If the "lie" is about the trade, then Harden is a moron. Did he really expect the team to trade him no matte what the offers would be? Did he not understand that a trade involves at least two teams and at least one of them would not be controlled by Morey? If the "lie" is about the wink-wink deal last year, then both of them deserve the mess they are in.
Oh I’m gonna love it when the Harden snitches on Morey’s illegal promise deals. Morey will cost the Sixers 2 future firsts and will never be an NBA GM again! lmao
This is all on the future Rockets Ring Of Honor Harden should of told cyberX that either get me the contract trade before the deadline, or he opts out. I'm also sure Morey would like to hit the Back To The Future button.
McHale isn't necessarily saying things that are not right, however, he should know better about throwing his former players under the bus. Despite him being a subpar coach, he still does understand the game and we all know his comments regarding Harden not wanting to go the extra mile on certain things is not incorrect.
''many around the league believe Embiid will ask out sooner rather than later — and that a full rebuild is what Morey is covertly hoping for.'' https://sports.yahoo.com/james-hard...ixers-more-than-1-unhappy-star-022301007.html
To be fair Harden once called McHale "a clown" in a public interview. So its not like Harden didn't throw his coach under the bus.
I think he knows he’s not coaching again. And he’s old school. He doesn’t care about these millennial cry babies’ feelings. And Harden has denigrated him enough.
I think he knows he’s not coaching again. And he’s old school. He doesn’t care about these millennial cry babies’ feelings. And Harden has denigrated him enough. What makes you consider McHale a sociopath?
November 18, 2015: Rockets fire McHale after 11 games (4-7) October 6, 2017: McHale, now working as a TV analyst, says Harden is not a leader Spoiler https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...ach-kevin-mchale-says-james-harden-not-leader Former Houston Rockets coach Kevin McHale, working as an analyst on NBA TV, declared that superstar James Harden "is not a leader" while praising the franchise's acquisition of Chris Paul. "James can see all the passes and do everything, but James is not a leader," McHale said as part of a panel on NBA TV. "He tried being a leader last year, tried doing all that stuff. I think Chris Paul is going to help him just kind of get back into just being able to hoop and play and stuff like that. "But on every team, you have to have a voice. On every team, you have to have somebody that when they say something, people listen. Like if James tells you, 'You've got to play better D,' are you going to listen to him? Like you've gotta be kidding me. I lived through it. Believe me, everybody in the locker room did this," McHale said, putting his head down with his hand on his forehead. "Every time he mentioned defense, everybody would put their head down." The Rockets fired McHale in November 2015, when he was 11 games into a three-year, $12 million extension he signed in the wake of Houston's 56-win season and run to the Western Conference finals. Rockets management denied speculation at the time that Harden called for McHale's firing. The Rockets finished that season 41-41, snapping a nine-year run of winning campaigns, but rebounded last season to go 55-27 under Mike D'Antoni, who won Coach of the Year honors. "Chris Paul is going to push him, too," McHale said. "When he does that stab in the backcourt, doesn't get a foul, looking at the referee, not running back, Chris Paul is going to jump his butt. That's going to make him a better player. "I just think Chris Paul will be good for James Harden. It will allow him to just be what he is, which is a phenomenal basketball player, not trying to lead a team. That's just not his personality." McHale, who had a 193-130 record with the Rockets, also made comments that could be construed as critical of Harden before last season. McHale expressed skepticism about Harden's transition to point guard, a take that was proved wrong when Harden led the league with 11.2 assists per game. "You are who you are a lot of times," McHale said during a conference call last October. "Can you change and be a facilitator first? I don't know. Kevin Garnett, a guy I go way, way back with -- Kevin Garnett was always a pass-first player. He was a pass-first player his first day of practice when he was with the Minnesota Timberwolves. "James is a scorer, and at the end of the day, you do fall back on what you are. James is a scorer at heart. Can you change that? ... Can you be something that you're really not for an entire 82-game season? He's a great facilitator, great passer, and he has great vision -- he really is a scorer as a basketball player." October 7, 2017: Harden calls McHale a clown Spoiler https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/james-harden-kevin-mchale-taught-leader/story?id=50474955 "He's a clown," Harden said. Honestly, he's never taught me anything to be a leader but I've done a great job. The organization, my coaches. You can ask any of those guys how I’ve worked extremely hard every single day to, obviously, be a better basketball player, but to be a leader as well. To go in there and downplay my name shows his character. I usually don’t go back and forth on social media with anybody or interviews but I’m going to stand up for myself. You just don’t go and do that. Shows the type of person he is. Do you think he is bitter over the way that…? For sure and I had nothing to do with it. I’m just here to do my job, compete at the highest level that I can. When you’re here and face to face and telling me one thing, how great a player you are, how lucky he is to be part of this process and then go back a few years later and basically say the opposite, it shows your character and shows who you really are. I’m not that type of person. I don’t operate that way. I don’t say things to someone behind their back or tell them one thing and go in here and tell them another thing. October 13, 2017: McHale responds Spoiler https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...ing-clown-change-my-opinion-leadership-skills Kevin McHale continued his war of words with Houston Rockets star James Harden on Friday. The former Rockets coach, now a TV analyst, fired the opening salvo last week by declaring that Harden is "not a leader." Harden responded by calling McHale a "clown" and questioning his character. "Calling me names is not going to change my opinion as to what I saw when I was there," McHale said Friday on TNT. "It's hard to have a lot of credibility if you don't play good defense." McHale remained complimentary of Harden's basketball skills while explaining what he considers to be leadership. "He's a hell of a basketball player, he really is," McHale said. "And to James' credit, I will say this: He organizes guys in the summer. He does a lot of stuff. He does a lot of those things. When I was talking more about leadership is ... it's a tie game at half. It's a playoff game, or you're playing another team that's tough and rumble, and they're going to get after you. And all of a sudden, with four minutes to go in the third, you're down nine. They're getting every loose ball, they're getting every rebound, they're doing this stuff. It's not about skill at that point. It's about will. I gotta impose my will on you. "James at that point gets a little bit -- that's not his personality. Chris Paul, in turn, will get in your face, go nose-to-nose with you, say, 'Hey, let's go,' and I think that's what you need. Draymond Green does a great job, whenever you need a spark. He's out there going jawing with somebody." Houston acquired Paul during the offseason, and McHale has praised the move because of Paul's leadership abilities. "Chris Paul will have that leadership at those times where [Harden] gets a little bit introverted, a little bit quiet," McHale said Friday. "You saw the game with the Spurs; he gets to the point where he's just passive. And Chris Paul's not like that." McHale coached Harden for three-plus seasons in Houston.
Not letting dead dogs lay dead and still bitter over his firing, 6 years later,… August 17, 2023: McHale says Harden was fat and purposely got him fired Spoiler https://heavy.com/sports/houston-rockets/kevin-mchale-james-harden-daryl-morey-fallout/ Some people are stunned at the turn of events in Philadelphia. Kevin McHale, who coached James Harden for three years and 11 games in Houston while working under head of basketball ops Daryl Morey, is not one of them. “Yeah, not so much,” McHale told Heavy Sports. “I’ve been involved in a million meetings as a coach and GM, and, you know, players hear what they want to hear a lot of times. And Daryl’s smart,” McHale said. “My whole take on the thing is I think Daryl’s really hooked up with James, but I think ownership looked at it. Let’s face it, if the owner looks at you and says, ‘We’re signing that dude,’ you’re signing that dude. Story’s over. And if the owner looks at you and says, ‘We’re not signing that dude,’ you’re not signing him. “James wanted a big extension from Philly, and Philly wouldn’t give it to him, and that’s not a Daryl decision. Daryl’s got a part of that, of course, but that’s an owner decision. So (Harden) was really mad, saying Daryl lied to him, but, you know, maybe they saw Game 7 against the Celtics (9 points on 3-for-11 shooting in a 24-point loss) and said, ‘I’m not interested in that.’ “I think Daryl would have probably tried to extend him and keep everything happy. But as far as trading him goes, you know, Daryl gets stubborn. It’s going to be interesting.” “The person I mostly feel bad for is Joel Embiid,” said McHale. “This guy’s coming off an MVP season, but when you’re team is fractured at the top — when one of the top two players is like, ‘I’m out of here. The guy’s a liar’ — you’ve got no chance of winning. It’s really hard to win when you’re tied together as a group, and it’s really hard to win four seven-game series. That’s with everybody tied together, everybody pulling together. “I feel really bad for Nick Nurse, too. You’ve got a new coach coming in, and Nick’s like, ‘Oh, boy. This ought to be interesting.’ It just disrupts the entire flow of the team, and it’s totally unnecessary. You can do a lot of stuff behind the scenes. You don’t need to come out and just throw that out there. James started a forest fire with that.” McHale has seen Harden play with matches before. He’d been at the Houston helm for a year when Morey acquired Harden from the Thunder in 2012. “You know, when we first got him from Oklahoma City, he was actually pretty easy to coach really,” McHale told Heavy. “He came from being the third option in Oklahoma City with (Russell) Westbrook and (Kevin) Durant being ahead of him. He came in and we put in a couple of sets he liked that they ran there for him. He came off screens. He got off the ball. Never was a great lane runner. Never threw the ball ahead a lot. But he did more little things back then. Like he would set screens, come off screens, stuff like that. “But as he started playing better, it became harder. He wanted the ball in his hands, he didn’t want to come off actions, he just started becoming more one-dimensional. ‘Give me the ball, put a 1-4 flat or give me a pick and roll, and just let me make every decision.’ “My feeling was and always has been that type of offense works in the regular season, but against good teams, they can take away something. It’s hard for them to take away two or three different things, but they can take away something. I said it about Phoenix when Steve Nash was there; it works great in the regular season, but when they can load up defensively and do different stuff, you have to have different prongs to your offense. So it became harder to get James to do a lot of the little things. “I mean, if you watch Steph Curry, look at him set screens and look at the separation he gets when he sets a screen and just sprints out of it. Look at him coming off actions. He does that, and everybody gets open because of it. That became more of a problem with James.” The problems grew in the 2015 playoffs when McHale benched Harden in the fourth quarter as Houston staved off elimination in Game 6 against the Clippers. Harden played well in the Game 7 victory, but the Rockets lost the conference finals in five to Golden State, which beat Cleveland for the NBA crown. “The next year he came to camp, he was fat and didn’t feel like playing, and I got fired (11) games into the season,” McHale said. “He had a plan.” Coach/GM relationships always seem to have their moments, and while others who’ve worked with Morey on many organizational levels have had issues with Morey, McHale was largely good with him. “I liked working with Daryl, though sometimes I thought there was too much … just analytics,” he said. “There’s an odd thing in basketball that’s very hard to define. But if my skill set and your skill set really match and we really have great chemistry, you and I can beat two guys 2-on-2 when neither one of us could beat our guy 1-on-1. That’s the fun thing about basketball, and I always thought that could get lost. There were a lot of numbers with Daryl. “I think he’s gotten better understanding that. And I’ll give Daryl and the owner, Leslie Alexander, credit. They said, ‘Hey, you’re going to have to get along with James because it’s a lot easier to replace you than it is James.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I hear ya. I agree.’ My philosophy has always been, would you rather lose your top player, or would you rather lose the other 13 guys? If you just start making rules that just allow the top guy to do whatever he wants to do, the other guys go, ‘Well, I guess being on time’s not that big of a deal. I guess showing up and playing hard’s not that big of a deal. I guess running back on defense is not that big of a deal.’ “But overall with James, it wasn’t that bad. The year he came to camp heavy and didn’t feel like playing, that was hard. I remember looking at him and saying, ‘Ugh, it’s going to take to December before he’s in shape.’ But whatever situation you’re in, you just have to find a way to work through it if you want to be successful. It’s the same with James and Daryl here. We’ll see.” VERDICT: Jury rules in favor of James Edward Harden Jr. Kevin McHale is a clown.
Exactly. I understand the Harden hate but latching onto the 2nd worst Rockets coach after Silas is not the way to go. Plenty of legitimate people to latch onto, just not "clap clap play harder" dude.
