It was just two-and-a-half years ago, the Thunder arrived in the NBA Finals with a quartet of stars — Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and James Harden — who were 23 and younger. They seemed destined to rule the league for the next 10 years.
But after falling to LeBron James and the Heat in five games — the first of many Finals faceoffs, it seemed — the Thunder chose to trade Harden to the Rockets on the eve of the next season for a collection of young players and draft picks after failing to agree to a contract extension.
It was a divisive move, made as part of a long-term plan to keep the team’s ownership from ever having to pay the luxury tax. But after a Westbrook knee injury and an Ibaka calf injury, respectively, helped end the team’s last two postseason runs, the news that Westbrook broke a bone in his right hand Thursday night against the Clippers to join Durant (fractured foot) on the sidelines is the latest thing to make a mockery of the vision the Thunder laid out in dealing Harden away.
At the time, Thunder general manager Sam Presti preached vision, saying the team wanted to stay flexible. But it was equally important to avoid paying the luxury tax — which would have been inevitable if they kept Harden, having given max contracts to Durant and Westbrook and a rich extension to Ibaka.
Harden wanted a four-year max contract worth about $60 million, and the Thunder never offered more than $54 million. The Rockets gladly sent Jeremy Lamb, Kevin Martin, two first-round picks and a second-rounder to acquire him. While one of those picks, Steven Adams, has turned into a solid young starting center for Oklahoma City and the other was used to draft Mitch McGary this June, Lamb has been a bust and Martin left in free agency after one season.
Since then, the television money pouring into the sport has drastically increased the salary cap projections to the point where Oklahoma City potentially could have paid Harden a max contract and paid the tax for, at worst, one season. Now they have a team that without Westbrook and Durant for at least the first month of the season easily could miss the playoffs in the brutal Western Conference.
That would have seemed unfathomable when training camp began a month ago. But with the injuries to Durant, Westbrook, Anthony Morrow (sprained MCL), Reggie Jackson (sprained ankle), Lamb (back strain), McGary (fractured foot) and Grant Jarrett (ankle surgery), the Thunder are down to eight healthy players.
With a relatively soft schedule ahead for the 0-2 Thunder — they face the Bucks, Pistons and Jazz twice, plus the 76ers, Kings and Celtics in the next month — perhaps this team could keep itself somewhere near .500 until Durant and Westbrook make it back.
But if the Thunder can’t do better than, say, 6-14 or 7-13 while Durant and Westbrook miss approximately 20 games (barring setbacks), it would leave them having to go on a ridiculous streak just to squeak into the playoffs out West.
And a playoff miss would move the Thunder one step closer to the summer of 2016 without a championship, one step closer to the potential of a complete collapse — Durant choosing another franchise once he hits free agency.
This would have seemed unfathomable before the Harden trade. The Thunder had a young core of four All-Star-caliber players, poised to run the league for years to come. But after making a deal because they had a long-term plan they believed in, the Thunder could be about to learn the hard way that failing to seize opportunities in the NBA can have very real consequences.