James Harden speaks out against the Oklahoma City Thunder officials – NBA News
James Harden was traded to the Houston Rockets hours before the October 31st trade deadline for Kevin Martin and a number of draft picks by the Oklahoma City Thunder. After months of expectation that the Thunder would
retain Harden to complete the roster that reached the NBA Finals last season and attempt to form a dynasty, everyone was shocked when Harden was traded. The news that came out then was that Harden was not settling for anything less than the max contract, and
the Thunder did not want to give him that since Thunder players Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka had sacrificed their max deals to keep the team together. However, Harden has spoken for the first time about his departure from the Thunder and
has something different to say.
“After everything we established – everything we had done – you give me an hour? This was one of the biggest decisions of my life. I wanted to go home and pray about it. It hurt me,” said Harden while talking to Adrian Wojnarowski
of Yahoo! Sports.
Harden has said that he was given only an hour to decide on the offer by the Thunder, and the fact that the team waited till the last hour to give him their final offer hurt him badly and built some mistrust between the two.
“I heard a lot of those things. I heard that I was greedy; that I didn’t care about winning; heard the questioning of my loyalty. And I’m thinking: ‘Of course I want to win. I’ve been winning my entire life,’” added Harden.
Harden signed a five year max contract with the Rockets days after he got there, as the team management wanted to lock him down so that they could start building a team around him. Playing in the 6th man role in Oklahoma
City, Harden is now the leader of the Rockets and the organization is looking to make him the franchise player and overall leader, in order to attract more talent to Houston. And so far, Harden has not disappointed.
Over the first three games of the season, Harden is averaging 35.3 points, 6.3 assists and 6.3 rebounds and has the Rockets dreaming about a playoff berth this season. Although the season is too young to make any predictions, Harden
has definitely brought Houston to the NBA map and has fans as well as team members excited about the future of the franchise.
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