Wednesday Bolts – 10.8.14

Amin Elhassan of ESPN Insider on Westbrook claiming he’s the best: “The problem is, there’s a difference between being “the best player at point guard” and “the best point guard.” Being a point guard carries with it a special set of prerequisites, among them an ability to game manage: knowledge of time and score and making appropriate decisions according to the situation; keeping teammates happy, confident and feeling involved; recognition of mismatches and exploiting them; recognition of the great shot someone else has over the good shot you have. Even the most fervent Westbrook supporter has to acknowledge that in those categories, Westbrook does not grade as well as some of the other marquee players at the position. So while he’s a tremendous talent at point guard, I can’t call him the best point guard.”

Durant on max contracts: “Look at it like this. Kobe Bryant brings in a lot of money to Los Angeles, that downtown area. People go to watch the Lakers. Clippers are getting up there, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and those guys are bringing in a lot of money as well. Look at Cleveland, look at Miami when LeBron was there. These guys are worth more than what they are making because of the amount of money they bring to that area. That’s a conversation you can always have, but until it’s changed, you never know what will happen to it.”

Kurt Helin of PBT on KD’s statement: “If the max contract is removed what you will see is a handful of very highly paid guys and a lot of other guys on minimum or near that deals, there will be no middle class of the NBA, few guys getting $4 million to $8 million a year. But some NBA players want that max contract idea removed. Some owners are okay with this. Why? Because if you really want to do away with “super teams” of players getting together (like with LeBron in Miami and now Cleveland) then you let LeBron get paid what the market will bear. In LeBron’s case that would be north of $40 million a year right now, and with a salary cap of $63 million this season you simply couldn’t put a good team around him anymore. Even with the cap going up under the new TV deal a GM would have one hand tied behind his back (and as that cap goes up the value of LeBron/Durant/etc. to a franchise goes up). My guess is in the next deal you may see the percentages of the cap allowed to go to a max player go up, but I doubt the max salary number goes away. The NBA owners also don’t want to be handing out baseball-sized contracts.”

Per Marc Stein of ESPN.com: “The Rockets are widely expected to take a step back this season, thanks to all the depth they squandered on the Bosh dice roll, but they expect to have significant salary-cap room next summer — when they can chase point guards as accomplished as Goran Dragic and Rajon Rondo if they choose — as well as in the summer of 2016. Which is when, sources say, they’d like to give Harden an opportunity to serve as Houston’s lead recruiter in the pursuit of a free agent named Kevin Wayne Durant.”

Brett Pollakoff of PBT: “The Rockets essentially determined that Parsons wasn’t the third elite player that they would require in order to be in the hunt for championships for seasons to come. That decision will likely set them back a bit this year, but the flexibility the team has from a salary cap perspective will have them in position to chase more stars in the seasons ahead — including Durant, no matter how unlikely his choosing to play in Houston may seem today, as we try to predict what may or may not happen two years from now.”