[Amick/Iko via The Athletic] Inside the final days of the James Harden era with the Houston Rockets

Great stuff, thanks!

 

Really appreciate you posting this @joshuaao

 

It all worked out for the best. Love the optimism I'm seeing. The storm is over.

 

Reading that article and seeing what happened - it really feels like the Lakers series broke the Rockets and the B2B was a bad reminder for Harden.

 

Legit PTSD

 

It just feels refreshing to now watch the rockets. No expectations, so wins seem to come with more enjoyment even if tanking is the goal.

 

Very eye opening and confirmation of what has been spread already. So at least the fans who pointed out Harden’s body language and lack of effort weren’t just pushing an agenda, delusional, haters or whatever else we were called.

Harden saying they are too new to know what’s going on is most interesting to me along with Harden supposedly having said to Silas to also coach him hard. In the end, Harden was clearly not engaged and while understandable he wanted to be gone since this was beyond the coach or players, what he said in his press conference and Silas calling a meeting shows it was definitely about the team too.

Harden was detrimental to the team and for a first time coach, it took a lot of guts to call that meeting! I am very impressed by Silas and his maturity, I knew we made the right choice. Before it was players only and just part of a discussion, MDA damn sure didn’t dare.

Glad it’s over and Calvin I guess was right too in a way. Harden did it to make a point, so Silas and the players made one too. Both to the owner and GM basically to get him out of there. It worked so we should all move on from this saga.

 

I am incredibly bummed that Harden is no longer here, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it is really fun and refreshing to have a team that has a wide open future in front of it. The assets Stone has in his treasure chest now would make any GM in the league (outside of Presti and Ainge) jealous. He's done a remarkable job navigating this shitty situation.

 

Thanks for posting.

I’m not seeing much that interesting though.

The most interesting new thing is the Celtics continued involvement, only because to me if there was any deal that included Jaylen Brown it would have immediately jumped to the top of the potential packages to me... at least above Philly. But as no other such rumors have come out I’m guessing a Celtics deal was Nets like in nature except their picks would have been worse.

 

Tired of reading about it TBH. (“Well then don’t read it J.R.!”)

Sources
Sources everywhere

This guy wanted that coach and that guy wanted that coach and the GM wanted this coach and the owner wanted that coach.

And the GM left because of the coach but wait he knew Harden was out and got out ahead and the coach left because of the owner and the star player left because the owner supports Trump but wait he left because of the GM.

Philly was interested but ehh only to drive the price up for Brooklyn but wait, Houston didn’t even give us a chance to counter-offer!

Blahblahblahblah

Take all your sauces and shove ‘em!

 

Man, I’d love to know what the Celtics offered. Probably less than we assume, but still...

 

Alright.

 

Sauces too Spicy.

Ring of Fire

 

If Harden was sandbagging to try and force his way out, then why would he be surprised that they lost to the Lakers when he is practically throwing games.

 

Honestly, biggest nugget in that article for me is the fact that Tucker is the one that shelved contract extension negotiations. I'm guessing Houston is not offering him the full extension (I believe Bima stated it was $20M for two years).

Also, huge shout out to @treyk3 for letting us know about this way before anyone else did:

 

Well we got blown out in the bubble when He was actively trying, so I guess in the end it didn't matter

 

This article basically confirmed that we were right about everything lmao.

 

Also why would you want Oladipo?

 

Suprising amount of optimism