[Secret Base] James Harden and Daryl Morey went from besties to beef
awesome video. and he’s 100% right.
James Harden telling a group of Chinese middle schoolers in the middle of China, publicly and loudly that, “DARYL MOREY IS A LIAR” is genuinely one of the funniest things that’s ever happened in NBA historyš¤£š¤£š¤£š¤£
Kinda reminds me of Dennis Scott’s meltdown in a way but way, way, way less bad. š
Scott ranted at kids at his basketball camp about his contract, the media, his personal life, telling them not to call him ‘3D’ anymore, and not to ask him for his autograph, all while Biggie’s “Ready to Die” was blasting out of his SUV. Then he just left. The rest of the camp was cancelled, everyone was refunded, and 3D was traded to the Mavericks.
Donāt forget him telling the kids not to ask him about basketball but about ā the rage thatās inside himā
” Long live Chairman Mao !!!” Zhou Enlai vibes
It’d be funnier to me if James Harden were even a little bit believable.
I’m sorry, but I’m not buying a word from the boy who has now cried wolf off his 5th team.
Please explain when he ācried wolfā? You donāt think he had valid reasons to leave the Rockets (planning to rebuild) and the Nets (Kyrie drama, Kyrie and KD always hurt)? He was traded by the Thunder despite his own preferences, how did he cry wolf there?
Harden has always openly been about his money and about situations where he thinks he can win. People conflate their dislike of his play style with him being some sort of dishonest actor, which never really seems to be true considering the shit that has caused him to ask out is pretty reasonable for an All-Star or better talent (no interest in a rebuild, teammates not playing games or causing organizational strife, GMs reneging on contract discussions).
What is there to explain? He’s just asked out of his FIFTH team. It strains credulity.
I can only believe that line so many times.
Harden has always openly been about his money and about situations where he thinks he can win.
Except he hasn’t. He claims he was promised a max but then refused to ever communicate with them… That doesn’t add up.
He claims he was promised a max but was leaking Houston rumors in the middle of that season and then tried to back-channel his way there at the start of the off-season. That doesn’t add up.
[edit: ah yes, here comes the Harden PR team who just downvotes and doesn’t actually answer for what he did. You guys get up late today?]
He didnāt ask out of the Thunder.
It was reported at the time that the Rockets wanted to tear down and rebuild (and not pay the luxury tax) after being purchased by Fertitta. Every All-Star in the league would have asked out at that point, even more so a guy who just won MVP.
His co-stars in Brooklyn didnāt play basketball. KD had injury issues and is pretty clearly a bad teammate behind closed doors and Kyrie refused to get vaccinated and missed games constantly for āpersonal reasonsā even once that stopped being a barrier for him. That team imploded and Harden got hurt hard carrying them. You think a lot of stars would stay in that situation?
He absolutely tried to force his way to Philly, that was the original plan before he went to the Nets. Once there, Morey reneged on contract discussions. I donāt know why youād believe Morey over Harden when thereās tons of evidence from other players around the league that Morey is a dishonest executive and that he only thinks of players as potential assets, he has long been famous for being terrible at the human element.
The Clippers shit is weird, but if thereās indication that theyāre going to have a Kawhi suspension or that the team is facing internal strife (and, considering they traded two of their three best players with no preemptive notice, thatās not exactly out of the question), it makes sense to ask out. The Clippers also got a mid-20s All-Star back in return and itās not like Harden was firing shots at them on his way out, I dunno why two teams making a 1:1 trade has to somehow be a personal failing for one of the players involved.
Harden isnāt forcing his way out of winning situations where everything is roses and sunshine outside of his leaving. Houston wanted to bottom out. The Nets were a train wreck largely because of Kyrie. The Sixers opted to overpay two constant injury risks instead of paying Harden. The Clippers might be given a long-term punishment by the league for something not involving him.
If it was a more likable and media-friendly player than Harden leaving these teams, no one would blame the guy. But heās notoriously quiet and private and couldnāt get over the hump for a title, so guy sucks and everything is actually his fault.
Morey was 100% correct in that situation. Paying Harden would have been a bad move for the sixers. Id prefer Morey being a liar and making the right move to make the team better instead of paying harden because their friends or whatever.
Harden was All-NBA last year on a team that won 50 games (and the previous year, they won 51 after acquiring him); meanwhile, you acquired Paul George the following year, gave him a 211m contract (the contract Harden was asking for) and then won 24 games.
I suppose if you argue the point was to get Edgecombe, it works out, but there was no way to know that you’d be so bad that you’d get the #3 pick right after giving massive contracts to Embiid and PG13. It can still work out for the Sixers that you have hundreds of millions tied up in Embiid and PG13 for the next few years, but I certainly wouldn’t say “Morey was 100% correct”.
Accepting the second albatross around our neck in the form of Paul George does not making turning down the first albatross a bad decision.
There’s a ton of evidence that Morey is an inhuman robot. I’d agree with that. So I’m not trying to defend Morey for that. But I don’t know that there is a ton of evidence of him outright lying and going back on his word.
I’m just saying that Harden’s side doesn’t add up at all.
It’s pretty much the exact opposite of that. Harden has the greatest PR I’ve ever seen for a pro athlete. He’s always played the victim card and everyone believes everything he’s ever said about anything. He routinely escapes the majority of blame.
In game 6 Harden literally refused to pass the ball to the league MVP (who was 6⁄10 in the second half) in the final four minutes. Nobody would blame Harden for that.
That’s because officially, promising maxes in handshake deals is against NBA rules (it’s what the Timberwolves got fucked by Joe Smith for doing)
That doesn’t explain away leaking rumors of & then trying to get to Houston before talking to Philly, only to refuse to ever meet with them.
Daryl Morey is a liar and I will never be a part of an organization that heās a part of. Let me say that again: Daryl Morey is a liar and I will never be a part of an organization that heās a part of.
Maybe he “wasn’t educated on the situation at hand”? That is what LeBron thinks anyway. LMAO
DARYL MOREY IS A LIAR š£ļø
Imagine being a little Chinese kid that barely speaks English going to an event hosted by your favorite NBA player and bro just starts putting his GM on blast randomly
Fuck Daryl Morey.
The parking tickets story was enough for me to know hes a cunt
What
E: Got so many parking tickets that returned the car rather than paying them…bruh
Thatās just some smart economics and right there
For real. He was on a podcast a number of years back and says he does the same thing with rental cars at airports. He leaves his rental car in the loading zone and tells the rental service to go get the car.
Dissed Harden, signed a worst, broken, and 2x the cost PG to replace him. “Sold high” on McCain who was #1 on ROTY ladder for weeks because he doesn’t have the foresight (didn’t he learned his lesson w/ Harden?) to see McCain is still rehabbing and getting back to action after a year off and still only played < 2⁄3 of a season total.
I have no idea why he’s still employed.
it’s because of all the titles he won during his 20 year tenure as a gm in the nba:
- … - 2x WCF participation trophy (2015,2018) - …
It makes me mad he doesn’t get more shit than Dumars who actually won a chip as a GM and went to 6 ECF, destroyed my franchise for a decade not withstanding.
They see Morey in a much clearer complexion
This is one of the worst arguments in sports. GMs don’t win titles.
Bob Myers has won multiple titles. His best move was when someone else declined Myers’ attempt to trade away Curry & Klay before the dynasty ever began. And sorry if I don’t view him as being all that key in KD deciding to take the easy path.
tbf to win a title first you need to reach the finals
Rockets fans will tell you taking GSW to game 7 is the same as winning a championship šš
McCain is getting to the point where heās getting overrated, everyone needs to take a step back
Morey getting clap back for trading a small guard that canāt defend who was averaging 7ppg on 50% TS lmao
Canāt wait for thunder fans to experience the McCain crazies whenever SGA has a bad game and people start suggesting to trade him and build around Jared.
Dissed Harden? How so?
Morey tried to bring Harden and his camp in to discuss a contract. James Harden refused to communicate with the 76ers.
It’s insane to me that people still believe that BS line. You don’t refuse to communicate with someone who promised you a max.
You certainly don’t leak rumors about going to Houston just a few weeks into the season where you’ve been promised this max deal.
You don’t immediately try to back-channel your way to Houston before ever talking to your own team, if you were promised a max.
Also, can we stop talking about a two week stretch from McCain as if he’s a future all-NBA player. In the playoffs he was going to get played off the floor for PHI.
Yeah you’re not going to be able to spin selling high as a negative.
Because he’s one of the most impactful GM’s of all time. What GM was better in the 2010s? He took that 2012 rockets team and transformed them into the KD warriors best competition. Itās not his fault that Harden is the biggest playoff dropper of all time.
Heās been bad this decade especially with the PG contract but what he did with the rockets literally transformed the league.
You don’t understand. It’s his fault the Rockets missed 27 straight threes.
It’s his fault Ben Simmons had a mental breakdown.
It’s his fault Doc Rivers left Embiid in during a blowout only for Embiid to get his face caved in.
It’s his fault Harden refused to pass the ball to the league MVP once in the final four minutes of game 6.
It’s his fault Kuminga fell on Embiid and Joel had a bout of bells palsy.
Nevermind that he drafted Maxey, a fringe contender for MVP and went against consensus to take Edgecomb who looks like a future all-NBA franchise cornerstone.
I mean the Hornets probably would have taken Edgecomb as well so it wasnāt entirely against the consensus.
Even the Sixers own sub was stanning for Ace Bailey. VJ was not the popular pick at the time.
āItās not his fault that Harden is the biggest playoff dropper of all timeā
Another perspective is that Harden is one of the best floor raisers in modern basketball and that he elevated teams that otherwise would have been middle of the pack at best. His ceiling raising in the playoffs is wildly inconsistent, but Morey doesnāt get extra credit for Harden turning himself into a perennial MVP candidate and consistent All-NBA player.
Morey has never taken over a bad team or one low on potential assets.
Maybe if you want to go into this with an agenda to only praise one man for a whole organizations success. However at the end of the day Harden didnāt draft and trade for his teammates, he didnāt hire D’antoni and he wasnāt the mind behind data driven approach.
Nobody ever gives sole credit to Michael Jordan for the Chicago Bulls success in the 90s. Everybody rightfully gives Jerry Krause credit as well but he wasnāt as nearly as involved as Morey was.
Harden’s playoff dropping began before he even got to Houston. Itās literally why Morey was able to get him for cheap. Heās also continued it in both Philly and LA. Its also not hard to predict that the same thing will happen in Cleveland later this season.
Morey’s real problem is that the rest of the league copied, adapted and improved on his ideas. This happens to innovators all the time.
The last point is also a bit ridiculous. He rebuilt the rockets from the Tracy McGrady-Yao Ming era to the Harden rockets. Who cares that he hasnāt gone to the literal worst team in the league and made them better?
Tell me how many of the GMs or potential GMs have done it and should therefore have his job?
Except it was Moreyās analytics driven push for Harden to take 3ās (especially corner 3ās), layups or dunks and to ditch the midrange or long 2ās that took Harden to another stratosphere. Credit to Harden for being willing to listen to that strategy as opposed to being stubborn in his own ways, but Morey deserves some credit for that.
I want to know the status of his giant Harden portrait.
It got replaced with a Joel one
Love me some secret base. Probably my favorite channel on YouTube
Theyāre beef now?
Daryl looks awful. I mean he physically looks bad. thinking years of making horrible decisions and alienating players and fans would do that to a guy. the stress must be crazy
He looks like a person that isn’t in good shape (which he never has been) that is aging. There’s nothing unusual at all about how he looks. He’s 53 years old. When you saw him in Houston he was in his early to mid 40s.
Looks fairly normal for an average 53 year old lolā¦
Daryl morey went from executive Jesus to the stinky poo poo man and I canāt figure out whyĀ
He never has been this amazing GM, his main thing has always been taking big swings on stars. Worked out great on Houston because the league stopped him from shipping his assets for an old Paul Gasol in the CP3 trade which allowed him to get Harden.
Would have genuinely set us back a decade.
Moreyball doesnāt work
The average team now is playing almost as much Moreyball as the rockets were in 2018. Rockets shot 42 threes a game, league average now is 37.
Players and staff speaking out about him being a complete sociopath with no people skills, and the fact he just doesnāt have a success record prolific enough to justify the way he acts. Also those PG13 and Embiid deals were both fireable offenses and he managed to do both in the same offseason.
Besties to Beefies
Yeah Iām not really cool with my shitty boss whoās no longer my boss either
Sounds like tampering.
Who travels more? Harden or Morey (on business trips). LMAO
Harden blew up the Nets too quickly. I get Kyrie was being a weirdo but he should have secured the bag and tried to ride that team out instead of jumping ship
No, Kyrie blew that team up, not Harden
Yeah how dare that guy.
Thunder… Harden was the victim. Rockets…. Harden was the victim. Nets… Harden was the victim. 76ers… Harden was the victim. Clippers… Harden was the victim.
5 times asked out, never at all his fault. /s
Low effort garbage not relevant to my actual post.
How is it Harden’s fault for Clay Bennett being cheap?
Rockets are a wash.
Why is it Harden’s fault that Kyrie is an anti-vaxxer? I wouldn’t want to deal with that either.
Daryl Morey lied and we know that he lied.
Clippers are going nowhere fast and everyone knows it
You know that he lied when the 76ers tried to discuss a contract and Harden refused to communicate with them?
Clippers.. fine. Idc. But then don’t continue to play the victim card. Own up to it.