You have to trade him asap. He just told the world he doesnt gaf and wants out. Locker room will follow his lead and they already have and not give a crap.

Harry Dunne said:

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mazag08 said:

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Some of y'all ridiculed me for wanting to trade James 3 years ago. We could have gotten a ridiculous haul.

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Thats because it would have been ridiculous to trade him 3 years ago.
We came within 1 hamstring of a title and no one in their right mind would have traded a 28 y/o reigning MVP, much less his buffet friend forever D. Morey.

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But we didn't. And now we are here talking about trading him for whatever we can get.

We are obviously not going to get an optimum return for Harden, but we should be able to get relatively good value for Boogie, Wall & Tucker and maybe even something for Gordon. Certainly no point in keeping any of them around either.

mazag08 said:

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Harry Dunne said:

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mazag08 said:

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Some of y'all ridiculed me for wanting to trade James 3 years ago. We could have gotten a ridiculous haul.

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Thats because it would have been ridiculous to trade him 3 years ago.
We came within 1 hamstring of a title and no one in their right mind would have traded a 28 y/o reigning MVP, much less his buffet friend forever D. Morey.

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But we didn't. And now we are here talking about trading him for whatever we can get.

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Of course we didn't. Why talk about it like we missed some great opportunity? There was zero chance it was going to happen.

We had a nice run. Harden is almost literally turning into a pumpkin, and now its time to cut bait.

Have you watched them play? Nobody seems to give a crap out there except wall, tate. and maybe wood. Multiple times the lakers had put back dunks because nobody boxed out. And thats not reality. You dont keep an all star on the team just to stick it to him, you have to get something for him

Ags #1 said:

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Have you watched them play? Nobody seems to give a crap out there except wall, tate. and maybe wood. Multiple times the lakers had put back dunks because nobody boxed out. And thats not reality. You dont keep an all star on the team just to stick it to him, you have to get something for him

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I get that. But I still say call his bluff. See if he really wants to be a 34-year-old free agent.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/30702503/all-star-james-harden-says-houston-rockets-just-not-good-enough

HotardRat said:

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Ags #1 said:

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You have to trade him asap. He just told the world he doesnt gaf and wants out. Locker room will follow his lead and they already have and not give a crap.

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Disagree. Locker room won't follow his lead. John Wall is our leader now.

Keep Harden for the full two years so that he's a 34 year old free agent. Make him "suffer".

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That would be gratifying, but there's nothing worse for a franchise than being mediocre with aging players.
Nothing we're going to get back + what we have is going to be anywhere near a championship team. That being the case, the smartest thing to do is to start over. Wall, Cousins, Tucker and Gordon are all aging players that still have value to contenders and can get us picks and young players (and the unavoidable dead weight contracts to make any Harden & Wall deals work) in return.

Let Wood be the man. Let some of our young guys start and get serious minutes and see what we've got. Let Silas develop into a head coach without Harden crapping on him.

I know that there's no point to straight up tanking this year, since we don't have our own pick. In a way that's good news because there is no pressure to trade a guy like Wall who might lift us to a decent record...and as the season shakes out and he hopefully continues to play well and stays healthy and we can get a solid return.

It really sucks that we cannot see what this specific team build would look like in Dantoni's system

Proposition Joe said:

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Let Harden "suffer" and don't trade him and good luck trying to lure the next big free agent fish.

It sucks, but owners basically are at the mercy of their stars. The upside to forcing a player to sit out isn't worth the downside of future available talent seeing you go against your player.

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Just to add to this. I think trading Harden actually would make Houston a more attractive landing spot for potential free agents.

I think the Rockets are to the "irreconcilable differences" point with Harden...time for a divorce. Try to get the most you can for him, obviously, but he's a festering carbuncle at this point.

CFTXAG10 said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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Let Harden "suffer" and don't trade him and good luck trying to lure the next big free agent fish.

It sucks, but owners basically are at the mercy of their stars. The upside to forcing a player to sit out isn't worth the downside of future available talent seeing you go against your player.

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Just to add to this. I think trading Harden actually would make Houston a more attractive landing spot for potential free agents.

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At this point no doubt. There's enough examples of guys being paired with him and it not working out that you bet potential free agents have taken note.

I just don't get Harden's position. He wanted a change of "scenery", he got a new coach, new GM, practically a new team, but he wants no part of it.

Is it that he's running out of time and wants to win a championship now? Well where does he imagine he can go to get there? NJ can't afford him, nor Milwaukee. Pretty obvious Philly can put anything together to get him. He seems to be more set on getting out than finding the right team to get his ring.

Fat Bib Fortuna said:

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I will reiterate my idea from a month ago that he needs to be traded to the ****tiest team possible. At this point that would be the Pistons. Let him be content scoring 43 points a night for a 20-62 team. No meanie reporters asking why he doesn't deliver in the playoffs. No pressure to be a leader. Just shoot your 40-foot threes and wind down your career.

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Momma Harden would not like that

So the team should be loyal to an employee who is disloyal on his way out? Harden isn't trying and doesn't care. You don't no-show practices and come 20 lbs overweight when you have a new core and new head coach if you're "loyal".

Texaggie7nine said:

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Fat Bib Fortuna said:

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I will reiterate my idea from a month ago that he needs to be traded to the ****tiest team possible. At this point that would be the Pistons. Let him be content scoring 43 points a night for a 20-62 team. No meanie reporters asking why he doesn't deliver in the playoffs. No pressure to be a leader. Just shoot your 40-foot threes and wind down your career.

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Momma Harden would not like that

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I don't condone violence against women, but Momma Harden needs a good slap for being this much of an idiot.

Bonfired said:

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I think the Rockets are to the "irreconcilable differences" point with Harden...time for a divorce. Try to get the most you can for him, obviously, but he's a festering carbuncle at this point.

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Problem is finding a team willing to part with sufficient assets for a guy who is very noticeably overweight and not really trying.

Ryan34 said:

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Bonfired said:

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I think the Rockets are to the "irreconcilable differences" point with Harden...time for a divorce. Try to get the most you can for him, obviously, but he's a festering carbuncle at this point.

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Problem is finding a team willing to part with sufficient assets for a guy who is very noticeably overweight and not really trying.

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Indeed...neither side is likely going to be happy with the outcome.

Texaggie7nine said:

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Momma Harden would not like that

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I maybe could have bought into this line of thinking before James decided to quit on us this year. I hope they trade him to the worst team in the NBA and he never wins the title that he all of a sudden has decided to care about.

Bridge is burned, screw James for acting like such a ***** with this victim mentality.

This looks promising....