The Houston Rockets went to the Western Conference Finals last year, and were expected to do some big things this season. The only big thing they have done this year is completely collapse. They fired Kevin McHale, their new coach called his team “broken” earlier on this month, and there have been rumors flying that James Harden has asked for a trade. The team’s CEO however, denies this.
In a rare interview with the Houston media, team CEO Tad Brown denies Harden ever asking former coach Kevin McHale for a trade, as well as Harden asking the team to trade Dwight Howard.
“I can tell you unequivocally, being part of that [front-office] team, those things have never happened,” Brown said before his team blew out the TrailBlazers. “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.”
The Rockets are currently 29-29 and sit half a game out of the final playoff spot in the West, set to be an appetizer for the Warriors playoff run if they can make the playoffs at all. If any changes were to be made, they’d have to go up the chain through GM Daryl Morey, Brown, and owner Leslie Alexander. The Rockets tried to trade Howard at the NBA trade deadline to no avail, and had a trade that would have sent Donatas Motiejunas and Marcus Thornton to Detroit for a first round pick scuppered because the Lithuanian failed a physical.
“It’s disappointing and it’s bothersome from the standpoint of, James doesn’t deserve this, Dwight doesn’t deserve this,” Brown said. “Whether it be James coming in demanding to have Dwight traded — there was an article in the last week where supposedly both James and Dwight came to management and they both wanted each other traded — that never happened. Where James supposedly came in and demanded there be a coaching change — that never happened. Dwight came in and said he wanted to be traded — that never happened. These things comes up and take a life of their own.”
[ESPN/CBS Sports]
