james what was the point that you were
trying to get across when you went to
atlanta and vegas
when training camp was starting how was
this training
what were you training for uh i started
the nba season
how did going to atlanta and vegas help
you there
when the rockets were starting training
camp in houston
uh just you know my personal trainers
james uh you obviously had a
a close relationship with daryl for all
those years and i think you had a lot of
trust in him
do you have that same trust in rafael
stone that he can put pieces
around you uh we haven't had a
conversation so
um there's a lot of
changes and obviously the entire
coaching staff uh you know
some of the front office uh a lot of the
players
um now this is where we are you know so
um you know coaches has done an
unbelievable job of just you know
communicating with the guys and um just
you know putting the structure in and
and getting things going
i mean technically michael technically
he's telling the truth like
come on it was training it's training
for them road trips
you know you got to get a stamina you
know if
you believe what you read especially
from this uh tim mcmahon espn
uh article today you know got a train to
be ready to
stay longer in certain cities and and
you know burn the candle at both ends
you can't just roll out of bed and burn
the camera other side is now
you know others a voice like a
disembodied voice
from the zoom was like yeah he's
training
three hundred thousand dollars prada bag
i got to get my bag
is that you baby hey baby is that you
little baby hey babe hanging out with
him hey baby
man james i think james
is james you want to talk about being on
one james is being on one but i have
right there my
my fee you know what the zip code 77003
you know what that is
that's houston that's the toyona center
that's the zip code and toyota center i
put that two and two together yeah
and that's where he's going to be if i'm
houston
sorry i've been inspired i'm gonna
connect
giannis to james harden giannis
yesterday
signs a record a record contract
and shocking some of the critics hello
guilty
shopping some of the critics who thought
the giannis was going to leave
and what an unusual story for a small
market team
to hold on to a top five player who a
lot of people
thought hey he's going to miami he's
going to la he's going so
dallas going to another big market no
so since that kind of changed to get
changed the story a little bit
i'm houston i want to change the story
just because
my best player asked to be traded
doesn't mean i gotta trade him
especially when he's got two years left
in this contract if i'm houston
i've lost russell westbrook i've lost
daryl mori
i say who i'm not going to lose james
harden
welcome to houston welcome to your new
home same as your old home
houston i'll tell you i'll tell you
there's a a player much better
rest in peace player much better than
james harden who wants to ask for a
trade
his name is cody bryant copeland that's
be traded he's the better player
in a better organization
asked to be traded and the lakers
did not trade him they said go sit down
somewhere yeah he spent
his entire career as a laker uh
hopefully yeah hopefully i know he
played for oklahoma city
yeah he can't spend his whole career as
a rocket yeah but he can spend the rest
of his career
as a houston rocket why would they trade
him if you tell me why do you feel like
you need
to trade james harden right now well
i mean if i'm being uh honest you know
at one point i thought they did no i
mean admittedly
you know you may remember or viewers of
our fine program may remember at one
point i thought they did
i didn't think the you know a
disgruntled face of your franchise the
face of your franchise
wearing a frown was not uh beneficial
to you especially you know when he
hadn't shown up to training camp at the
time i'm like
how's this work you know what i mean
like it's just i thought it was
untenable
and i thought they should have lowered
their asking price but that's why i'm
here and
rafael stone is there uh stephen silas
is there
because they did the right thing by not
caving
to his temper tantrum which brings me to
the last
the last in money quote from the
aforementioned tim mcmahon article on
espn.com i thought was rather apropos
you can't get mad at your kid if you let
him eat candy every night
and then suddenly one night you know
you don't and they throw a tantrum an ex
houston assistant coach said
oh come on you're the one who let them
eat candy every night the rockets turned
the organization over to james
and now they have to live with the
fallout so the parenting of me
said yeah i know the parent of me i was
like you know what i feel that because
we just didn't you you had the christmas
list example
but you know but i got i got another one
though i got another one
so you know how when you're a parent i
think ryan reynolds may have
uh alluded to this and uh in the
change-up great movie with him and jason
bateman
but he was like you know when another
kid is misbehaving
you know in public got bad parents when
it's your kid they just need a nap
you know and so we you got three
beautiful children
robinson beckham ava i got savannah
mason maya all of them at one point or
another
have or still do as the case may be
throw a tantrum
you know how i deal with tantrums you
just got to ride that sucker out
because eventually they go wet
themselves out eventually they'll fall
asleep eventually they're just gonna
fall asleep
they'll stop you know and so in this
case
when james harden showed up passed again
miraculously
by the grace of god six straight covet
tests
okay after he passed those tests
and played last night you know what
james harden did last night that to his
credit
he's done for eight years in houston he
showed up
he showed up to work play not just play
basketball michael play basketball
well except for the playoffs but for the
most part play basketball
well and that's what he's going to do
this year
and we'll get to giannis more deeply in
a moment but the only way i'll connect
giannis with harden is in this regard
for the purposes of this conversation
the bucks gave up i believe three picks
and two swaps
for drew holiday that's a bunch there is
none of the teams to which james harden
wants to go
can afford what houston rightfully wants
for a three-time scoring champ and an
mvp player
and so james harden i said the other day
he was stuck like chuck
he has no choice but to get comfortable
in his to
like you just said his new old home and
for what i've seen from john wall so far
and what i think they stole from detroit
and christian wood
and hopefully what demarcus cousins may
bring to the table
it could be a fun team it could be a fun
team but you made this bad brother
you got to sleep in it that's what's so
fascinating about the article
is he has been at every step of the
process
and retooling this team you know
everything
from the time that the flights left to
how long they stayed in certain cities
to when meetings started all of it
revolved around james harden
he can't this he can't just decide up
and be like you know what
i okay i've i've i'm done playing with
y'all i gotta move on
uh you know to another team and having
left this wreckage
in his weight they've done a good job of
accumulating some of the assets that
they gave up to make him happy
but at a certain point man like this is
your team for better or worse
and yeah you know you sign that
long-term contract and i'm never one i
do not begrudge players for wanting to
take control
of their destiny michael especially in a
culture
that prioritizes rings with a z
all we do is talk about it if you think
about the ring
if you're gonna say i didn't win right
yeah so i get that you think i can do it
elsewhere yeah but say bruh
they've done too much they've done your
bidding all these years
you sign contract after contract until
you finally turn down the two-year 100
million dollar contract
it just does and here's the case it
doesn't work you're about to drop one
you're about to drop water what's up
you're about to do a wesley voice
were you about to they're giving you two
bucks
oh you were about to cuss no okay i
don't think so
i don't think okay all right it's dope
just coming though
one of these days this is great
yesterday wes wesley got a couple of
commutables that was for him
yeah he did he did by the way side note
you know what i love yeah you've done
this so many times on this show just
i just got up it's hilarious every time
you do it
it's hilarious but it's like of course
because so
every time you point at your feed you
point
at the opposite corner of the screen
but what i see hey so my feet items it's
like nice
yeah but i don't see that every time you
do it
but but if i did that i'd be looking at
your
i can't see my feet while i do that but
but now you're pointing at yours but now
you're pointing at yours
i know i'm pointing at yours i'm
pointing at this i'm pointing at mine
but i'm looking at yours
see i'm saying yeah so it's hilarious
what i'll do is say
i'll have it in my feed i'll get a
little and they'll go yeah
anyway uh but when you have when you
tell these stories
about houston and james harden doesn't
your mind
take you to two places one being houston
with the current gm and one in
philadelphia with the xg m
because daryl mori it it doesn't make
you think
whoa daryl do you have any response
they're saying you pretty much gave
james harden the run of the organization
while he was there
like what was your okay
what was your logic there that's one two
thank god the doc rivers is in
philadelphia because if you would do
that with philly
that's pretty much a continuation or the
perception
is that they were doing that they were
running all over brett brown
yeah he was there so you can't i just
don't think you can do that
i believe in a partner but but it's not
this is not exclusive to houston though
because
it wasn't wasn't it just last week or
week before we were talking about
how the clippers were bending over
backwards to accommodate not only kawhi
leonard but also paul
porch there were stories from my talking
about after the fact but there were
stories that from miami that came out
after the fact about the culture clash
between pat riley and eric spoelstra and
lebron given what lebron was used to
in cleveland in terms of
that's the motto i respect which one
because
look ultimately all right
ultimately we all we all all of us
athletes non-athletes
we all need coaching we all need to be
pushed
a little bit and and i know it sounds
great to say
i'm doing this on my own that's good but
at some point
you need a little you need a little push
i think i need
any you need some pushback you need some
tension to bring out the best in you
and i think miami has proven that with
pat riley and eric spoelstra
and perhaps we're seeing the worst side
of it with james harden and what he
i don't know i don't know oh sure i
don't know about that yeah because okay
that only
wait a minute i don't know about that
and it's this is why i can't look at the
organization
i don't say no i'm saying when i say
wait a minute i didn't mean to stop
talking i just met i just don't train
but
tell me why not so fast yeah i i just i
don't look at the organization and say
oh well you know you made this bed sleep
in it you created a monster you created
a spoiled brat i don't look at it that
way
because as you know michael better than
i do nba history
has always been written by dynasties and
those dynasties have been driven by
stars
stars get all the preferential treatment
he may be taking it too far
james harden given the length of the
contract but differential treatment i
understand this is not the first time we
have heard planes
or team schedules um accommodating
you know the team superstars and if
you're daryl moore to answer your
question
if you're daryl murray and you literally
moved heaven and earth
to to get james harden to finally land
that
star i remember once upon a time it was
a six degrees of separation type
chart of all the trades and moves that
daryl mori did to acquire james harden
uh from oklahoma city a you're going
to throw rose petals at his feet
and have people bathe him when he wakes
up in the morning and brush his teeth
you're going to treat him like a prince
but b you're going to do every but b
you're going to have
everything that happened to our keem and
our king wanted to go to new york
okay that that don't work okay but every
but you have to do everything possible
to try to put a contending roster around
him and i think what gets lost in all of
this
what gets lost in the in the airing of
dirty laundry
what gets lost in the conversation about
james harden is is
no they didn't win a championship and
that's all that we that's all we care
about
in sports however only team to go to the
playoffs eight times
that's what daryl murray talked about in
his in his full-page ad
three scoring titles okay an mvp
and last year and michael i'm about to
i'm about to speak your love language
right now
okay about your bff russell westbrook
russell westbrook was performing
brilliantly pre-bubble
okay not to mention a couple of years
ago there are 3-2 on golden state
i know if it was a fifth we'd all be
drunk but nonetheless
nonetheless they they were so close to
actually breaking through
so because they haven't and because he's
tired of houston and wants to move on to
the next i think we look at it as some
abject
failure i don't think his time his
tenure in houston
can be classified as a failure and by
extension i don't think you look at the
organization
and see and say oh you know this is your
fault y'all let him have his run of the
place
it's been a pretty good run in houston
well no no but still
it's two different things it was a great
trade from daryl mori awesome
he won the trade he wanted to trade on
day one before we even knew who
james harden was he gave up he gave up
some draft picks
uh he gave up uh some established
players
or what he could be we knew what he was
we thought we knew what he was in
oklahoma city we didn't know he could be
a revolutionary player like this but
think about
like what we didn't know that james
harden was capable of doing all this
stuff you know mentioned the three
scoring championships and the mvp i
didn't think he was an mvp
player when he traded and i thought he
was a really good player who oklahoma
city had coming off the bench
look so it's a great trade but
failure is going too far the
organization did not fail
the organ is it saying the same thing
organization didn't fail the
organization didn't accomplish what it
wanted to accomplish didn't fail makes
them like
and that makes them but it didn't
accomplish the vast majority of teams in
the league
all i would hope for james harden if
he's going to be here and be
professional
look in the mirror and i hope he looks
at this and says okay wait a second
russell westbrook didn't want to be with
me anymore chris paul was frustrated by
me
mike d'antoni was frustrated tricked by
me
it's like i i this is an opportunity for
him to reinvent the narrative
for himself i would embrace the
situation if i were james hard because
you said
he's got no choice hey thanks for
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