Just throwing it out there. I think for the series it should open up at OKC (-130). OKC has to be the favorite imo given Bosh's injury/condition + home court.

looks like heat will be favored. xpost from tz:

sounds about right. okc will be slight favs. the books just love the heat.

Howard is very debatable 2nd. Durant has a pretty stacked team although he is by far the best player on the team.

For me its Lebron and then Howard / Durant a toss up for 2nd. After that point you have huge question marks:

CP3 is the guy I would take. Wade I guess should be up there. How high is Love? I'm not a huge Rose fan. Kobe shouldn't be up here any more.

With respect to the 2nd question. On pure individual acheivements alone I could see Lebron being 2nd all time to MJ. With everything else you could argue others into the Mix. To me Lebron is easily better than Magic, Bird and a couple of the other all time greats who get propped up a bunch due to titles. Lebron looks or maybe is fortunate enough that he should have a really long and amazing career, but who knows. If you take his individual achievements so far in his career and compare him to everyone else, he's way, way up there. Obviously the media will say RANGZ or whatever and drop him probably into the 6-9 range all time after MJ, Magic, Wilt, Russell, Bird, maybe Shaq.

OKC might get screwed if teams are offering Harden and Ibaka max money. I'm not sure either player is worth that much but they're both likely to get it.

Harden deserves near max money. Ibaka is going to get like 10+ a year easily on the open market. Harden is 22 and a legit top 25 player in the league if not higher. I doubt the team will be able to keep their big 3 together. Although I'd rather have Harden than RWB any day of the week.

I'm not sure Dwight would care to play in OKC but I would think some sort of Westbrook + Ibaka for Dwight deal could get done. Maybe not if Orlando's salary cap situation wouldn't allow them to sign both guys to long term deals.

Durant + Harden + Dwight = Not 1, Not 2, Not 3... You get the idea.

Im confident saying that Dwyane Wade is no longer a top 5 player in the league

labron was hated a ton in cleveland. moastly by laker fans that felt legit threatened.

theres a lot of revisionism going on here. the narrative was that he was not clutch in cleveland despite his performances. even after the pistons series, it was ya i take kobe bc he is clutch killa mamba deadeye. from there kobe fans clung to the no rangz defense after he repeatedly had huge games and huge moments.

now their criticism is valid. it wasnt then. will it be in the future?

heres the thing, lebron was the best player itl since his 3rd season. he was only considered possibly the best in the last 4. dude is simply held to far higher standards than any player in the history of the game.

why? bc he is the best blend of athleticism and skill oat. and bc he entered the league as kobe's prime was winding down. not bc he shat all over cleveland. fans love that stuff. they only act indignant bc of their devotion to kobe.

harden is one of the easiest maxes possible. ibaka getting maxed would be lol but wud really screw the thunder. i htink he gets like 10m per.

perkins is getting amnestied.

I forsee Ibaa in the 12-14mm/year range because of his age and durability

they are fine if they amnesty perk and let ibaka walk if his offering is obstructive

Who was the last player coming off the bench to get a max deal once they became a free agent? And yes I realize Harden isn't your typical 6th man.

I'm not saying Harden isn't worth it I'm just trying to think of a similar situation that turned out well for the team offering the max deal.

If OKC can't find a way to keep Ibaka and amnesties Perk their defense is going to go to ****..

That frontcourt performs very well defensively and probably doesn't get enough credit for the Thunder's success.

ya i just dont look at things that way. my considerations include, does harden provide enough value in terms of winning games to justify a max? my conclusion is an overwhelming yes. you are certainly free to take into account peripheral details that dont seem to have any bearing on winning games.

i am pissed that i have to defend an extremely unlikeable guy (LBJ) constantly because of how dumb people are.

Yeah I wish I could take back my "is it even close" remark. Howard definitely deserves to be in the discussion with Durant. As far as third, my head starts to hurt but I guess I would go with Rose. I agree with what you said about Kobe and if someone placed Labron 2nd all time I wouldn't argue with them. As Victor said, "he is the best blend of athleticism and skill oat".

Who cares? He is their 2nd best player and easily could start. This is like saying is Manu not a great player cause he comes off the bench.

Harden plays around 30 mpg and easily could handle more. If Manu was younger when he got to his 1st big deal he would have easily deserved Max money+++ he was that good and arguably took under his value to stay with SAS.

McHale would have gotten one back in the day.

Harden and Ibaka are gonna get offered the max. Esp since they have one more year to get better and will prolly have a ship.

Rudy Gay, Joe Johnson, Rashard Lewis and others have gotten max that didn't deserve it by any means. Harden will easily get max unless he really wants to stay in OKC or a complete idiot. Harden will be what 24 when he gets to his big deal.

Voulgaris has made statements this season along the lines of "people don't understand how good Howard is/hes underrated" so I will say he is probably #2 or at least in the discussion.

If I had the #2 I would def take KD though for the intangibles. DH seems like a moron while I heart me some KD.

lol

lolrose. He wasn't even top 5 in his mvp year.

Durant > Dwight and it's only close because of Dwight's durability.

Its close b/c Howard plays the most important defensive position and other than Chandler is so much better than everyone in the league as a defensive cetner. The only reason its that close the other way is b/c of the **** situation he got stuck with in Orlando with all their stupid moves and him acting like a ****** to get rid of SVG when he should have just been frank.

You're forgetting the second best player of all time. Best OAT at his peak.

Also the best College Player OAT AINEC