Kevin McHale hasn’t forgotten getting undermined by James Harden.
Harden this week has been expressing his dismay with a third organization in the past several years, calling Sixers president Daryl Morey a “liar” and declaring his intention to not play for the team again.
This comes after he also forced his way out of Houston and Brooklyn.
McHale, the 65-year-old ex-Celtics great, coached Harden in Houston from 2012-15 and recalled the mercurial star tanking his tenure.
With the Clippers up 3-2 in the second round of the 2015 Western Conference playoffs, McHale benched Harden in the fourth quarter of Game 6; the Rockets would go on to win both that and Game 7, before getting beaten by the Warriors in five games in the conference finals.
According to McHale, Harden brooded and concocted a plot of revenge.
“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 told Heavy.com. “He had a plan.”
Therefore, McHale was not surprised at the latest developments of Harden trying to blow it up in Philadelphia.
“Yeah, not so much,” McHale said.
McHale also had an interesting theory on the relationship between Harden and Morey — whom he also worked with in Houston — broke down.
“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.”
