Last night the NBA world was rocked when the Oklahoma City Thunder traded James Harden to the Houston Rockets. Harden was seeking a max contract worth four years $60 million which would put the Thunder over the salary cap. The Thunder unlike the Lakers weren’t willing to go over the cap and suffer the new steeper luxury tax penalty. According to Yahoo Sports they offered Harden up to $54 million which he rejected so general manager Sam Presti moved swiftly to trade him avoiding any Dwight-like drama. Read more after the jump.
The final trade sent James Harden Cole Aldrich, Lazar Hayward and Daequan Cook to the Rockets in exchange for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, two 2013 first-round picks (from Dallas and Toronto), 2013 second-round pick (via Charlotte) and future draft considerations. According to Yahoo the Rockets plan to offer Harden a five year max contract worth nearly $80 million as they feel he’s the franchise player they’ve been looking for.
Of course a major trade like this sent twitter into a frenzy. The former Sixth Man of the Year was leaving the Western Conference Champions and going to a team in rebuilding mode. Check out what Lebron and former teammates Kevin Durant and Eric Maynor had to say as well as new teammate Jeremy Lin in the gallery above.
