Harden wasn't a cap casualty. They held his Bird Rights and could have resigned him to a max. extension without any salary cap implications.
He was a stupidity casualty of their tight wad, hillbilly owners. They could have had a potential dynasty capable of winning several championships, but they we so worried about possibly paying a few million in luxury tax, they chose to keep the rotting corpse of Kendrick Perkins over James Harden. They had already signed Ibaka to a $49 million extension and were adamant about not giving Harden a max extension if it meant they'd have to pay any luxury tax. Even after giving Harden a max. extension, they could have easily avoided paying the tax by amnestying Perkins. But, because they were too fucking cheap to pay the worthless Perkins $23.5 million to suck for someone else over the last three years of his deal, they gave away Harden for Houston's table scraps. And, after all was said and done, with the luxury tax threshold going up, they would have only had to pay the tax for one season even if they kept Perkins.
So, their choices were:
a) Give Harden the max. extension, keep Perkins and pay a few million in luxury tax for one year.
b) Give Harden the max. extension, eat the final three years of Perkins contract and pay no tax.
c) Give away Harden, keep Perkins and pay no tax.
They made the monumentally dumb decision to go with option c, keep the worthless Perkins and give Harden away. Yeah, and how's that worked out? Perkins had a PER = 6.3 last season, the worst PER of any starter in the league. He's been even worse in the playoffs. For the 2102-13 playoffs, Perkins PER was -0.6 with a WS/48 of -0.110. They could have easily picked up any random big body with a pulse from the D League on a minimum contract that would have out produced Perkins by a mile.
But, in the end, I'm glad their tightwad, lying, hillbilly owners decided to pinch their pennies and chose Perkins over Harden. If they would have kept Harden, it would have been painful to watch. I'm not talking about seeing the Thunder win multiple titles, that would have been bad enough. I'm talking about watching them shatter the all-time record for most undeserved free throw attempts. Last year, Durant, Harden and Westbrook combined for other 25 FTs per game. Man, that would be painful to watch night in and night out. So, thanks for being cheap and stupid Clay Bennett and Aubrey McClendon. You saved us from watching a team a team full of floppers win multiple NBA titles.
BNM
