In October 2023, James Harden publicly criticized Daryl Morey, saying that he felt betrayed by him, while branding Morey a liar and voicing his unwillingness to play under him.
The relationship between the two was destroyed completely, and according to Harden himself, is unsalvageable. Last week, Harden revealed that he never wants to speak with his former friend again.
Harden eventually was traded to the Los Angles Clippers. Then, before the Clippers’ game against the Dallas Mavericks last night, Mavericks broadcaster Brian Dameris took some time to address Harden by absolutely destroying the former MVP in a two-minutes long monologue, while laying out why Harden isn’t The Beard, nor the system, but the problem.
“Because listen, I get on my knees every night and pray for someone to believe in me like [former Rockets GM and current Sixers GM] Daryl Morey believed in you.
You wanted a certain coach, [the Houston Rockets] brought in Mike D’Antoni. You wanted to play a certain style, they played it. You wanted Dwight Howard, they brought him in and got rid of him when you were tired of him.
You wanted Chris Paul, they brought him in and got rid of him when you were tired of him. They brought in your old friend Russell Westbrook.
You want to go to Vegas on off days? They looked away. You wanted the team to stay over so you could go out at night, they changed the schedule—and it didn’t work.
And you know what, you said… I see the bright lights of New York. I want to go there. My old pal Kevin Durant. It’s gonna work, the big three—and all after one year you wanted out.
You realized, “oh my gosh! I took this guy for granted, the guy that believed in me. I want back with Daryl Morey.” They traded Ben Simmons for you—how did they pull that off?
And you know what? You went there, and you got a partner [Joel Embiid] who got the MVP. He won the MVP, and what did you say afterwards? You said, “they didn’t hand me the reigns.” You’re the point guard! You were holding the reigns!
And what did you do when you had the reigns? You scored 9 points in Game 7 against Boston, you blew a 3-2 series lead. So they fired their coach, not good enough.
You broke up with the guy that believed in you again, you said “the bright lights of LA! That’s where I want to go! Let’s see if that works.”
Listen James, have you ever had those friends who had bad roommates? Over and over they complained about their bad roommates: “this guy’s terrible,” “the bad roommate here,” they never thought to be self aware enough that THEY’RE the bad roommate! They’re the problem!
Hey James, YOU’RE the PROBLEM! If this doesn’t work this year, in this system, with this team, then you’re gonna go and point fingers at everybody else and then you’re gonna go back home and you’re gonna start swiping right for another team, and there’s not gonna be anyone left.
Because James, you’re not the beard, you’re not the system, you’re the problem.”
The clip went absolutely viral and millions of fans agreed with Dameris’ take. Dameris’ broadcaster, Bally Sports Southwest however apparently did not feel the same way, and deleted the video. The question though, remains why?
Per Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina:
So now the question is why did Bally Sports Southwest take down the video? Did Harden’s agent complain to someone? Did the Clippers complain? Was the NBA front office not happy to have a public account of how Harden has embarrassed the league out there in social media land?
Sources told me that there was zero outside influence at all. The decision to take down the clip solely came from Bally Sports Southwest executives who felt the clip “did not reflect the Mavericks organization.” Somehow, those at Bally Sports Southwest were not in agreement with Dameris’s “editorializing,” according to a source, because it went against the network’s “values.”
Laying out facts is against values?
This just makes things even more bizarre. You could understand why Harden or someone in Harden’s camp would be upset with the clip. But why on Earth would anyone from Bally Sports Southwest have an issue with an NBA analyst giving dead-on, solid analysis?
This just leads to more questions. Were the Mavericks upset with Dameris taking Harden to task? Did Bally Sports Southwest think the NBA would be upset with a player getting called out in such direct fashion? Did Bally Sports Southwest think it would bad business to have their analyst go after Harden, since Clippers games air on Bally Sports SoCal?
Whatever the case, Dameris did nothing wrong, said nothing wrong and it’s pathetic that Bally Sports Southwest deleted the clip.
