Is it James Harden, or is it Houston as a franchise?

Well, I think right now, right now, it's Houston, and I'm gonna tell you why.

First of all, I got to give love to my man, Vince Goodwill, Vincent Goodwill for Yahoo because that's my little brother right there.

And he was talking about this story from a beta more than a year ago, a year and a half ago, of course.

And I also want to give props to James Harden because, listen, you don't have to answer every question if you don't want to.

But he showed up there yesterday.

Hey, was right in front of the media and he just said, Hey, you know what?

I'm not gonna get into trade speculation and all of that other stuff.

He's basically saying, Listen, I'm here until I'm not.

Here's what I'm gonna tell you.

The Houston Rockets look worse at this particular moment in time with Daryl Morey being gone Well, Mike D'Antoni being gone One could easily surmised that the culture that exists within the Houston Rockets that were all lamenting was primarily their fault because they allowed it to take place and that's really what this comes down to.

If they were still there, and that's just the way that they do business.

Then we can look at James Harden and we could say, Why would you be taking advantage of these perks?

Why would you be exercising your power in that way?

And to some degree, we still could say that.

But the only reason why I say the Rockets primarily instead of James Harden is that if this is the culture that you allowed your superstar, you bring stuff to the table.

We missed the playoffs the first, the previous three years before you arrived.

We've been in the playoffs ever since we've been championship contenders.

We've been to the conference finals twice, your three times scoring champion, your league M v p.

And not only that, minutes played playing through injuries, games played, etcetera.

He's right up there with the best of them, So if you take all of those things into consideration, no one can accuse him for not doing his job.

And if everybody wants to complain about the culture well, who's responsible for the culture?

Ultimately, it certainly isn't the player you could make a contribution to it.

It would be good for you to exercise that level of professionalism.

But in the end, the actual onus off the culture is on the franchise itself.

They allowed it and they knew that it could potentially alienate other folks and evidently didn't care enough to reel that in.

And that's why I say, as these stories unfold, even though people want to take their shots and James Harden, ultimately you're going to look at the Houston Rockets, not the present Houston Rockets.

The previous regime, Maury was there.

Mike D'Antoni was there.

Hell, they were there before Tillman fatigue got there for crying out loud.

And he is the owner of the franchise right now, so we gotta look at it that way.

Rockets look worse than James Harden right now.

First of all, this is how business is done in the N.

B.

A.

The owners have a monopoly defacto monopoly, and so they have huge leverage in the C B A negotiations, right?

They get a lot their way, But the the other side of that is, if you're a superstar, you got a lot of cloud, and you can force the hand of a lot of teams because the fact is, it's almost impossible to win a championship with at least without at least one superstar superstar, not at all.

Star superstar and hardens a superstar who looks worse right now.

Guys, it's the Rockets because let's not forget Tilman Fertitta.

Really?

And he told us about this on first take and Stephen A.

We discussed it many times.

Not good enough.

What Maury and D'Antoni we're doing.

We're not good enough.

Wasn't good enough.

You want to win a championship?

And so Dantonio was a lame duck coach.

What's he gonna really do is a lame duck coach.

Let's see your performer else.

What?

Tilman Fertitta, I don't think, understood.

I think what most people still don't understand the Rocket should have never been as close to a championship is.

They were.

That was because of Daryl Morey and Mike D'Antoni having the courage of their convictions to play a kind of basketball that would be criticized on Lee, the most efficient shots taken right.

Either you get an extra point for them or it's a really high percentage shot.

That's the way they were gonna play.

They be criticized.

They're not playing defense enough.

They need to move the balm or, um or, you know, mid range shots.

All this kind of stuff.

Meantime, because of the way they played.

They took a Warriors team fully loaded with K D and Steph and Clay and Dre and everybody.

Seven games.

And they had a home game against that team, right?

You could say, Well, really, who else was in the West?

How about the calves in the East?

Because the Cavs got swept has got swept.

LeBron and Kevin Love got swept against that Golden State Warriors team that was almost beaten by the Rockets.

Right?

So, Fertitta, that's not good enough.

Daryl Morey is gone.

D'Antoni's gone.

Now all hell breaks loose.

This is what happens.

You got rid of people.

You thought you'd replace them with better people.

It's not trending in that direction.

Who looks worse right now and now you're superstar wants out, and this is what's become of it.

Clearly hardens like Look, I'm not cooperating with you.

You've got to make this move and the Rockets are saying No, we're not gonna make it right now.

Is this all in the service of winning a championship because that's why you get rid of Maury.

And D'Antoni seems to be backfiring.

Harden is gonna wind up in a position where he'll have a chance to win a championship.

The Rockets will not.

Well, I have tow respectfully disagree with the both of you.

And here's why.

Right now to me, the Rockets, in my opinion, are moving in the right direction.

They just hired the young stud and Stephen Silence, who is well respected around the league, not by just front offices, are other coaches, but by current players, former players.

They have nothing but high praise for him and says that how he's a student of the game, our offensive genius, and it's about time that he got his opportunity.

So I think the Rockets did a great job by high Stephen Silence.

Second of all, with them trading Russell Westbrook, who didn't wanna be there because off the lack of accountability that they would show that they were having in the Rockets organization, especially when it came down to James Harden and all the other players and all the other rooms that are coming out about James Harden not taking winning seriously.

Uh, you know, not wanting, adjusting, uh, giving up the club life.

Right now, James Harden looks the worst.

And here's why you don't show up.

Yeah, you.

Then when you do show up to camp, you show up to calculate, and then when you do show up, you show up out of shape.

And this is what I was trying to tell you and Max Stephen A.

When I was trying to have virtual school about a couple of shows ago, and I told you that James Harden has to go out on the court and perform at the VP type level because guess what?

Guess what?

The rumors of circling now around the front offices, off organizations and what GM we're talking about that probably had interest in acquiring James Harden.

They're saying, Should I give up?

Ah, young star and my assets for James Harden, who might come in and tear down the culture who might complain because he might not get think it or might just shut down because things might not go his way or might be a bad example on the younger guys that's already here, we don't want that.

So with that being said, it's on James Harden E.

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