After just 80 games, James Harden was ready to move on from the Brooklyn Nets.
With most blaming Kyrie Irving, former Celtics legend Paul Pierce provided another explanation for his departure.
Here’s what he said in a recent appearance on the “No Chill” podcast with Gilbert Arenas:
“He respects Doc. I don’t think he respects Steve Nash,” Pierce said. “And then his time in Houston just got old. When you play for a team so long and it just y’all don’t make it, it’s just like … but I just thought he gonna respect Doc and Doc is gonna do everything in his power to try to make them to work.”
So, according to ‘the Truth,’ Harden doesn’t respect Steve Nash. Hired in the fall of 2020, Nash is a new and inexperienced coach tasked with leading a Nets team burden with enormous expectations.
On the surface, things were solid between them at first. Harden even called them twins when he first joined the Nets.
On the court, they process the game quickly. Both have led their team to the top of the Western Conference only to fall short in the playoffs undone by injuries or dynasties. Both possess a feel for which other players’ games fit with theirs and which do not. In Houston, former Rockets assistant Kelvin Sampson said Harden coached the team as much as the staff. That’s reminiscent of Dick Davey, Nash’s college coach at Santa Clara, who once said, “I was the head coach. But Steve did as much coaching as I did.”
“We are twins,” Harden said. “We’re just different colors.”
Towards the end, reports were swirling of a rift in the relationship that may have helped escalate the entire situation.
But to say Harden doesn’t respect Nash is something completely new, and would be pretty shocking if true.
Whatever the case, neither Nash nor Harden have to worry about each other now. At least not until they meet again in the postseason…
