I think we just wait.

I think James Harden has toe.

Wait.

I heard Mawr Similar information echoed today that it's just wait time that Houston is not bending for now.

And all of that does, I think, is bring more people to the table.

You know, the Nets will be there if Hardin wants them to be there.

And he does.

Maybe Filly comes in later.

There can always be mystery suitors that come in.

The longer you wait, the more time opens up for a situation to go haywire somewhere else and for another team they want to jump in.

There are a lot of teams that have not a lot, but there are three or four teams that could probably name that have the assets to get James Harden or to at least get themselves into conversation.

But right now, it's just wait and see time.

Yeah, one of the things that is just a reality about this is that James Harden has two years left on his contract.

And while there have been players that have been able to force a trade with two years left on their contract in recent years, It doesn't give him maximum leverage.

And so that means that the Rockets can wait for leverage to develop.

Whether that leverage develops.

Because James Harden changes his mind whether he widens his teams, he's willing to go to whether there's something else happens in the league.

I think it's a smart play right now.

It doesn't behoove the Brooklyn Nets to make their best offer.

When James says, I only want to go there and it doesn't behoove the Rockets to negotiate in a closed market.

So as a result, we're probably going to get, Zack said.

That waiting game.

You know, Rachel beyond what?

Brian and Zacher pointing out.

I've talked to some people around Houston, and part of this also is that a Tilman Fertitta feels very hurt by this by the idea that you know, he hired Stephen Silas kind of as a olive branch with the players.

He was leaning toward Jeff Van Gundy.

They wanted Ty Lue.

Tyler ends up with the Clippers so they end up with Stephen.

Silas has kind of like the the compromise between the two different parties, and so the players signed off on it and then almost immediately said, Yeah, by the way, trade us.

And if that were the case from the beginning, well, then Tillman would have hired the guy he wanted to hire to start with.

So I think part of this is beyond what Brian is talking about leverage and negotiation, which I think is astute from from Houston's perspective partner also like not the hell with that.

I'm not sending you where you wanna go.

You're going to be here and that when you hear that statement of we're prepared for it to get uncomfortable, that is them sending out the flare that Yeah, that's right.

I don't care what you say.

We're gonna make this really uncomfortable.

I don't know that's a good strategy of announcing it, but it does definitely indicate of the level of hurt from the Rockets standpoint.

Yeah, that was a quote to our Tim MacMahon.

Paul, if you were James Harden, how would you play this?

Well, I mean, he's already played it the way he wants to play, and he showed that he's been disgruntled.

Uh, he's a superstar in this league, and these guys don't come about too often for the Houston Rockets.

And but if I'm Houston, it's hard for me to budge.

Like I said, players of this caliber do not come to your franchise.

Almost never.

He's probably the one of the top three players to ever put on a Houston uniform.

And if you see him leave and going to rebuild, I've seen teams rebuild for over 20 years for, ah, whole generation rebuild because they don't have this type of player.

And so hopefully there's someone they could work it out.

But if not, you know, I can't imagine them being there before Christmas.

You know the crazy thing.

Look, I'm sorry.

I was just gonna say the crazy thing is, though we see this happen the other side, I get what Paul is saying, but also, if he doesn't wanna be there, you got a new coach is trying to put in a new system.

How much is he gonna be bought in into executing the new system or being amenable?

We always talk about this in the NFL.

When a player doesn't like his deal or where he is, he sits out in the n b A.

When a player doesn't like a situation he shows up and he makes things uncomfortable.

And my standpoint is always the player can always make it way more uncomfortable for the team than vice versa, especially when you're a star like Harden e here, you and I know that's true.

Yes, exactly.

General soreness.

I hear you and I know that's true and we've seen it with players, certainly in the past we saw Jimmy Butler who said, You're trading me, right?

He just forced his way out of Minnesota.

We've seen Anthony Davis, who a year and a half before his deal was up, said, Hey, trade me.

But there is still the fact and Brian and I have had, I think, approximately 306 conversations about if a guy has two years left on his contract, like with, say, Kyrie Irving.

We talked about this a lot a few years ago.

You don't have to deal him.

And there is a point where an owner can say to the player, Hey, guess what?

You had us give up all these assets for Russell Westbrook.

We got you Russell Westbrook, as you just described with the coaching situation.

You had input on the coach you made decisions differently than we might have made.

You're going to play here for a little while and we know that.

James Harden.

To his credit, he shows up every day.

He likes playing basketball.

He is like scoring his points, and I would expect some natural buy in from him just because he likes going out and hooping.

So it is going to be interesting to see how this goes going forward.

If he doesn't end up going to the Nets, though, Zack, how does that influence how the Nets play the next few months?

I saw Bradley Beal tweet a few minutes ago.

Here we go.

And, honestly, my heart skipped a beat because any player tweeting anything right now, you're like, Wait, what's going on?

So I need the siren.

What's happening?

Bradley Beal has said that he wants to stay in Washington and see how things work out with John Wall.

But obviously he has been a target and something that a guy that people have mentioned in Brooklyn Well, look, if the Nets best offer isn't enough to get James Harden, I'm not sure why it would be enough to get Bradley Bill Bradley Beal is five or six years younger than James Harden and is coming into his own is a superstar, a legit superstar in the NBA, so it remains TBD.

If they could really get that on the table, we'll see.

There are other teams, including the Denver Nuggets, I think, with Michael Porter Jr.

Who can trump, who have at least one asset that Trump's anything Brooklyn can throw out.

Brooklyn needs to throw the whole kitchen sink unless you get to the point of throwing Kyrie in, In which case, things have gone really crazy.

But to your initial question, the Brooklyn Nets have Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.

We were throwing all like parties in New York because they got these two superstars.

It's not like they need a lot of help.

They have two superstars.

They're probably going to resign Joe Harris tonight.

They have a good team.

What the Brooklyn Nets could do is say, Okay, James Harden, will, I guess, be in the conversation for a while.

In the meantime, we have a damn good team.

Let's go out and play well.

First of all, I want to clarify.

Are you saying you would rather have Bradley Beal on your team than James Harden.

If you're the Nets.

No, I'm just saying that.

I think their trade value if and when they hit the market should probably be equal, even though that James, even though James has accomplished much more in his career, he's five years older.

He is two years away from negotiating another Max contract.

I think their trade value would be about the same Bradley Beal is on Lee, 26.

It feels like he's been in the league forever.

He's still young.

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