Why The Oklahoma City Thunder Need To Re-Sign James Harden

By Emily Gruver

Follow Emily on Twitter @Emily_Gruver

James Harden may not be the best player in the NBA, but there aren’t many players as talented as James Harden?

Just about a week ago , a deal went down that assured that Serge Ibaka would be a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder for a long time to come. This followed previous moves to lock up Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. While many saw the positive in the deal, the negative side of the deal made some Oklahoma City Thunder cringe a little. With this move the Thunder have to be extremely careful about the way they go around using their money.

Now we all know, Serge Ibaka is a phenomenal player at his position and racked up some pretty good numbers last season, averaging 9.1 points per game, 7.5 reboundsper game, and 3.7 blocks per game, and I still think he can improve and get much better from here on out, especially since he’s only 22 years old. So locking up Serge Ibaka made sense.

As I said before, wouldn’t you say that there aren’t many NBA players as talented as James Harden is?

James Harden is an extremely exciting player to watch. Last season, Harden averaged 16.8 points per game and 3.7 assists per game and when you look around the league, I don’t see several shooting guards that are as that impressive. And oh and bythe way, he’s only sitting at 22 years of age. James is a guy that you can almost always count on off the bench, and because of his youth, he still has room to grow. He gives you quick buckets off the bench and is a pretty solid defender as well.

The Thunder would not want to lose a player of his current caliber, let alone what he could be in a few years.

James Harden brings more to a team than scoring in double-digits. Harden brings a spark off of the bench that wasn’t matched by anyone last season.  The Thunder simply cannot afford to lose James Harden.

If they trade Harden or allow him to walk, then they are making a huge mistake. They will be losing one of the best players in their young franchises history, and losing him likely before he hits his prime.

The Thunder were thrilled to re-sign Serge Ibaka, but was it worth potentially losing James Harden?

The Thunder are a team with extremely young players with many more great seasons to come.If you look from top to the bottom at their roster, the average age of the Thunder players is only 24 years old. With players that include Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, the Oklahoma City Thunder are a huge threat in the Western Conference.  To remain the best team in an improving Western Conference, the Thunder need to find a way to get creative but to become even better and to win a championship, they need one of their key pieces, James Harden.

With James Harden the Thunder have the potential to be a dynasty. Without James Harden the Thunder may struggle to even make the Finals with the Lakers seemingly gearing up to build a dynasty.

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Thunder Sign Serge Ibaka to 4-year extension

By Tim Kelly -Host, Owner, and Founder of the Real Sports Talk 

Follow Tim on Twitter @KashKelly_TRST 

The defending Western Conference Champion, Oklahoma City Thunder, locked up one of their key players late last night. Serge Ibaka who became known by some as “Serge Iblocka”, because of his defensive prescience inside the paint.  Ibaka finished second in Defensive Player of the Year Voting last year averaging nearly four blocks per game.

The deal for Ibaka is reportedly worth 48 million dollars, over the next four seasons.

With Ibaka now locked up, the Thunder have three of their four key players locked up, (Durant, Westbrook, Ibaka). The perspective of many NBA Insiders was that long-term the Thunder, who still are a smaller market team, would have to choose between Ibaka and Harden. So now with Ibaka locked up, don’t be surprised if the Thunder have to make the  tough choice to trade James Harden after the upcoming 2012-13 season.

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