Brooklyn Nets star James Harden apologized for how his Houston Rockets era ended, and told ESPN’s Rachel Nichols that he felt the pre-exchange period last month could have simpler state.
“I didn’t like it at all because I’m not like that,” Harden said when asked to reflect on the weeks leading up to the exchange. “Drama, the extra as you mean, negativity for me. I really don’t like negative energy. That’s exhausting. So I don’t like how it necessarily happens.
“I feel like it could have happened a lot smoother, a lot easier, but that’s what it is.”
Harden’s desire to leave Houston after eight years for a title contender was an open secret in the weeks leading up to the season. He started the year with a $ 50,000 fine for violating COVID-19 protocols after the League reviewed a video of him socializing at a club without wearing a mask.
Things reached a tipping point after a Jan. 12 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, when Harden proclaimed that the Rockets “just weren’t good enough” and that it was a situation that “can’t be fixed.”
Harden was changed to the Nets the next day.
the ex Most Valuable Player he told Nichols that he was not trying to be selfish and that “the main office knew where I was and what I wanted.”
“I apologize for what happened, but I guess I had to do what I had to do to get where I wanted to go,” Harden said. “And I give him credit for Houston. They didn’t necessarily have to trade me in Brooklyn. They could have traded me anywhere. And it ended the right way, but I just didn’t like how this month or two went.”