TNT: Kevin McHale reacts to comments from James Harden

McHale may not be a good coach but he's not wrong here, lol. He is absolutely correct.

 

My penis has a @vlaurelio disease

 

McHale is not wrong. His problem is that he doesn't know how to criticize James without bringing up things during his tenure. He needs to leave that **** out.

Reality is that these past few years James folds in critical moments. He definitely has moments of greatness as well, but it's those critical moments that he flat out freezes. The Spurs series we saw him play well in game 5, then suddenly the going got really tough and Spurs had some big plays down the stretch and suddenly James forgot to play ball. Then, here we are later trying to excuse it claiming that he had to carry too much load through the year. Then game 6 happens and he forgot to play ball again since he started out really slow and could never recover.

Same with the Clippers series. He definitely had a great game 7 to close out, but holy ****, he also forgot to play ball in game 6. If it wasn't for his teammates heroics, we would be sitting here talking about another failed situation with James.

Even during the Portland series, Dwight carried us those games. James had a tough series.

I want James to be a Rocket for life but I do feel he has a hard time coming up big in huge career defining moments. I'm not saying he is not clutch, because he has won us many games throughout the years in the last minute, but games that would define his career or even playoff series is where he folds. It's unfortunate, but I hope Chris can help out in this regard. James has definitely grown and he is attempting to grow into a leader, but a leader goes down fighting till the very end, and there have been many instances that James has not done that.

 

Rockets front office does a great job of making sure this kind of stuff never leaves the lockerroom. Media never had any idea McHale and Harden didn't like each other.

 

The truth hurts, we know exactly what he is talking about...

It’s a matter of proving he has changed and will step up now...

 

Harden should just shut it. MCFAIL is right.

Harden is a great player, but not a leader.

Nothing wrong with that. KD is a great player, but no one is going to follow him and Durant is just a follower. Nothing wrong with that

 

I’ve gone over this, Harden is an above average leader, not great but certainly not bad. He can improve on it & he probably will.

Mchale came off as a douche in the orginal statement & now he’s kind of in damage control while still trying to stick his statements.

I mean the guy coached him for years, it’s literally like a manager saying that the employee that they trained sucks at half of their job, I mean you ****ing trained the guy.

The whole situation is like, you’re partially right, but you have no room to talk so you should just shut the **** up.

 

bbs.clutchfans.net: user rocketsballin doesnt react to mchale's reaction on james harden

 

Lmao it wasn't that serious, his career will be fine. We're the Rockets, they **** on us every year on TNT.

 

Nah, Mr. Milk Hair, Clown is not a name.

The player gets introverted in the most important games, gets passive, quiet.

Neat reaction doe.

 

Above all Harden lacks Kobe's killer instinct (for better or worse) for better is that he does not chuck it up that much.

 

I will give him spare minutes the time of eve.

 

Cmon now?

We really taking coaching advice from ISIAH THOMAS and KEVIN MCHALE?

These dudes here were both horrible coaches and GMs lulz

 

McHale could switch the name Harden with McHale and the statements would be true.

 

Yeah that was also the same series where Harden was benched during the big comeback in game 6 though.

 

The Mchale hate comes in due to the fact that he seriously sucked as a x's and o's coach. Terrible at time management too... didn't know when to call timeouts and he wasn't good at situational coaching either... situations like when Lilliard hit that 3. We would have teams down and he did nothing as a coach to help ensure a victory... teams easily got back in games but he's always talking defense/toughness.

 

What he said in that clip was fairly reasonable but that was because he had a week to plan out something reasonable-sounding to say to moderate his inexcusable pitting of Harden against his own teammates. Doesn't change the fact he shouldn't be talking.

 

McHale is a Good ole Boy who'll always get another NBA job coaching, executive or analyst no matter how bad he screws up. He's a clown and sucks at everything NBA besides being a player.

 

Kevin McHale: James Harden calling me 'a clown' won't change my opinion of his leadership skills

Kevin McHale continued his war of words with Houston Rockets star James Harden on Friday.

The former Rockets coach turned TV analyst had 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 credibility if you don't play defense."

McHale remained complimentary of Harden's basketball skills while explaining what he considers to be leadership.

"[Harden] is 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 all 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 due to 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.

"He's a clown, honestly," Harden said after the Rockets' open practice Saturday, following McHale's initial comments. "I did anything and everything he asked me to do. I've tried to lead this team every day since I stepped foot here in Houston. To go on air and just downplay my name, when 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 better [myself], obviously as a basketball player, but be a leader as well. To go on air and downplay my name like that, it just shows his character. I usually don't go back and forth on social media with anybody or with interviews, but I'm going to stand up for myself, and there it is. But you just don't go and do that. It shows what type of person he is."

McHale was fired in November 2015 despite being only 11 games into a four-year, $12 million contract given to the coach in the wake of the Rockets' trip to the Western Conference finals the previous season. Harden believes that bitterness about the firing played a significant role in McHale criticizing him.

"Sure. And I had nothing to do with it," Harden said. "I'm just here to do my job, compete at the highest level I can. But when you're here, you're face-to-face, and you're telling me one thing -- how great of a player you are, how you're lucky that he's able to be a part of this process -- and then you go back just a few years later and basically just say the opposite, it just shows your character, shows who you really are. I'm not that type of person. I don't operate that way. I don't say things to somebody behind their back or tell them one thing or go on air and say another thing."​