Rockets CEO Tad Brown was forced to grant a rare interview on Thursday night, when his insistence that James Harden hadn’t gotten Kevin McHale fired doubled as a show of power of who runs the Houston organization.
CBS Sports had reported that Harden, the All-Star guard, had first pushed management to ax McHale — which the team did after a 4-7 start, a year after it reached the Western Conference Finals — then tried to pull strings to get Dwight Howard out of town at the trade deadline.
Houston GM Daryl Morey couldn’t deliver on the latter demand, and while Howard reportedly was shopped around the league, no deal was struck.
So Brown had to put out the fire and stress that Harden is not a puppet-master for the middling, 29-29 disaster that has been the Rockets.
“I can tell you unequivocally, being part of that [front-office] team, those things have never happened,” Brown said, via ESPN, before Houston’s 119-105 win over the Trail Blazers (aided by Harden’s 46 points).
“That’s frustrating, and, for whatever reason, it’s been a constant throughout this season. As we struggle and as we continue to struggle a little bit on the court, trying to get things to where we want them to be, that people have continued to take shots at our guys, take shots at our team, with unnamed sources being the ones who routinely provide that information.”
That information had been damning. According to the report, Harden’s power — and how he wields it — has been well-known in the Houston locker room, which has spread onto the court.
“It’s really bad for the locker room dynamic,” a source told CBS Sports. “If everybody knows that James Harden can fire you or trade you, are you going to pass the ball to Dwight or are you going to pass the ball to James Harden?”
The irony here is that Howard is being the one forcibly phased out. The 30-year-old is taking his fewest shots per game (8.8) since his rookie year as the offense is run around Harden. This coming four years after Howard, then with Orlando, reportedly orchestrated the firing of coach Stan Van Gundy, flexing his power to get rid of a coach he didn’t want.
Now, the Rockets are scrambling to shoot down reports that Harden holds the same organizational heft — all while furiously angling for a playoff spot, clinging to a half-game edge for the eighth spot ahead of the Jazz.