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba--inside-look-at-james-harden-s-trade-to-rockets-28301609.html

Here are my general rankings with their salaries. These go up for many of them substantially, so this is for just right now
1/2. D. Wade/Kobe ($17/$28)
3. Harden ($15)
4. Manu Ginobili (injury prone); ($14)
5. Eric Gordon (injury prone); ($14)

I also think that he is in the top ten wings (SF: James ($17.5), Durant (17.5), Anthony ($19.5), Pierce ($17), Iguodala/Deng($15/$13)

He is thus getting paid what he should or around where he should in my view. Do you think our wings have a chance of being here?

The problem for me with our young wings is that they're relatively flawed:
Hayward (general question about his shooting consistency, aggression, and mid-range game):
--SG: too big to get around screens etc. for a SG, and he is relatively exposed on the defensive end with faster SG's (Gordon, Wade etc.), needs a better handle
--SF: Despite being tall, does not have good length, he's little light, horrible rebounder, is not a "lock down" defender like Iggy etc.

Burks (decision making, assists, defensive anticipation (passing lanes), controlled drives, mid-range, handle, shooting consistency)
--this all pertains to SG, but he can definitely play defense on PG's as well, he's very quick (better than Beaubois, Mayo, Mathews?)

I have serious questions about our young wings (they will be good, but top 5??)

My question then becomes should the Jazz be looking to turn these two into a top five guy? Would you have done this trade, and should the Jazz look to do this or did they miss an opportunity?

Would you have traded Hayward, Burks, and the Golden State Pick for Harden?

Jazz will be paying $26 mil. next year (if Marvin opts in) for our core 4, Marvin, Evans. Had the jazz done this trade we would be paying $36 mil. next year. That would have given us:

Williams, Harden, Williams, 4 bigs; Evans, Tinsley/Watson, Foye, Carroll
 
OKC laughs at that offer. Jefferson/Millsap, Hayward & GSW pick if it were legal for OKC to max and trade Harden + Aldrich.
 
JJAS said:
Why not?
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I just think he is way overrated and for a max player he tends to disappear a lot. I don't see him much of an upgrade enough to tie up our salary more. Your pretty much asking him to be the star on the team and I don't view him as that player. It is going to be interesting to see how good he really is when he has his own team. I just think the rockets are going to be shooting themselves in the foot in a few years and are going to try and get rid of his salary, when he is not playing up to his money. With a small market team you can not make a mistake of overpaying a player.
 
Seriously, do you think Harden will out produce Hayward, Burks and the GS pick? Harden is NOT a max player up to this point. Perhaps he lives up to his contract but he certainly hasn't earned a MAX contract. The problem with many fans/organizations is they think too many players deserve a MAX deal. Look at AK, Joe Johnson, Michael Redd, Marion, etc.

All these players got overpaid because their franchises/fans overvalued them as players. I think Hayward could average 14-16pts a game if he gets consistent minutes. Besides he does other things and does not need to dominate the ball. Burks could easily average 16pts a game if given the minutes. Who knows what the GS pick will be but if it is a top 10 pick the Jazz could get another cheap piece to a championship team.

Giving a MAX deal to a non-max player can be the death of a franchise. The only guy on OKC who deserves a MAX is Durrant. I think Westbrook was a little over paid but I would have rather given him a max deal than Harden. Harden got greedy and now he isn't going to be playing for an NBA champion any time soon.
 
shadler said:
Not only no but hell no. Harden = Ak part 2
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Not only yes, but hell yes. Harden >> Burks + Hayward + ???, not AK part 2. Garsh, Harden was only a key player for a team that almost won it all last year. A guy they relied on to carry them every game for good stretches of time while the big 2 rested. He could dominate when asked to and often was. Can Burks or Hayward do that? Not that I have seen.

In the NBA 2+2 does not equal 4. Two pretty good players do not equal one great player. The Jazz should have been going after Harden all along and given anyone on the team to get him.
 
cowhide said:
Seriously, do you think Harden will out produce Hayward, Burks and the GS pick? Harden is NOT a max player up to this point. Perhaps he lives up to his contract but he certainly hasn't earned a MAX contract. The problem with many fans/organizations is they think too many players deserve a MAX deal. Look at AK, Joe Johnson, Michael Redd, Marion, etc.

All these players got overpaid because their franchises/fans overvalued them as players. I think Hayward could average 14-16pts a game if he gets consistent minutes. Besides he does other things and does not need to dominate the ball. Burks could easily average 16pts a game if given the minutes. Who knows what the GS pick will be but if it is a top 10 pick the Jazz could get another cheap piece to a championship team.

Giving a MAX deal to a non-max player can be the death of a franchise. The only guy on OKC who deserves a MAX is Durrant. I think Westbrook was a little over paid but I would have rather given him a max deal than Harden. Harden got greedy and now he isn't going to be playing for an NBA champion any time soon.
Click to expand...

This!
 
zman1527 said:
Not only yes, but hell yes. Harden >> Burks + Hayward + ???, not AK part 2. Garsh, Harden was only a key player for a team that almost won it all last year. A guy they relied on to carry them every game for good stretches of time while the big 2 rested. He could dominate when asked to and often was. Can Burks or Hayward do that? Not that I have seen.
Click to expand...

Well one reason you have not seen burks dominate or carry a team for stretches is party due to him not playing.
 
cowhide said:
Seriously, do you think Harden will out produce Hayward, Burks and the GS pick? Harden is NOT a max player up to this point. Perhaps he lives up to his contract but he certainly hasn't earned a MAX contract. The problem with many fans/organizations is they think too many players deserve a MAX deal. Look at AK, Joe Johnson, Michael Redd, Marion, etc.

All these players got overpaid because their franchises/fans overvalued them as players. I think Hayward could average 14-16pts a game if he gets consistent minutes. Besides he does other things and does not need to dominate the ball. Burks could easily average 16pts a game if given the minutes. Who knows what the GS pick will be but if it is a top 10 pick the Jazz could get another cheap piece to a championship team.

Giving a MAX deal to a non-max player can be the death of a franchise. The only guy on OKC who deserves a MAX is Durrant. I think Westbrook was a little over paid but I would have rather given him a max deal than Harden. Harden got greedy and now he isn't going to be playing for an NBA champion any time soon.
Click to expand...

The question was not whether he was a Max player.
 
fishonjazz said:
Well one reason you have not seen burks dominate or carry a team for stretches is party due to him not playing.
Click to expand...

The homers here see way too much in Burks. He has not shown it yet. I hope he gets there but I don't see him being any better than average, not a HOFer.
 
cowhide said:
Seriously, do you think Harden will out produce Hayward, Burks and the GS pick? Harden is NOT a max player up to this point. Perhaps he lives up to his contract but he certainly hasn't earned a MAX contract. The problem with many fans/organizations is they think too many players deserve a MAX deal. Look at AK, Joe Johnson, Michael Redd, Marion, etc.

All these players got overpaid because their franchises/fans overvalued them as players. I think Hayward could average 14-16pts a game if he gets consistent minutes. Besides he does other things and does not need to dominate the ball. Burks could easily average 16pts a game if given the minutes. Who knows what the GS pick will be but if it is a top 10 pick the Jazz could get another cheap piece to a championship team.

Giving a MAX deal to a non-max player can be the death of a franchise. The only guy on OKC who deserves a MAX is Durrant. I think Westbrook was a little over paid but I would have rather given him a max deal than Harden. Harden got greedy and now he isn't going to be playing for an NBA champion any time soon.
Click to expand...

We are paying Al Jefferson what Harden will be making right now, and this is his third year with the Jazz. Are you saying that you would not pay Harden the pay scale for four years what we have paid Al for three? To be clear, as it states above, Kobe Bryant is making $28 mil. this year. Durant will be making $21 mil. in his last year. This is not even close to the pay scale of Harden. I understand the fiscally conservative argument, but in this market to be great, you have to take chances. When you look at salaries around the top players, as I have included above, he is not really being overpaid. You have to have top players in the NBA to take it to the next level. Let me be clear also, the Jazz do not have the make up of a "championship" team. We don't even have a single certified All-Star outside of Mo Williams. Our best players are our bigs, so we need to improve our wings. All of the weaknesses I mentioned above are very real for our wings. Look at a list of top twenty wings in the league, I included a link. We don't have a single wing in the top 20, and it is debateble and to be seen if we have one among our two young wings. The more I think about the Harden situation, the more I think the Jazz missed out on great chance to improve on our overall talent. You have to have at least two Allstars if not 3 to win an NBA title. Malone (arguably the best PF of all time) and John Stockton (arguably the best PG of all time) could not win a championship.

The only good argument I've heard for not trading for Harden is he's over rated and will not perform up to his contract. I don't buy this: see Locke's article.

These are the facts:
1. Championship teams have multiple superstars/allstars.
2. Championship teams have good to great coaches.
3. We have no current superstars/allstars.
4. The odds that all four of our youth or even two of the four are allstars/superstars are slim.
5. We are not going to attract a lot of allstars/superstars to our market.
6. We must, therefore, from time to time overpay, work through the draft (always difficult: Sacramento, Minnesota, Washington, Toronto, Detroit etc.), or use trades to get allstars.
7. Harden is in the top 15 wings and probably top 8 in the league at the age of 23.
8. We missed an opportunity to use our assets and expiring contracts.
9. You're going nowhere fast with middling players.
 
I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. Hayward is a nice player who will probably reach his peak as a borderline all-star in a year or two. I love Burks, but he hasn't done much so far, and I don't know if he'll get enough playtime any time soon. Either way, he doesn't have James Harden potential. Harden is a top 20 player in this league. He had a supporting role in OKC playing with the second unit, or as a third option behind two superstars. Harden as our go-to guy would be a dream! I think I soiled my pants a little just thinking about it.

But I'd much rather give up Hayward/Burks +Jefferson. This way we get to keep one of the two young wings (I prefer Hayward), and we get rid of Jefferson.
 
Hell no.

Harden is vastly over rated. He's got a lot of questions about his game as well. He's a pretty poor defender who's had the luxury of going up against opposing teams 2nd unit for his entire career.

There is a reason that OKC let him go, he isn't worth the money he's going to be paid. He's not a star player, and we'll probably get to see that over the next 3 years as he won't be able to elevate Houston's fortunes.
 
There must be more to this story than OKC would not pay the extra 5.5 mil for Harden.
Why would they trade away a top 20 player when they were so close to a title?
There has to be some other reasons they did not want to keep Harden.
 
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