Reply to Thread

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blewis11" data-source="post: 2003775" data-attributes="member: 16395">If someone offered me a 20% pay increase I would probably take it, and I absolutely love where I work.  Now multiply that 20% increase by the fact that pro ball players have only a very limited time to make all the money they are going to make for the rest of their lives.  Harden will play 10 years maybe a couple more in the league...I get to work 40 before I retire, so that extra 20 million pay bump for going to the rockets was a no brainer when you only get to work 10 years and then its over.It sucks, everyone liked him and it isn't fun, but its the nature of the business.  He definately struggled last night, but it was expected.  Thunder guys were keying on him (when was the last time you say Perkins jumping a double team 4 feet beyond the 3 point line) and he is a 22 year old kid coming back to what he considered his home.  Emotionally he was probably a wreck, I wouldn't have handled it well at 22 because you know he wanted to play well.  He will be fine and so will we.The other question is why didn't we pay him max?  Everyone is talking about salary cap penalties...blah blah blah...Forbes estimated the Thunder made a minimum profit of 35 million last year.  And 30 million the year before (after all expenses and salaries are paid).  The difference in what we offered him and what we could have paid him was a couple million a year, even if there is penalties for going over the salary cap, Thunder would have still been easily in the black, it would have been closer, but definately in the black form all the numbers I have read about.  It may have been the best move long term, I don't know, but the idea that the franchise had to do it or they would have gone out of business or lost money is ridiculous.  It looks like a profit saving trade to me, not a we are going to lose money if we don't trade him like they have positioned to the media.  But if I owned a team, I would like to make money too, so who am I to judge.</blockquote>

Verification