A Deep and Honest Convo About James Harden's Career Decisions 

Tim Legler and Richard Jefferson are such great guests. I could listen to those two guys talk basketball all day.

This is what ESPN is supposed to be. Guys with experience plus real intelligence, talking ball. No bullshit. Edit: I’m quite aware of having to do things a consumer digs. All I’m asking for is once a week, a one hour segment of these three. Give casuals a CHANCE to stumble onto something intelligence JFC.

Man this convo was so good and refreshing from the media degeneracy of late

Amazing trio, 3 guys with good vibes & good conversation

I’d legit watch a podcast of these 3 every week. One of the most genuine and informational convos ab hoops I ever heard.

god it's so refreshing to see a grounded logical conversation about this man's career

When we actually have genuine basketball conversations it’s way more authentic rather then just hating to hate , love to see it

This show is better than First Take and Undisputed could ever be.

Hardens most MASSIVE mistake was asking out of Brooklyn IMO. Nets we’re gonna pay Harden the full max even with his production decline. I wasn’t a “fan” of the Nets big 3 but if healthy they would have won in 2021 against Pheonix & 2022 against Golden State. The Dynamic of Harden as the primary playmaker, Kyrie as primary scorer & KD giving you 30 playing off-ball pretty much was a guaranteed 130ppg(Nets averaged 118PPG in 2021 while big 3 barley played together) -In fairness Nets never added P.J Tucker& let Jeff Green walk in 21’ which I also believe made Harden unhappy because Tucker said he thought he was going to Brooklyn but ended up in Milwaukee. Tucker only made 5.7mil & the Nets had a 6Mil Trade Exception & Nets NEEDED a defensive anchor that didn’t want to shoot.

Please bring RJ more, you 2 together are great

Isaiah Thomas retired at 32-33 after his Achilles tore in 94, Ewing played till his knees almost fell off at the age of 40, Dominique had a resurgence after he tore his Achilles as well. So there's always those few who seemed to just play longer than one thought

Hell yes this is my dream podcast lineup in terms of NBA media. Top shelf!

Really liked the perspective that when you lose 5% of your edge, you inadvertently widen the circle of people who can take you on by an order of magnitude. Plays into the famous quote "I'm closer to LeBron than you are to me" by Brian Scalabrine. The NBA be stacked like that.

Harden's performance is indeed a 'system' and his transformation and adaptability over the years is significant. Nevertheless, as you pointed out quite eloquently, he does need to make further tweaks for the true essence of his talent to shine.

JJ bro I just wanna say you have done an incredible job with this show. This is by far the best talk about James Harden I’ve heard, and I watch basketball debates everyday lol

Damn the way RJ broke it down was crazy though. I always respected Houston James…dude was scoring 35+ in his sleep…but I didn’t realize in the big picture his effect on the last 2 teams. Gotta respect it. The media though will highlight the down moments of Harden so 🤷🏾‍♂️. (But as a Heat fan, I know better to listen to the media in the first place)…but JJ a real one

Harden leaving Philly made no sense from a basketball standpoint. In Philly he was the PG, main facilitator. Playing alongside a dominant Big, and they played off of each other very very well. Now you demand a trade to LA, where there's 3 other ball dominant players, and no elite Pick and Roll partner for Harden to feed off of. It's a bad fit.

I think this was an extremely fair conversation about him. Sometimes it feels like Legler talks too much about his negatives but Harden is a superstar with a crazy ceiling AND floor so no one is obligated to talk about the positives when the negatives become very glaring. Still I appreciate the greatness more than the negatives

I've been watching basketball since the 80's and watching you 3 is a breath of fresh air. THANK U

Love the JJ+RJ combo when calling games, they’re great here too and Tim is awesome as always

they talked about some of the unfair criticism which many haven't mentioned but they completely ignored a lot of the legit negative! like showing up overweight in Houston, or quitting, or publicly calling his GM a liar, making it know he was going back to Houston & then when they sign FVV instead... if I just listened this and didn't know anything else I'd think Harden was a misunderstood professional never-quit-and-disappear-in-the-playoffs superstar.

Huge fan of RJ, JJ, and Tim. I usually don't bother watching NBA analysis unless one of them is involved. I enjoyed watching them play, and I'm really glad to see them carrying on as top notch analysts.

JJ and Legler are great together JJ and Richardson have always been great these 3 is just amazing so much basketball knowledge in 1 room I could watch these 3 all day!

This was one of my favorite hoops conversations having these three break things down

Amazing commentary! I hope JJ brings them back more.

This made it to the trending page, impressive work JJ!

JJ blending in with the lights is a great touch. Great conversation fellas!

I definitely could get used to y’all three choppin it up. Love it gents!

this line up is the balance of Ball and Humor. I hope they will make it a regular or a monthly thing.

man, it's real easy to ignore the bs around me when we are spoiled with such good, consistent NBA content, first thing I type into youtube every day is JJ

This trio of analysts is GOATed when it comes to in depth analysis layered with actual experience having been on the NBA floor as great players.

I love JJ, and his generous take on Harden’s team movements at around 5:00 of the video sounds ok on the surface… but if something “happens to you” in three straight stops, maybe it’s not “happening to” you…

Need these 3 together more often on here

This was great to watch, y’all brought up different points and matters throughout the conversation and they were all on point. Agree with RJ it’s been a shitty start so far but they still have enough time and talent to turn it around

A sample size of these basketball minds is damn near perfect!! JJ make this a regular thing please!!

8 minutes in and I love this! Thank yall so much for adding context to James. This is what I’ve been saying as a fan of his. He’s not perfect but the hate bandwagon has been to much like this man isn’t greatness personified!

JJ is the best, and a podcast with 2 of the other best analysts is superb. 👍

This is by far the best NBA analysis I've heard in my entire life.

Great hoops talk here guys!! We need more of this!! 💯

I'll always have to respect Harden, because his team was the only team to push the healthy KD warriors. Every other team was crushed and complaining that it was unfair

Richard wearing his own NBA Jam shirt with Channing Frye is a new level of ICONIC

damn, what a great convo and great energy w/ you 3 guys.

Great content JJ, Thank you from Indonesia

I'm thankful room of great basketball analysts ❤

JJ is dope @ what he does and I was a fan of his as a player but he is a massive “player apologist”. I can’t recall him ever holding players accountable 4 their own actions, poor attitudes and decisions. That’s the problem with the “new media”. There’s zero pushback. There needs 2 be more objectivity.

What a great conversation. I want more

Awesome pod, need you 3 more pls JJ

The craziest part is after 3 wining in a row, not a single media talked about clippers.. Not a single one.. Except you.. Thank you, and please addressed about this next, why they talked about clippers when they lose this season..

The amount of eggshells jj walks on is insane.

More of this, please!

love you JJ, great convo with RJ and the other dude

The biggest problem with Harden is how he's behaving off the ball. Dude is completely stationary when he doesn't have the ball in his hands and often times get ls frustrated for something and decides to not put effort in transitioning to defense. You can't be the "system" if it all starts and ends with you. That's why Kobe predicted James' playstyle wouldn't get him far

Say what you want about Harden, but he put a lot of young girls through college.

If these 3 get their own show or even just do podcasting together, it might be my favourite go to place for talking basketball. Atm it’s First things first because the chemistry between Wildes, Brou and Nick is next level insane and unmatched by anybody but these guys might be able to rival that and they got more pro knowledge obviously haha

Love this trio. keep it up fellas!

We need more RJ on this podcast.

I need these three on the podcast everyday

This is a fire trio. Any place I can find the full recording of these 3's convo?

Tim, JJ and RJ.. my pleasure, guys 💪💪💪💪💪

This why players pod get me heated sometimes. 1 yes we all know what James was saying. Him saying that was shifting blame not taking accountability When ppl bring up him taking less money bro that was his decision to take less money and bring in his friends Also let’s not forget how he acted to get out of these places

Shout out Mavs announcer for that amazing rant

This is the way media should be, enjoy a healthy conversation without bashing anybody. Love it guys.

this was great..unbiased and just a really good watch

His skill set to me would have been perfect for the Clippers second unit. He would give points off the bench and would help get that second unit going.

One thing JJ gonna always do, is let's his peers off the hook all the time

Please do a weekly show with this trio.

Interesting take.. love RJ and JJ’s take. Just never seen a dude match his shirt with his lamp shades.

It's not necessarily his performance, which has also diminished, its mentality. James Harden has now established himself as a player who will quit on his team if things don't go his way. For an allegedly "max" player this is a HUGE liability, maybe even worse than being injury prone because it can't be controlled for.

This "new" Harden is hella confusing. People think he's just declined as a player and slowed down, but that's not even remotely close to the reason why he's scoring less.. The reason is him giving up on shots, refusing to shoot the ball and passing way too often compared to his Houston version. It's baffling really why he keeps passing the ball so much when he's still CLEARLY capable of scoring 25-30 a night.

All three of these guys played and think about the game deeply such a fan of their thoughts

This is going to be a great episode

Legler is one of the best. Doesn’t let his emotions get into it.

At some point we have to also hold James Harden accountable...

great conversation

Long form, thoughtful analysis is the future.

When the Clippers get hot, the narrative will change.

Real irony is that we employees can change jobs every other year looking selfishly for a better option but athletes cannot 😅

These guys have perfect chemistry. I love it

Any time a JJ video has “deep and honest” in the title, I’m all in

You can’t expect people to like him after he’s left city after city at this point. Respect! Yeah his talent demands that, but not being a fan of the guy is justified. Most fans don’t care about the individual situations he might’ve experienced. All fans see is James moving from squad to squad when things don’t go their way.

The only period I felt bad for him was his Nets tenure cause' most of the problems weren't his, it was Covid, Kyrie shenanigans, and injuries. In other places, he's also at fault. Houston gave him everything, people tend to gloss over this for some reason. They got D'Antoni, they got him CP3, Dwight Howard, Westbrook, and in the end he didn't do jack in terms of championships. Even Kobe said his style of play won't translate to championships and he was proven correct. Was he unlucky because his team existed coincidentally with the GSW dynasty? Sure, but MVPs aside, he still didn't bring the city a title. At Philly, both sides were definitely at fault. Sixers were wrong for promising to pay him when they eventually didn't, but then again it's a hard decision to pay an aging and declining dude loads of money when you already got Embiid and potentially big money for Maxey coming anyways, not to mention that with the exception of the two good games he carried Philly, he kinda stunk the rest of it. Now dude goes and says this type of stuff on a brand new team, his 4th in like 4-6 years? Westbrook had to be the guy sacrificing in order for the team to be able to fit more.

This was refreshing as hell, they actually had a real honest conversation, not trying to create narratives. Its literally night and day compared to ESPN lol

Guys I am so impressed at your Clarity of Thought and Objectivity, very refreshing!

this was great, a good conversation out of the clowning others are doing

The media tries their hardest to tear James Harden down. James Harden is a phenomenal basketball player and an asset to any team that he’s on, he may not be the greatest in the postseason but he will get you to the postseason

The thing with James Harden is, it was never a doubt that he'll be able to make a team cruise through the regular season and have fantastic offensive numbers. It's the playoffs where the "James Harden system" fails. Kobe himself said it, you can't win a chip with that style of play. Yes, they did get close in the 2018 playoffs, but that's the most successful playoff run that he's had as the main option. Not to mention, there are some games that he seems to tune out and just doesn't give a damn. That closing game against the Spurs where he was clearly checked out before the game even started. Game 6 and 7 of the Celtics series was abysmal too. So these regular season stats don't mean a thing to me if he can't translate it to the playoffs. Because the playoffs are different. In the regular season, teams can barely gameplan for you. The playoffs when you're facing the best of the best, and the teams can zone in on how to stop you, he just struggles or tunes out most of the time.

Jj has had one of the best podcast and Tim is old school and RJ is hilarious !!! What’s combo

Great content guys

"IT was Golden State or LeBron..." that sumed why lebron lost so many finals..

We’ll think about James Harden’s career for 20 minutes but we won’t consider our own careers at all 😢

Love this show..no bs just hooptalk

What a cast! Bravo

JJ RJ Legler. Need this pod on the regular

JJ is MY commentary MVP - most valuable pundit

For about 4 or 5 years straight, Harden was the most exciting player to watch play in the nba. He's one of the greatest scorers ever. People need to stop the hate

W video please keep this type of content up

I love this freaking podcast

Great discussion👌

Still amazing to have JJ Redick and Tim Legler taking hoops, here! Both are top 20 in career 3 point percentage (Legs is 8th at .4312 (5th when he retired), JJ is 18th at .4145), and Richard Jefferson is no slouch (respectable, at .376)! RJ is spot on about James Harden "adjusting" his game, because RJ came into the league as a high flaying "athlete" and had to really work on developing a reliable 3 point shot. More shows like this, please.

Great convo