7 Players the Oklahoma City Thunder gave up on too soon

3. James Harden

In 2012, the Thunder traded Sixth Man of the Year James Harden to the Houston Rockets because the two parties could not work out a contract extension. Disappointed by his playoff and finals performances, the Thunder were reluctant to offer Harden quite as much as other teams were willing to pay and what he thought he deserved. In the end, 4.5 million dollars broke up the Thunder’s young core of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and Harden sooner than they had to.

After the trade, Harden went from a sixth man to one of the best scorers in the entire league. His scoring average went up by around 10 points in only his first season in Houston, which is a result of more touches, but his assists also went up from 3.7 to 5.8. The same season, Harden became an All-Star for the first time.

Since then, he has been an All-Star ten times, made six All-NBA First Teams, led the NBA in scoring three times and won the 2018 MVP. He still has not found much postseason success, which was the Thunder’s concern when they let him go, but if they had given their young core the chance to become the dominant big three they could have been, that might look different.

Granted, as they all progressed into stardom, Durant, Westbrook and Harden might have gotten in each other’s way because they were all very ball dominant. They all won MVPs when they were not playing together, after all. The sheer talent Oklahoma had here would have made it worth a try rather than giving up on it too soon, though.