Brooklyn Nets star James Harden apologized for the way he ended his term with the Houston Rockets, and told ESPN’s Rachel Nichols that he felt that last month’s box office trade advance could having been softer.
“I don’t like it at all because I’m not who I am,” Harden said when asked to reflect on the weeks leading up to the trade. “The drama, the excerpt you want to call it, the negativity for me. I don’t like negative energy. That’s exhausting. So I don’t like how it’s necessarily happened.
“I think 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 to qualify for the title 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 the video of his maskless socialization at a club.
Things came to an end after the Jan. 12 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, when Harden proclaimed that the Rockets “weren’t good enough” and that it was a situation that “can’t be fixed.”
Harden was switched to the Nets the next day.
The former MVP told Nichols that he was not trying to be selfish and that the “front office knew where he was and what he wanted.”
“I apologize for how it went down, but I guess I had to do what I had to do to get where I wanted to go,” Harden said. “And the merit in Houston, I didn’t necessarily have to move to Brooklyn. They could have moved me anywhere, but they’re guys standing there. And it ended the right way, but they just didn’t like it the way it did. play this month or two “.