https://x.com/stevebhoop/status/1692199516340932836?s=61&t=xcbX1QdYdZojDIIdouH5kg 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.
by shreeharis
26 Comments
Yeah I’m sure Harden was just some fat bozo during his entire Houston run of averaging like 29ppg the entire time under heavy minutes, high usage, and never missing games.
Because you can just roll out of bed and do that
Everyone is just piling on Harden huh?
Harden takes the off-season seriously.
Uhoh …. All these James leaks now
Imagine having to bench your star in the playoffs. They must’ve gotten blown out in that game.
He wasn’t fired for benching harden tf is this lol
born and raised rockets fan from houston and ngl I absolutely love james harden the person – he did a lot for our community and seems like a sincerely nice guy
with that caveat aside, I had lots of issues with james harden the player… and pretty much all of them started with that offseason right there. that was the first year he started exhibiting some very conceited behavior
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hardeja01/gamelog/2016
This is the game log for that season.
So this is Harden out of shape? Lmao
Fails to mention how he had a bad ankle injury while training in the offseason
This will be civil
The off season fat antics of Harden crack me up
This is what he does. The real coach killer. Got D’antoni and McHale fired, went to Brooklyn to get Nash fired, went to Philly to get Doc fired. If I’m Ty Lue I want him now where near my team
McHale got himself fired. Man was an awful coach, which is why he hasn’t been hired since.
Also from the article :
“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.”
Mchale was cheeks. He deserved to get fired lmao.
McHale was also a shit coach
Some people go church, and others go to the strip club
People don’t understand that out of shape prime Harden still gets buckets. He was just that good.
That was the “James Harden: Defensive Juggernaut” season right? Where he just let guys go by him? It looked obvious that he wanted his coach fired.
If anybody needs to retire without a ring, it’s definitely James.
Quite possibly the most overrated player in NBA history
This is awful revisionism.
McHale was a shit coach.
There’s a story that his first season with the Rockets the team was frustrated with how bad his play calling was. So Lowry ran an old Adelman play (which of course scored), McHale got pissed and threatened to bench him. So Lowry ran another one (which also scored), so McHale benched him the rest of the game. Lowry refused to sign with the Rockets that summer and became the best player in Raptors history.
And don’t get me started in his refusal to double Aldridge in the playoffs letting him score 40 every game.
Fuck Kevin McHale.
McHale was a *terrible* coach. The difference in team performance from him to D’Antoni was absolutely night and day (hence the Phoenix dig). It’s not a coincidence that McHale didn’t get another head coaching job after the Rockets.
Honestly, if this is true, my respect for Harden went up for having the wherewithal at that age to force the change.
MKKKHale?
I can’t wait until harden retires and blows up to 300 lbs
This is why McHale can’t get a coaching job and why Harden cleared this bums entire career in his mid 20s. This clown ran their offense through a washed Dwight Howard and kept Harden in the trenches for years.