The NBA news of the day: The Oklahoma City Thunder trade James Harden, along with Cole Aldrich, Lazar Hayward and Daequan Cook, to the Houston Rockets for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, two first-round picks (one guaranteed lottery) and one second-round pick. The Thunder chose to trade Harden rather than give him a max contract, amounting roughly to a $1 million difference per year between sides before the luxury tax.
Denis Hamill, writing at the Daily News, calls Barclays Center The House that Bruce Built. My take: Ratner may have conceived the plan, but without Mikhail Prokhorov’s bailout and Jay-Z’s cultural influence, this building plops in the middle of Brooklyn with more controversy than fanfare. Also, The Black House is a better name.
Andray Blatche responds to taunts from the Knicks bench in the final preseason game: “They’re wasting their energy. I don’t know (Shumpert). He wasn’t playing, so he had to do something. You sitting on the bench with a suit on you have to do something.”
Knicks center Tyson Chandler has a “very good chance” of playing opening night.
