B.Scott with ITL on Rockets' KD trade

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00:00hey it's not just june 27th happy screw day but now that we've had several days to mull over

00:06the rocket's decision to trade for kevin durant right and this is my first time in with y'all

00:11to talk about this it's true it's been i've had enough time to really because y'all know i was

00:15i've always been on this right so i was an early advocate for guys that happy about the deal like

00:21that's not going to shock anybody but the more time i've had to think about it i feel like this

00:27is their best offseason that they've had in in my memory and my memory goes back about let's just

00:33call it to the let's just go back as far as offseason moves to like the steve francis era but

00:37after the championships but like yeah yeah 25 let's go 25 years or so there's one particular

00:42offseason i know i know and now my eyebrows are raised in hindsight i feel like that offseason

00:48you're talking about the one where they trade for james hart of course absolutely in hindsight that

00:52is obviously their best offseason yeah but let me tell you and this is the reason why i thought

00:55about this i'm talking about at the time okay so at the time of the move i don't think any of us

00:59thought that james harden was going to be the level of player that he turned out to be regardless of

01:04how disappointed you were with his playoff performances and how he left and all that he's

01:08an all-time great and he became an all-time great right here in houston okay so we can acknowledge that

01:12but when they made the move here's what i was writing and talking about at the time i was writing

01:18at sb nation at the time and i thought oh i wonder if james harden and jeremy lynn

01:23could be that's right okay so this is what we were talking about at the time

01:27in the conversation that i posed yeah could they be like some version of catino mobley and steve

01:33francis which today sounds ridiculous probably sound ridiculous at the time but i didn't know exactly

01:40what to expect from james harden other than the fact that he was a real nice lefty okay and jeremy

01:44lynn had just got paid a bunch of money by the rock that is true and so at the time i'm thinking all

01:49right jeremy lynn and james harden let's go let's see what this is i'm sorry all i'm thinking of is

01:54which one did you think was which no i'm i thought the lefty was gonna be continue james turned out to

02:00be much better than catino mobley with all due respect to mobley and jeremy lynn turned out to

02:04not even be in the stratosphere as steve francis shout out to steve francis but all you need to do

02:09was dunk more that's all yeah right exactly just just hey just just take it to the cup more he dribbled

02:13enough he dribbled enough he just didn't dunk enough but at the time that's what i was thinking

02:18right and that doesn't that is not giving off the same vibes of hey you could go win the western

02:24conference hey you've got an envy a former mvp a two-time finals mvp and not just that not just

02:30kevin durant this is the thing i've been fixated on the last couple of days but because i'm i'm just

02:34as excited about everything around kevin durant and what the rockets actually are bringing in or

02:40bringing back i should say as much as i am what they're bringing in in kevin durant the maturation

02:45and ascension of a men thompson of of albert shingoon of the presumed ascension of reed shepherd when we

02:54think that's gonna happen figuring out a better role or how to maximize what you have in jabari

02:59smith jr like the core essentially is still here and you've kind of got this duality of bringing in

03:05all-time great who's still very good and kevin durant and maintaining the bulk of the core that

03:12you've built that for the most part brought you this far so i'm i'm as excited about to me this is

03:17the best rockets off season that i can actually remember in the moment in the in the moment not

03:22in red because we don't have the benefit of hindsight right no it hasn't happened yet i think

03:26but in the moment i think that's a great point i really do because i was on the air here you know

03:32we were talking about the james harden thing on in the at this station and and what people tend

03:37to forget man is a six man really good one even in that moment but yes average less than 17 points

03:45a game and coming off of an off season where or a season where the the the fall off was problematic

03:52right look so so in in the moment i think that's a great point and you're i absolutely agree with you

03:58because we were having the discussion you know daryl morey fell in love with his stats this was

04:02this was one of the big uh you know advanced analytics guys that daryl morey absolutely loved

04:08and i'm like well he's really good you know kind of what reggie's talking about you know sixth man of

04:12the year i think he won it that year uh if i'm remembering it right uh and all that but he was

04:17still a sixth man that averaged less than 17 points a game we weren't had a horrible finals too by the

04:22way and had a really bad fun and we weren't asking the question that reggie asked yesterday championship

04:27or bust when they acquired him we're like okay let's see you know let's see what he can do in

04:32this in this moment and and i don't know if you're listening yesterday or not but we said you don't

04:38acquire kevin durant unless you are trying to win a championship that year yeah y'all were doing the

04:42championship or my segment yeah no i'm i'm with you and i think it's it's pretty clear and obvious of

04:46that right like especially given the age like you were acquiring a young james harden yeah you're

04:51acquiring an older and established kevin durant yeah but i mean i think that's 100 the case like with

04:56james harden you were just now and i don't think we even realized it at the time but you were just

05:01now putting that that building block there or establishing and then later of course you get

05:06dwight howard and then things start to kind of come together and you see what almost immediately you

05:10see what james harden is yeah but it wasn't the expectation no said go the way it is now and and i

05:16think that's not just like if you rent on any old rockets team i don't know the the old nine rockets

05:23like just any rockets team then it's like okay what exactly is going on yeah if you just show me

05:28this core like last year going into this year it's like okay they had a great turnaround but

05:32what's the there there you bring it together yeah kevin durant and the core like you're giving me much

05:38more than what you were giving me in say 2012 or even last year and i think there's also an additional

05:42part of this that we've talked about a lot but i think in the context of your takeaway here your

05:47thought on this being the best uh offseason that you've had in recent memory your memory

05:52was the cost right you had to pay a pretty fair market value but you had to pay a pretty pretty

05:57hefty price in order to end up getting james harden the cost of acquiring kevin durant is amazingly low

06:04here yeah like you did not have to touch like typically you have to give up either a little bit of the

06:10the future for the uh or the current for the future or a little bit of the future for the current

06:14you didn't neither you gave up neither of them it remains incredible to me a lot of praise

06:19is due to rafael stone and i think that's part of why rafael stone went with the approach of

06:24we're building a foundation first and adding to it as opposed to jerry uh james daryl morey

06:29rather i keep trying to say james harden but daryl morey whose approach was i am looking for the star

06:34i'll get the star and figure out the rest yeah and even if you want to go further back than that right

06:38like if you want to go back to the 90s when they traded for charles barkley

06:43that's the one i was thinking i saw somebody mention like this is giving me trading for

06:47barkley vibes come on and lopez you can you can recall this better than anybody here like

06:52barkley by the time he got to the rockets was young a young younger than kevin but also not nearly as

07:00good yeah not nearly as good at that point like he'd already had his best years and i don't know

07:06like you could maybe even argue that like kevin durant just overall is just better than charles barkley

07:14at maybe not at his mvp year 93 but like this version of kevin durant is better than most

07:20versions of charles barkley like period yes so uh and maybe more specific to what you need and the

07:26fit like charles barkley with an older drexler an older and aging akim olajuwon right like that fit

07:32is okay so we got a collection of old guys who were at one point great now you've got the old guy who is

07:38still really really good to great with a bunch of young guys to me it does not compare to the

07:43charles barkley thing and then of course drexler was an in-season uh was an in-season trade as well

07:47so i think it compares to the barkley thing but it's not in the same uh at the same level because

07:53the only different the reason i said that is because the rockets were still in championship

07:57mode yeah like they were fresh off of you know winning champ and all they needed was that other piece

08:02they thought barkley was it to reggie's point though about the cost i think the cost of getting

08:06bark i don't remember it exactly oh man they gave up robert ory sam cassell i think or uh yeah didn't

08:11they yeah i think they gave up robert ory sam cassell maybe chucky brown might have been part of that

08:16deal like they gave up like four players no less than four players because i remember of course robert

08:20ory threw the towel in danny ains face yeah so like they gave up significant pieces of their championship

08:26team all right b scott i see you with the memory sam cassell robert ory chucky brown and mark bryant

08:32yeah and i was i was a little boy at the time and i remember the cost for sure but again they still

08:37had a dream there were two removed from the championship you know they had you know all

08:42their other pieces of matt bullard's of the world and all that yeah so so you still had the window

08:49but the cost was more as you mentioned and and the player was likely was not nearly as good as

08:53durant and i think the part that you mentioned that i want to make sure to reemphasize your team

08:58was already relatively old so you added another old to olds you're adding an old and experienced to

09:04youngs yeah and accelerating what what is the development of this team and you're not giving

09:09up the the next five six years it doesn't feel and at the risk of being repetitive and in citing

09:14these stats barkley did not lead the league in jump shot percentage in jump shooting percentage

09:20in mid-range percentage and off the dribble shooting percentage kevin durant did all of

09:25those things at 36 years old that's right and so it's reasonable to expect that's one of just the

09:31barkley's game was not going to age in that way it was predicated on physicality and athleticism

09:36kevin durant's isn't like kevin durant's game is predicated on good footwork and being able to raise

09:41up over everybody because he's a seven foot tall alien yeah and being able to handle the ball at that

09:45at that height as well still dribble he can still shoot he's still tall so it's all good

09:50fantastic so uh if you needed any more um settling on the kevin durant trade sell selling on the kevin

09:57durant trade be scott is your man

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