[TMZ]James Harden went to the strip club at 1:45 AM after OT loss

i like this clip from 'the hustler' when burt gordon calls eddie a "born loser".

burt gordon knew that eddie was extremely talented and could beat most players, and was undoubtedly one of the best. but he could not beat the #1 absolute best (minnesotta fats) because he didnt have the "character" of the best.

there are plenty of talented stars out there.

but to be the absolute best is not a question of talent but of character.

i dont think james harden has that yet. just my honest opinion.

 

Don't most teams board their charter and fly home after road trips? Were the rest of the Rockets also staying in LA overnight? If so, then I guess Harden can do whatever he wants after the game. But heading straight to a strip club after another sh-tty performance doesn't exactly dispel the notion that he plays with little or no heart.

 

I just don't get the appeal of strip clubs to this extent.

I'm more put off by the fact that it's constantly strip clubs then the partying.

I mean sure I've been to and enjoyed a few or more. But not constantly all the time. Even if I did want to do it more if pack it in over the offseason.

 

We ridicule him when hooks up with big booty strippers, then he gets with Khloe and we beg him to go back to big booty strippers. Now, he is seen in a strip club and forum members are angry? Seriously? You people are pathetic.

 

How do you mitigate that with last year, where he essentially carried our team to one of our most successful seasons?

I agree that there's potentially something wrong with him this year. He's not keyed in for whatever reason. Did carrying the team last year burn him out? Did the Khloe/Lamar situation f with his head? Is it a sports psychology thing?

Regardless, i'm not giving up on him.

 

Don't have a problem what James does in his own time but he needs to get serious about being a complete player when it comes to playing basketball. Playing all out on both ends of the court wouldn't hurt to start with.

 

I think the concern is that he played with no intensity last night and was shortly thereafter spotted at a strip club. Look, I have no problem if a 26 year-old multimillionaire wants to spend some of his time and money in the company of naked women. But when he consistently has performances where he looks hung over and completely checked out mentally, it's worth questioning whether or not he's incapable of balancing his private life with his professional one.

 

Don't care about strip club, but Haren's been straight up trash this year. He doesn't deserve to be in the All Star game or any of the All NBA teams.

 

Will he even make the All-Star team? He obviously isn't getting voted in, so that would leave it up to the coaches to select him. I don't think he deserves to be there based on his play this season.

 

Harden went right from the Arena to the strip club....not to the hotel to watch film, on why JJ Reddick lit him up, or why him and Ariza was having a hard time switching.....

He is in the same clothes from his post game interview and the big guy behind him is his bodyguard who sits behind the Rockets bench

 

He wasn't joking. Van Gundy was quoted as saying "I wish I could change his practice habits and mentality".
And keep in mind Van Gundy loved Tmac, so he was actually being as nice as possible.

 

Saying that a guy averaging 27 and 6 assists is straight up trash is ridiculous, bruv.

 

Has anyone confirmed yet if the entire team stayed in LA overnight? If they flew home after the game and Harden stuck around town to go to a strip club, that's the kind of crap players used to get suspended for.

 

Grown ass man that can do whatever he wants. But he's earning his image and what people think about him.

 

Trash may be a strong word. But I'd certainly say he's overrated and far too often is hurting his own team more than he's helping. He plays no defense even by his pathetic standards. He stalls the offense by walking the ball up the court(he constantly takes 6 or 7 out of the 8 allowed seconds to get over the halfcourt line), dribbling out on the perimeter til there's less than 10 seconds left in the shotclock before making a move, and turns the ball over far too often with lazy, careless passes. Just look at his body language. He doesn't look like someone who wants to be out there playing most nights.

As for his stats, they're worse this year. His shooting percentage is down from 44% to 42%. 3-point shooting went from 37.5% to 33.1%. And his assists are down(7.0 to 6.7) while turnovers are up(4.0 to 4.6). That last one is the most embarrassing of all. A 1.45-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio? Someone that bad with the ball should not be the primary playmaker on any team.

 

i understand it is his own time. But you know as well as i do that if our activities in our personal time begin to affect our job performance we will get fired. it is reasonable to expect that if his game is suffering cause he is out there getting lap dances and tossing dollar bills that he curb that activity.

 

well the game ended around 11 or so local time right? By the time the team probably boarded the bus and all was closer to midnight and from there to get to LAX would be 1230am by the time they could board a flight and take off probably 1am - unless they flew into and out of burbank then subtract 15 minutes but I believe the Rockets fly in and out of LAX.

By the time they would land in Houston it would be closer to 6-7am local time. Sure they could get sleep on the flight and all but I think its probably better for them to just sleep in a nice bed in a nice hotel (and they do stay at a nice hotel in LA) and be better refreshed fly back into Houston in the early afternoon and go straight into a film sessions/practice before going home in the evening.

 

Bum!!!!!! This is the only thing he was looking forward to last night.

 

Guys go to the strip club, I definitely understand that. But there are times when doing so can look bad.

This is one of those times when it looks bad.

My opinion means nothing in the grand scheme of things, but it does bother me. It's a classic case of "when you're winning, it is tolerable, but when you lose it looks bad."

If it was one random loss in the middle of a good season, then I would just roll my eyes and move on. But these are completely different circumstances. Everyone is questioning what is wrong with the Rockets (must have been mentioned at least 10 times) and people are looking at Harden... and here he is at the strip club at 2 a.m. after yet another disappointing loss.

It's incredibly frustrating.

 

Because both are terrible when you have more important tasks at hand.

HES ON AN 80M CONTRACT + 200,000,000 SHOE DEAL TO LEAD A TEAM TO A CHAMPIONSHIP AND HE TOOK ADVANTAGE OF EVERYONE AND DOESNT WORK/CARE ANYMORE

He was never in it to win!! He worked for the paycheck and quit!!