I'm James Harden.

I'm waking up today saying Get me the hell out of here.

Get me out.

I need to I need to go either to Philly.

I need to go to Brooklyn.

I need to get out of here because this is not what I signed up for.

And I don't know if this makes me happy to be here in Houston.

Long term.

If I wake up and I'm Bradley Bill on the East Coast in D.

C, I'm saying, Oh, I think we have a chance to be top five in the East right now.

Getting Brody to come here to D.

C.

Getting Davis Burton to sign a five year, $80 million deal.

This puts us almost in the upper echelon off the Eastern Conference.

So look, I now look at Houston and I say John Wall, I hope he comes back and has an incredible year.

Hasn't played since 2018.

Okay, he's injury prone.

Coming off that injury.

You have the markets.

Cousins, injury prone.

Coming off an injury.

Now that that's interesting.

Team.

If I'm Houston, if I'm Raphael Stone, how the GM How much longer can you hold on to James Harden without him publicly becoming a disgruntled employee.

So if he's at a post presser every single day, when you know he's gonna be asked this question over and over and over again, are you happy here?

Eventually, Harden is gonna tell you how he feels.

Do you lose trade value?

The longer you hold on to him or now you start to look at the Brooklyn situation to say, Hey, Caris, Levert, Spencer Dinwiddie, Jared Allen Some future first round picks.

Maybe that is enough for a guy like James Harden, because I feel like James Harden has given his heart and soul to Houston.

James Harden deserves have a shot at winning a world championship, and that will not occur in Houston.

He has a better chance of doing that.

Where Brooklyn or Philadelphia do the right thing for James Harden.

Do the right thing for James.

Do the right thing for James.

I I look at it and say, You know what?

This is kind of like for Westbrook going east in Wall, going to Houston.

They kind of just swap contracts and players of that style of me.

I mean, you get a healthy guy versus a guy that you really don't know Ah whole lot about.

Unless they've had some private workouts or some sort on video where they've had an opportunity to see him bouncing run around where they could say, Okay, I think we're getting a 2018 John Wall pre injury.

So we're OK with that Boogie Cousins.

On the other hand, we know what that not only from an injury standpoint but also from an in shape standpoint what that's gonna look like, um, in terms of James Harden.

And I've always said this, and I will continue to say it until I die professional athletes.

The moment that they tell organizations that they don't wanna be there, the organization will try the best to move them.

Just because you don't wanna have hostile situation inside of a locker room, especially with a young new head coach coming in to try to manage the situation.

I don't care what he's done in his past previous stops with certain athletes and personalities, but to have a new head coach come in and you have a disgruntled poor, not even I don't wanna call it disgruntled a player that's just not really feeling what's going on because he's watching potentially what the Brooklyn Nets could be doing in James Harden and potentially what Philadelphia could be doing.

And he's sitting back there saying I could be a part of that, but you're holding me hostage when I don't wanna be here.

Um, I think Rafael Stone will get around to figuring out how to move James Harden.

You've gotta go one piece at a time.

It's too much to try toe, you know, just thio to digest when you have to deal with Westbrook, which was probably the easier deal to get done.

And you got hardened both of them on the same table and you're trying to navigate through that.

That's a lot.

So you wanna get one off the table?

Now we could turn our attentions to James Harden and, potentially a Philadelphia deal or, potentially, ah, Brooklyn Nets deal.

You revisit that now and see where it goes.

Let me tell you this right now, with John Wall because of the injury, I slipped and fell at his home.

He had a ruptured Achilles.

I thought Dustin Johnson was the only guy that could use as an excuse if you're a golf fan out there, Um, but three years, $132 million.

You don't exactly know what you're getting.

You know, Russ obviously is a huge deal that's worth more than $130 million left on his deal as well.

But we know what we've gotten from Russell Westbrook at this 1300.3 years.

1 32.

We don't know what we're going to get from wall.

Good.

I'm just gonna say, I just know somebody else who slipped and fell and then was out of work for two days.

What?

It you slipped and fell in the house.

You wrote your ankle Europe for two days, I That's all I'm saying.

D j slipped and fell at Augusta Key slipped and fell in Brooklyn.

And John Wall did celery in and around the district because you're trying to sell a narrative for the people that's listening and looking as if I'm clumsy and nonathletic.

No, you're and I'm not, and I'm not gonna have you doing that.

Your dog came underneath you and you didn't see him early in the morning.

I'm just saying it happens.

It's feasible.

That's all no doubt we always have fun, so just quickly to go back.

You don't know what you're gonna get from Wall as I mentioned the 700 days three years, 1 32.

But let me ask you it from this particular standpoint.

J from an MBA perspective.

The Wizards.

This wasn't really talked about much because they haven't been talked about much.

They were in the bubble.

They played eight games.

They lost seven of the eight games.

It basically took them to their final game in the bubble till they won one.

They've been off the national radar for years.

The furthest they made it with Wall was the Eastern Conference semifinals.

I'm not pinning that on wall.

I'm just saying that this is a team that is need.

There's a shot of adrenaline that needs to come into this team's arm, and they have got it with somebody's exciting.

His Westbrook, the playing at 100 miles an hour like Westbrook, the entertainment factor.

I just think there's something they're here for Washington, even though everybody's talking about what it means for Houston.

The residual for harden for Washington, they need to be relevant, and this gives them some relevancy.

And first off to all the haters out there key.

You know everybody with all these different narratives.

You were talking about narratives before.

Well, you know, Brody isn't a guy that helps the culture of your team.

That's wrong.

Brody does help the culture of your team.

Let's talk about what happened to him.

He started off slow this year, okay?

Then he came on hot.

Then he got co vid, missed some time in the bubble, came into the bubble, did decently to come in and then had an injury to his hamstring.

I want you to hear the numbers that he finished the regular season with averaging 27 eight rebounds per game.

Seven assists, All MBA third team.

Now you pair him with a guy like Bradley Bill that is one of the most prolific scores we have in the game.

Davis Burton is another guy that shot 43% from the three point line.

The style and pace in which they're gonna play in D.

C.

Eastern Conference is wide open.

I mean, look, the Nets are probably the favorite.

You know you have Milwaukee.

Who's there?

You have the Celtics who were there.

You have the Miami Heat, even though I think last year was a little bit of an anomaly.

I don't think the Miami Heat go to the world championship.

It was not in the bubble.

They didn't do a lot of free agency.

I still like your team, but the Hawks made some moves.

Bigger sex that Danilo Gallinari.

He comes to the Hawks.

They they have the pieces.

John, the council there.

Trae Young is still there.

Rondo's there now, but I think this team could finish top five in the East.

In the East.

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