https://theathletic.com/2420152/2021/03/03/james-harden-houston-rockets-stories-nba/ Its from the athletic......so yall know what the deal is.
Untold James Harden stories: Bowling, bonding and fighting over dinner bills James Harden had barely put the finishing touches on his best performance as a Brooklyn Net when he was asked about something greater. His 30-14-15 triple-double in Monday’s win over San Antonio came with zero turnovers, making him the first player to put up such a stat line since 1977. But after the game, the bigger talking point concerned Wednesday night. That’s when Harden makes his first trip back to Houston, the city that played a huge part in the player he is today. “Yeah, I’m excited,” Harden said. “Just to go back to Houston, where I had an unbelievable career there, and they showed me mad love and respect. I’m just excited to be playing in front of those fans. Yeah, I’m pretty excited. ‘Time there was great. Obviously, we came up short of a championship. But the work I put in; hopefully, the fans appreciated everything I’ve done on and off the court. Once there’s a place I call home, it’s always home. I feel like I’m still a part of the struggles and everything they go through.” Harden has been at the forefront of the city’s relief efforts following February’s winter storm, which left hundreds of thousands of residents were without water, power or working pipes. Homes were damaged, and at least 25 people in Harris County died. Even from Brooklyn, Harden is doing what he can to help. He has set up food aid via his new ‘Thirteen’ restaurant as well plumbing with ReliefGang, along with other efforts. It’s a place he’ll always call home, no matter the jersey that’s on his back. “My plan is to touch as many people as I can,” he said.” Whether it’s food, water, building homes, making them smile — just trying to touch thousands of people in that city because they’ve done that for me and showed me and my family that much love.” That’s just one side of the Rockets’ biggest superstar since Yao Ming, if not Hakeem Olajuwon. Throughout his eight years as a Rocket, Harden was electrifying, funny, caring and thoughtful. Now, ahead of his return, these are a few of the untold stories from his unforgettable time in Clutch City. Chris Paul was months away from putting on a Rockets jersey, but James Harden already wanted to get to work with his new running mate. The summer of 2017 was an important juncture in Harden’s career. The ending of the 2016-17 season left a bad taste in his mouth, with a bizarre 10-point performance in an elimination loss to San Antonio the only thing anyone could talk about in the offseason. That year wasn’t particularly kind to Paul, either, after bowing out in the first round against the Utah Jazz, a series that signaled the end of his time with the Los Angeles Clippers. Paul joined Harden in Houston at a time when both of them needed a change and, ultimately, each other. There wasn’t necessarily a need to break the ice — Harden and Paul were already familiar with each other from simply competing in the league — but it would be good to sit down and plan for the future. Harden, a Los Angeles native, spent a good amount of time back home during the offseason along with teammates Trevor Ariza and Bobby Brown. Paul, having lived in Los Angeles for years, was certainly familiar with the area. So the four of them, along with former player and close friend Barry Barnes, decided to meet up at Delilah’s, a popular upscale restaurant in West Hollywood, for dinner on a crisp summer evening. The conversations began as soon as they were seated. Harden and Paul knew that Mike D’Antoni, the head coach at the time, and the rest of the coaching staff were already making plans for a hybrid system to maximize their individual skill sets. But both of them were desperate for a championship, and it would take more than halfcourt sets to get them there. It would require sacrifice, trust and a common goal. Given the size of Houston’s market, Paul and Harden discussed their individual brands and how the next few seasons could benefit them. Business ideas flowed throughout the night, as did wine. The Delilah Mule, a house special made of vodka, ginger beer and lime, was a table favorite that evening. Harden spoke about Ariza, the Rockets’ undeniable glue guy, as a must-have for any championship team. He brainstormed possible pieces the team could add to put them over the top, knowing just how potent the Golden State Warriors were and needing versatile defenders to keep up with them. The conversation ebbed and flowed, with the four shifting from the present day to the past, recounting crazy tales from their various stops. The evening was a vibe, as they say. At some point, Harden realized they had been at the table for hours; all of the restaurant’s other patrons had already left. Soon after, the final bill was placed on the table. The damage for the evening came out to several thousand dollars. And, just like that, the conversations stopped. Who was paying the bill? There was no need to divvy up the cost, not with four players making NBA money at the table. Still, someone needed to take charge. Harden was the first to speak. “I got it,” he said. Paul was next. “Nah, I got it,” he replied. Ariza came after. “Actually, I got it,” he said. Paul wasn’t having any of that, slightly annoyed at this part. “Nah, you KNOW I got it,” he said. Harden wasn’t hearing any of that. “Nope, I got it,” he insisted. This went on for ages. Back and forth, back and forth. Eventually, it was all for naught — Delilah’s comped the evening for the five of them. Laughing to themselves, they gathered their things and headed home.
Where were you on Feb. 28, 2018, when Harden crossed Wesley Johnson into another dimension? For as long as Harden was a Rocket, he had the Los Angeles road games circled on the calendar. It’s a homecoming for the former MVP; his friends and family pack out the arena. But this particular fixture against the Clippers had a bit more oomph to it. Paul had already faced his former team that season on January 15. The Rockets imploded. And between Paul getting bested by old running mate Blake Griffin, Johnson humiliating Clint Capela by snatching his shot out of the air or Harden missing a rare game with a leg injury, there was no shortage of reasons for Houston to want to get even. A month later, things were different. The 48-13 Rockets were cruising atop the Western Conference while the Clippers were barely above .500. And Harden was back. Houston was dominant in the first quarter, leading 28-7 with about a minute left, but the atmosphere was flat. Griffin had recently been traded to Detroit, and with him went a good chunk of any animosity between the two sides. Harden brought the ball up the left side of the floor and saw Johnson defending him in space — and that’s when he chose violence. Marcus Allen, a former player and current columnist for MaryJanes Post, was sitting next to current Knicks scout Makhtar N’Diaye. He remembers the moment like it was yesterday. “We were in the stands and both got up and lost it,” Thomas recalls. “I remember after it happened I walked the arena, and everybody was losing it, so I knew it was going to be a wild night.” After the game, Harden took members of the organization and his friends out to Triple 8, a Pan-Asian restaurant located in L.A. Live, near the Staples Center, a favorite postgame spot between its proximity to the arena and highly regarded food. After dinner, Harden decided everyone should go to a bowling alley afterward to wind down. Upon arrival, however, it was clear that this wasn’t set up on a whim. The entire place had been bought out, with a security detail to boot. Some of Hollywood’s finest, like R&B artists Ty Dolla Sign and Teyana Taylor and rapper Yo Gotti were present. Harden is a big fan of bowling but an even bigger competitor. He assembled a team of seven people and took on the entire alley, who had to make teams of eight each. In all, there were eight total teams. Everyone bowled at the same time in separate lanes, competing for the best team performance on the night. Eric Gordon, P.J. Tucker and Clint Capela were present that evening and made up their own team to bowl against Harden Here, Harden could be himself. The competitiveness never departs from the best athletes in the world, but he didn’t have to be lowkey and reserved the way he comes off in the public eye. He joked and danced all night, constantly making sure everyone else was having a good time. The bowling alley, not the basketball court, brought out his true self. In October 2018, Vincent Edwards was just another rookie who didn’t know a thing about the NBA. The Rockets were in San Antonio getting ready to face the Spurs for their third preseason fixture, but Edwards had played just 13 minutes over the first two games. He was frustrated. The preseason was his best chance to make an impression. Would he ever get an opportunity to do so? Harden noticed Edwards down in the dumps. So, on the team’s off day, Harden went up to Edwards and asked him and fellow rookie Gary Clark to grab a bite to eat with him. UFC superstar Connor McGregor had a scheduled bout with Khabib Nurmagomedov that night in Las Vegas that Harden was excited to watch. They pulled up to a sports bar, where Spurs star and close friend DeMar DeRozan was already waiting. “It was pretty cool for me at the time, being a young guy,” Edwards said. “I would always watch their games, and I just thought it was pretty cool to be around them.” Edwards picked Harden’s brain the entire evening. He was used to the college regimen with everything being laid out in front of him. The NBA was anything but that. Here was his chance to learn from one of the game’s best He asked Harden about the system the Rockets ran under D’Antoni. He asked about the basic rundown of the league as a whole. At one point, Edwards was worried that his constant questioning was bothering Harden, who was watching the fight by then. Harden wasn’t bothered at all. He just wanted to teach Edwards about the importance of doing something positive while he was on the floor, whether it was for 30 minutes or three. Every second counts. “He laid the foundation and let me know at the end of the day, you gotta make the most out of your opportunities when you do get out there,” Edwards said. “That was big to hear from him because obviously [Houston] is a pretty heavy veteran team, but he was able to lend that advice that was enough to stick with me.” The more time Edwards got to spend around Harden, the more he was struck by how much Harden cared. Off the court, he was always checking to make sure the young guys were okay or ask if they needed anything. “That speaks to who he is as a person,” Edwards said. “He gets a lot of bad rep sometimes about off-the-court antics or whatever they wanna call it. Obviously, things went how they went in his departure, but at the end of the day, he was a selfless guy, and that’s what I respect the most.”
Gerald Green took a trip to Mexico to surprise his fiance for her birthday in August 2019, accompanied by close family and friends. Among them was his trainer, Kenny Ellis. Green had just re-signed with Houston in late July ahead of the 2019-20 season, so he needed to stay in peak shape with training camp around the corner. Over the next few days, Green and Ellis worked out in the hot Tulum sun, improving Green’s handle, his lateral quickness and his explosion. Green had posted one of the sessions on his Instagram, which caught Harden’s attention back home in Houston. Harden immediately FaceTimed him. “I’m tryna get some work in!” Green exclaimed. He had no idea that Harden was actually planning on taking a trip to join him — until he actually saw his teammate in Mexico. When Harden was ready to work out, however, they learned that the area gym had to be shut down for a number of days. So they decided to make the most out of their time there, relaxing and vibing together. The soundtrack? A heavy dose of rapper Meek Mill. The pair talked basketball the entire time. Harden’s biggest thing that summer was trying to figure out how to get deeper in the playoffs, having lost in the second round to the Warriors. He was desperate to return to the NBA Finals, where he’d been once in 2012 as a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder but came up short. On their last night there, Harden discussed improving the morale and chemistry of the team, an important conversation after the Paul era unraveled. Now, reunited with his Thunder backcourt partner, Russell Westbrook, Harden felt his team had a renewed sense of vigor and fierceness. Harden spoke with Green about the team’s current schematics and the changes he thought were necessary to take them up a level. He advocated for creating more shots for Green, among others, and specifically noted getting P.J. Tucker the ball more often in the corner. On the other side of the ball, Harden wanted to diversify their defensive approach. It was an honest, open conversation between two teammates on very different parts of the NBA spectrum but nothing out of the ordinary for Harden. He always championed players like Green, who played for the name on the front of the jersey. Harden knew how much suiting up for his hometown team meant to him. It was clear the Rockets had to improve after slipping up against an old foe, and that meant progress across the board — from star players down to rotational ones. The next day, the two teammates gathered their belongings and headed for Cancun International Airport to get back home, ready to attack a new season. “Two thousand dollars! Two thous—twenty-two! Going once!” An auctioneer was waving Harden’s jersey in the air at Capela’s Celebrity Slam event. On a night featuring dinner, cocktails and both live and silent auctions, their pick-and-roll partnership took a different meaning. Harden has long been one of Capela’s biggest supporters. Whether it’s helping him develop as a player, advocating to incorporate him into the rotation early in his career, playing a big part in his payday or showing up to every single one of his charity events, Harden is there for the big man. Harden showed up to the last event that Capela hosted, a charity bowling game at BowlMor Lanes in October 2019, together with Clark, Chris Clemons, Clark and a few others. Jerseys and other memorabilia were auctioned off that evening, with Harden signing every item on display. As soon as he entered the room the screams and cheers were deafening, as though he hit a game-winning shot. “He’s the life of the room,” said Olivier Kamougue, vice president of Capela’s CC15 Foundation. “You know when you’re in high school, there’s that one dude that when he walks in, everything shuts down? That’s James. He’s always been [like that].” But one of Harden and Capela’s most meaningful interactions came in a setting almost opposite of this one. Just two days after Houston’s heartbreaking Game 7 loss to the Warriors in the Western Conference Finals, Harden wanted to sit down with Capela. Emotions were still running high, after the Rockets’ best chance at a title slipped through their fingertips. He wanted to process what had just happened with his young center. It was already 1 in the afternoon, but Capela wanted breakfast. Capela loves breakfast, and that love need not be confined to time constraints. During his Rockets days, he had one favorite spot in particular: a hole-in-the-wall Mexican establishment in Stafford he alleged makes the greatest breakfast food in the city. That was where he wanted to go. So Harden got behind the wheel and, for the next half hour, they blasted music and took joy in the ride over. They couldn’t get time back, but back then, the future still held a whole lot of it.
Less than 48 hours after the 2020 season had been indefinitely suspended, I sat at home in my room wondering what would happen next. The coronavirus pandemic was still in its infant stages in the United States, and confusion reigned. What? How? Why? Around 8:30 that Friday evening, I got word that Harden — or someone who looks like him — had been seen at Prospect Park, a sports bar-restaurant, watching a game. Immediately, my mind started racing. Part of me wanted to ignore the text and wind down for the evening. But the stupid journalism part of my brain wouldn’t turn off. What if this is the last time you see Harden for months? You HAVE to try and get him on the record! Eventually, I made the choice to go. I grabbed everything I thought I would need from the house — sanitizer, mask, gloves — and hit the road in search of a story. I arrived, and, sure enough, there was James Harden. He wasn’t alone, either. Tucker, Ben McLemore and DeMarre Carroll were all spread out with him sitting down watching a Lakers-Clippers matchup on NBA TV. It was a bit ironic, with the Clippers having given Houston a shellacking at home a week earlier. Harden couldn’t take his eyes off the game. It was at that moment when I realized that I had to do what every journalist has done before: play the waiting game — but in the coolest way possible. I decided to ask for water and stand by the bar until an opening presented itself. I imagine I looked quite silly holding a plastic cup with latex gloves, but I wasn’t taking any chances with safety (beyond, of course, the chance I was obviously taking). Twenty minutes must have passed of me sipping water and rummaging through Twitter on my phone until I noticed a shadow lurking on the ground. It was Harden. He had left his seat, walked over and was staring right at me. Now, Harden and I had a pretty good relationship, at least in my opinion. He’s someone who keeps to himself a great deal but had seen his inner circle become familiar with me over the years. He would let me ask him questions on the occasions I bugged him leaving the locker room. He and Tucker would call me “Swag Champ,” an ode to my elite gameday outfits. Harden had clearly noticed my struggling with the gloves and had to say something. He looked me up and down, flashed a wide grin through his beard and spoke — the entire Harden experience in one sentence: “Take them ****ing gloves off, man,” he laughed. And then he walked away. https://theathletic.com/2420152/2021/03/03/james-harden-houston-rockets-stories-nba/
But what about Harden having a mean girls table when eating. Lmao I do have a Harden story but it involves personal info that isn’t well known ... so I won’t say....regardless, his house is really nice and he does watch First Take and Sportscenter BSPN stuff and he critiqued the takes on there emphatically lol I think it was Screamin A Smith saying something about Dantoni that got him going.
