Kevin McHale discusses James Harden and Daryl Morey in new interview [2023]

[Im Still Ballin]

Some good stuff here. Kobe said the same thing about Harden's style of offense.

https://heavy.com/sports/houston-roc...morey-fallout/

The problems grew in the 2015 playoffs when McHale benched Harden in the fourth quarter as Houston staved off elimination in Game 6 against the Clippers. Harden played well in the Game 7 victory, but the Rockets lost the conference finals in five to Golden State, which beat Cleveland for the NBA crown.

“The next year he came to camp, he was fat and didn’t feel like playing, and I got fired (11) games into the season,” McHale said. “He had a plan.”

“You know, when we first got him from Oklahoma City, he was actually pretty easy to coach really,” McHale told Heavy. “He came from being the third option in Oklahoma City with (Russell) Westbrook and (Kevin) Durant being ahead of him. He came in and we put in a couple of sets he liked that they ran there for him. He came off screens. He got off the ball. Never was a great lane runner. Never threw the ball ahead a lot. But he did more little things back then. Like he would set screens, come off screens, stuff like that.

“But as he started playing better, it became harder. He wanted the ball in his hands, he didn’t want to come off actions, he just started becoming more one-dimensional. ‘Give me the ball, put a 1-4 flat or give me a pick and roll, and just let me make every decision.’

“My feeling was and always has been that type of offense works in the regular season, but against good teams, they can take away something. It’s hard for them to take away two or three different things, but they can take away something. I said it about Phoenix when Steve Nash was there; it works great in the regular season, but when they can load up defensively and do different stuff, you have to have different prongs to your offense. So it became harder to get James to do a lot of the little things.

“I mean, if you watch Steph Curry, look at him set screens and look at the separation he gets when he sets a screen and just sprints out of it. Look at him coming off actions. He does that, and everybody gets open because of it. That became more of a problem with James.”

On Daryl Morey:

“I liked working with Daryl, though sometimes I thought there was too much … just analytics,” he said. “There’s an odd thing in basketball that’s very hard to define. But if my skill set and your skill set really match and we really have great chemistry, you and I can beat two guys 2-on-2 when neither one of us could beat our guy 1-on-1. That’s the fun thing about basketball, and I always thought that could get lost. There were a lot of numbers with Daryl.

“I think he’s gotten better understanding that. And I’ll give Daryl and the owner, Leslie Alexander, credit. They said, ‘Hey, you’re going to have to get along with James because it’s a lot easier to replace you than it is James.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I hear ya. I agree.’ My philosophy has always been, would you rather lose your top player, or would you rather lose the other 13 guys? If you just start making rules that just allow the top guy to do whatever he wants to do, the other guys go, ‘Well, I guess being on time’s not that big of a deal. I guess showing up and playing hard’s not that big of a deal. I guess running back on defense is not that big of a deal.’

“But overall with James, it wasn’t that bad. The year he came to camp heavy and didn’t feel like playing, that was hard. I remember looking at him and saying, ‘Ugh, it’s going to take to December before he’s in shape.’ But whatever situation you’re in, you just have to find a way to work through it if you want to be successful. It’s the same with James and Daryl here. We’ll see.”

[Im Still Ballin]