You wanna go J and you want me to go?

No, no, you kick things up.

First off, I don't want people to villainize James Harden.

The organization is let him do this for his entire career, pretty much.

And by the way, a lot of star players get treated this way.

So with that being said Storytime with K and J.

Go ahead, kid, let me hear something I want to.

First of all, you're not being treated differently, right?

You, you are grown and you're responsible for your own actions at the end of the day, you know, and that's the kind of how things have always been.

When I had coach Tony Dungy, he treated you like, ah, human being like a man and not just like a prop that played on the football team.

He wanted you have responsibilities, and if you were to decide that this is the things that you were going to dio.

It's your responsibility to make sure that you're doing all the right things with that being said, You know, um, James Harden has has living his life, but he's also ah, professional basketball player and he's human, just like everybody else.

He has a job to do when he goes and has fun have his fun.

He comes back and he balls out.

He dropped 50 on people 40.

Whatever it ISS, he's putting his team in the position to win.

I've got a bunch of stories, but one in particular that sticks out is in the NFL.

You traveled the day before.

You usually travel the day before.

Unless you're going from East Coast or West Coast.

You know 56 hour flights.

You may go in a day early.

You may leave on a Friday instead of a Saturday, and we were playing the Atlanta Falcons a year we went to the Super Bowl, and it was Michael Vick.

It was the vic experience.

It was this whole big old thing.

Atlanta You know, he was taken Atlanta by storm and income, the big, bad bucks on a Sunday what I did on a Friday is I threw a party in Atlanta on a Friday now, mind you on Saturday as they walked through.

So I threw a party on a Friday and me and about three of my other teammates.

We got on the private jet.

We flew from Tampa to Atlanta for the party and the party started, I don't know, 10 o'clock at night or whatever.

So we partied all night long at the party that I threw on that Friday night.

We got back on the jet sat first thing Saturday morning at like five AM 5:30 a.m. Flew back to Tampa, got practice, walked through.

Now, obviously, the practice field was smelling like a bunch of alcohol because we was partying.

And then we got back on the plane with the team on on Saturday, back to Atlanta.

And you know what happened on Sunday?

I dropped.

I think I I dropped like a buck.

36 grabs a buck 30 a touchdown.

The other guy that was with me ball out, the other one that was with me ball out.

The other one was with me bought out, and the coaches said whatever you all did you all need to go do that again.

That's just that's one story.

That's one story with many more Aziz, Long as you take care of business, E.

I mean, I It's well documented and well known that I would at times when I played for the New York Jets and other teams, I would fly back to Los Angeles to visit my mom in them and fly right back to New York in a day just to be ableto see my family.

And in between time, I might have gone out or something.

But I took care of business, so it wasn't an issue of my teammates or my coaches.

Man, the key.

I'm glad we're talking about this stuff because this is what happens in locker rooms.

This is what happens when guys make a lot of money and they can have access to travel somewhere very quickly on a private plane and come back and party.

Look, we played Charlotte one night.

We have to go down.

We had to play Orlando the next night on the back to back, and then the next day we had off and we were playing against the Miami Heat.

The following night.

So on that off day, a lot of guys were just around figuring out what we're gonna do in Orlando, just kind of kicking it, since we're just staying there.

We weren't going back to Chicago was too damn cold.

We were enjoying ourselves, and it was later, not even friends.

And I decided that we're gonna get a plane.

And there was a crazy party happening in Vegas.

At one of my boys.

Scooter Braun was gonna host, right?

So we flew out there, kicked it all the way to Vegas from Orlando all the way to Vegas.

And it was like three of us got all way out there, had a incredible night wild out.

Our game was the next day we had shoot around around noon or game was like, It's seven.

We made it back for a shoot around.

All I'm saying is, we made back for shoot around, and we you know, usually guys get two tickets for, like, away games.

Man, we brought maybe 2030 people back with us on the plane that stay with us in Miami and have a good time right the following because we stayed over that next night, too.

So it's like these things happen.

It's not crazy to think it's out of the realm.

James Harden is 31 years old.

He's single.

He's got tied down to anybody.

If he's still dropping buckets, I'm not gonna have people villainizing because he's going out having a good time to number of people.

Have a good time to.

You could do that.

Well, you know, goes, man, they people don't really understand it.

You make a bunch of money and they think that you're supposed to just go in a closet and hide and never come back out and never live your life.

And and that's not the reality of situations.

And and also okay, you know what?

James Harden wasn't forcing people to give James Harden what he wants.

The organization was doing that.

So now that it's not working out in your favor, I don't want people said, Well, you know, I was all James Harden is we know the organization, you know, it is to be that way.

You notice J.

I would like depending on if we won or lost games.

Sometimes I would even fly back with the team like if We want a game in a certain city.

I'll catch up with y'all on Wednesday at practice because we got off on Monday.

We don't have.

We have off on Tuesday and we practice on Wednesday and I'm in San Francisco.

I'm a stay and I'll catch.

I'll catch up with y'all back on the East Coast on Wednesday morning.

I'll be there, Don't worry.

See, you all have fun, kick and key.

You know what?

If if your ownership or your GM feels like those actions are unacceptable, then you pull your star player over to side like Look, we don't we don't operate Absolutely.

We don't operate this way, and I know that's what you wanna do.

But there are certain repercussions that will be in place if you continue to do that.

I just want to be a man and have this conversation with you out front.

So you understand where I'm coming from, and this way you set the narrative right from the beginning and you don't allow that that power just to be splurged the way it was with James, that's that's on the Rockets.

That's not on James Harden.

Thanks for watching ESPN on YouTube for live streaming sports and premium content.