I apologise if the following is common knowledge but I've heard people talk about the Harden trade a lot (shout out to Simmons) and can't remember ever hearing this story. I was going to paraphrase what Windhorst said but the filibuster he gave was so good I decided to transcribe it. I edited what he said a bit to make it easier to follow. This story is taken from the
true hoop podcast from yesterday, starting around the 34 minute mark if you’d prefer to listen to it.
Some Context:
Ethan Strauss asks the guys if the Harden trade “lit the fuse” for Kevin Durant’s decision to join Golden State and ultimately ruin OKC's roster. Windhorst says he thinks the Thunder losing a 3-1 lead in the WCF was the key factor. Someone else (Tom Haberstroh?) tries to clarify Ethan’s point by asking would the Thunder have lost that lead with Harden on the team? This sparks Windhorst to get something off his chest…
Brian Windhorst:
“So here’s the thing guys, I have to step in here, you cannot look at that trade and say either/or. The Thunder were the product of their own misjudgements but they were the product of some terrible misfortune along the way. And one of the misfortunes was in 2011 a new CBA came in with extremely penal luxury tax penalties and as part of that CBA, without Durant even asking for it, [the league] grandfathered his contract in to giving him the ‘Rose provision’. When the CBA opened (the next year) it was like “by the way, you now have a luxury tax that’s twice or three times as penal as it was before, when you were planning your team. Oh and by the way, we decided we’re giving Kevin Durant three more million dollars over every year of his contract” and the Thunder we’re like “umm…WHAT?!” And it was such a bad deal for the Thunder that the league later refunded them the money but it was too late because they had to make the decision on Harden. Now if you wanna retort and say…
Someone else on the panel interrupts with a big
“wait, whaaat?” because, like me, they can’t believe this #### either
BW (cont.)
“…So as you know, there’s this thing called the ‘Rose provision’. It was called the ‘Rose provision’ but it might as well have been called the ‘Durant provision’ because he was the first person to actually get it. (It allows a player) to get extra money if you made two all NBA teams or were voted into two all-star games. Durant had signed his extension before the CBA and it was kicking in as soon as the new CBA came in. He didn’t have the opportunity to get the ‘Rose provision’ (in this contract because it didn’t exist when he was negotiating his contract). And somewhere in the lawyering…
Amin Elhassan jumps in to mention that the Rose Provision is negotiable between the player and the team from 25%-30% of the cap. However, in Durant’s case the league gave him the full 30% retrospectively without negotiation.
BW (cont.)
“They just gave it to him and it was a crazy decision and pardon my podcast French but they absolutely screwed the Thunder on it. Now, you’re gonna say “what are you complaining about? So what you have to give KD more money” but it screwed the Thunder’s planning. All of a sudden it meant that they had to account for three million dollars more per year for the next five years when they had to try and decide on Harden. And you may say to them “well you’re still an idiot because you should still pay Harden and pay the luxury tax. What’s your freaking problem, Thunder?” and the answer is they were horribly afraid of the repeater tax which they’d be in right now if they had signed Harden. So yes, if you want to frame the decision that they screwed up with Harden – yeah - but they got a terrible piece of misfortune there.”
And in case anyone wants to ask “well, why not still blame the Thunder’s cheap owners for not paying the repeater tax?”...
BW (from a little later in the pod):
“All I’m saying is, the thunder’s point of view of it is, that we’re now in year 6 of the CBA and the Thunder would have been a tax payer for 5 of those 6 years had they done the Harden deal and therefore they would not be in a position to do anything. As you know, the repeater tax even scared away Prokhorov. He fled on the repeater tax. The Miami heat fled on the repeater tax. [The league] has been trying to figure out ways to create a hard cap – well you’ve finally found it. Everybody’s afraid of that repeater tax, even guys like Micky Arison who are worth like 8/10 billion and Prokhorov, one of the richest people in the world, are afraid of the repeater tax. And that’s what OKC was afraid of and that’s what was put on their plate (by the league). They knew that because they had Durant and Westbrook and if they added Harden they’d be deep in the repeater tax by now and they still couldn’t afford them.”
