The Questions that Follow

Trades are an understood part of the NBA. Player swaps and moves become second nature from some. These are mostly rotation players swapping teams and contract flotsam to balance everything out. This is the normal and see it every season. However, every once in a while the trade of a superstar happens and captures the collective basketball consciousness of everyone even remotely interested. These trades can be a drawn out nightmare or quick, unexpected thrillers. Either way, there will always be questions.

Which brings me to a trade that has been discussed from multiple angles and shifted the destiny of a potentially dominant team. Yes its the Harden trade everybody; the most interestingly disappointing trade in a long time.  . Now, I have already go on record to say that OKC might have not gotten fleeced by Daryl Morey and that what they got is pretty good compensation for the budding star of Harden. Completely change my mind. Never been more wrong about anything NBA related ever. This point of view can be common for so many trades, but what makes this trade so interesting is that I arrived at this point of view because a question. What if OKC kept James Harden?

This singular question has been playing through my head the past season and has carried over to this current season. This question holds so much theoretical weight that it has made the Harden trade the most interesting superstar trade I have witnessed in my short time seriously following the NBA. Bigger than any Melodrama or any Dwightmare. These trades along with the Deron Williams surprise trade don't hold the same amount of "theoretical weight" largely because of the teams they were on. All of these superstars were coming from a team that we believed had reached their ceiling. Deron Williams Jazz had been a perennial playoff team that couldn't brake through. Dwight's Magic topped out in the finals and regressed in future playoffs. Carmelo's Nuggets made it to the western conference finals but couldn't get passed a stacked Lakers team. With these teams we knew what we were going to get. They had matured into what they were going to be. This is not the case with OKC.

What if OKC had kept James Harden? Well to begin to answer this you have to assume that Perkins would get the ol' amnesty axe. This would probably lead to the crunch time lineup of Westbrook-Harden-KD-Ibaka-Collison. Looking at that lineup and the potential of this team is apparent. With Harden Faciliating off of Collison PnR's and Westbrook, KD, and Ibaka working in a serious of screen, cuts, and pops the offense could reach down right Spursian levels with the right system in place. The same would go for the defense. Collison and Ibaka would seem to complement each other perfectly with Collison's rotating on point and Ibaka sending shots, the interior D of this team would be both technical and intimidating. The real key to answering this question is to think of how good OKC would have been with Harden along for the ride. 

Somewhat unfortunately, in a results driven league the relevance of "What if" questions is not of the highest importance. The Harden trade happened and there will still be questions. But often times the most interesting questions start with a "What if?"