The Josh Innes Show - James Harden Is Still James Harden

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

The NHL and NBA playoffs have been outstanding. People on the radio in St. Louis are forgiving the Blues for blowing Game 7 to the Jets. I'm a believer that expectations can change from game to game and minute to minute. You cannot blow that game and leave the season feeling good. The Rockets laid a giant egg in Game 7. Jalen Green was a disaster. What else do the Rockets need? James Harden was a no show in Game 7 for the Clippers. Shocker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The following was recorded from inside an ice plunge Okay, all right When a core's life is cold enough the mountains on the can turn blue So the next time you want to cold loggered cold filtered cold package Core's light just wait until those glorious mountains on the can turn blue. Whoo! It's easy to say that fast when you're freezing gold. So the postseason has been great in both hockey and basketball so far.

And I think more people are watching these sports this year too. They're just good competitive sporting events. Basketball game sevens weren't very good. The Rockets game last night was dreadful. The Denver game seven was dreadful, but the hockey game seven last night, the Blues and Winnipeg was outstanding, right? Like you really think about that and you go like how improbable it was that Winnipeg won that series. Their goalie was pulled three

different times in that series. All the games that were played in St. Louis where the guy gave up like a thousand goals. That's a guy by the way who is a candidate for the heart trophy to be the MVP of the National Hockey League and he was pulled from goal three times all three of the games in St. Louis. It's bonkers. I've never seen anything like that. Like I've been trying to think about that where a dude who's at an MVP level falls off a cliff. Like you can think of things like Rick Ankeel getting the yips and the playoffs against the Braves, right? Like you

think about that. He wasn't an MVP level. He was a very good young pitcher who many thought was on the fast track to becoming one of the best young dominant left handed pitchers in the game and he had a great regular season and just one day throws a wild pitch and then can't find the strike zone and throws like six wild pitches in one inning or whatever that number was and it ruined him forever until he came back years later as an outfielder right so like that's an example of someone or like chuck nablockach can't make the throw. He gets the yips, can't make the throw from second base to first base. Like you

see these types of things, but you rarely see a situation where you've got an MVP level player and by the way nominated for the MVP, like he's the MVP of the league finalist and gets pulled from goal three times in a seven game series because he gave up like 1617 goals. Whatever the number ended up being in those three games like that's bananas, right? Like you can even look at the Rockets series and and Jalen Green in no way was some sort of MVP candidate, but Jalen Green was the star quote unquote and best player for the

Rockets and what is Jalen Green end up doing in that series outside of game two? Dude averaged like eight points a game, nine points a game in the other games. You saw more Wingstop commercials than points he put on the board. The Wingstop commercials with Jalen Green, if you added up the total number of times those ran during all the games he played in, and then you counted up all the points combined in the games that weren't game two. I'm going to guess more Wingstop

commercials aired than points he actually scored. I need someone to do the data. Is there anybody in advertising or anyone that just wants to count those for me? I need to know over the course of the games that were played with Jalen Green, how many times did the Jalen Green Wingstop commercial air versus how many points he scored outside of game two because I'm going to guess in the other six games combined, he scored like 60 points, something like that 60. Do you believe that that commercial ran more than 60 times? I'm going to say yes, which means that Jalen Green was on television more for Wingstop

than he was in crunch time of these games because he wasn't scoring and you know, like so even Jalen Green. Jalen Green struggled in that series, but Jalen Green is not a superstar like this would be like Steph Curry scoring nine points a game and being terrible and turning the ball over ten times, right? It's absurd like it's unheard of what we saw. I cannot think of an example of a guy who's that good during a particular regular season who couldn't get it figured out in a playoff

series. Now, they won that series and that was an outstanding game, right? Like you're the Blues. You're up with two minutes to go. You're up by two goals. You win that game. You must win that game. Like I'm listening to local sports radio here in St. Louis. Actually before I get into that, let me play a couple commercials and we'll continue. All right, if you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs, you got to check out Pick Six from DraftKings. When it comes to basketball payouts, DraftKings Pick Six posterizes the competition, including prize picks. It's a very simple concept.

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So I'm listening to local sports radio in St. Louis today about that. Now I want you to imagine something like that happen in Philadelphia boss, particularly Philadelphia where they're fucking nutcases, right? Now granted hockey is not a huge deal in Philadelphia. It's a huge deal to the people that like hockey but everybody else just kind of like whatever doesn't really get a lot of airtime on the radio.

They were in the playoffs, it'd get some. And if they lost a game like that, it would be all day. That's the interesting thing about a sport like hockey in a city like Philadelphia, most major cities, you know? Like if something really dramatic happens, like the team is really good and they win the Stanley Cup, then you'll talk about it. And if they lose in a horrific fashion,

we'll talk about it, right? And that's what happened last night. Now here in St. Louis, the Blues are like an all day every day talking point because we ain't got a lot here. Cardinals are dreadful and the Blues like that's the other big team here. There are two major professional sports franchises here unless you count soccer unless you count the UFL. So you've got two of the major four sports in the city and

people talk about hockey. It's fascinating because I'll listen to people talking about hockey on the radio and I'm like I can't do this. Like I like hockey. I'll watch hockey but I can't go on the radio and start telling you about the third line centers and shit. And I'm like, I'm not interested in that but you do what you do. That was probably part of the reason why I was never going to make it here is I could not fathom having to go on the air here and talk about hockey like I understand hockey. I like hockey.

I get the premise of hockey but like again I tell you this story all the time when I was a kid and I was doing the analyst work for the Baton Rouge Kingfish like I had no true insights. I'm a 15 year old dipshit that never played hockey. I'm sitting there like just zoom it towards the net and get a big juicy rebound. Like that was my breakdown of this shit. So imagine having to do that every day. But I'm listening to this radio show today. Now granted the Blues were not good for the first half of the season and they fired a coach and they hired a new coach. They've actually

fired two coaches in the last two years. They fired Craig Berube, then fired his replacement and brought in Jim Montgomery, who's obviously a very accomplished NHL head coach, because there's like eight head coaches in the NHL and they just bounce from place to place. So then they get hot and they get in. Mind you, they were down 3-2, had to go home, got a dominant win at home, right? So people talk about expectations for teams, right, and how they can change over the course of a year. No one thought the Blues would be in, so the Blues getting in was kind of like house money, like holy shit, young team, found a stride, got into the playoffs, that's fun. It's land yap as they call it in Louisiana. Getting into the playoffs is a little extra, that's nice. Then they were down two-nothing and everybody's like, oh well I guess the season's over but it was a good run anyway and we tried, we gave them a good fight. Then they were down 2-0 and everybody's like, oh, well, I guess the season's over, but it was a good run anyway and we tried. We gave them a good fight. Then they

tied it and it became, I think we can win this damn series against the best team in hockey. Then they're down 3-2 and again, it's kind of like, well, we've chased the goalie off twice. I mean, look, we could win this at home and then they do. Then they're up 3-1 in a game seven with two minutes to go on the road and you know every fucking person in Saint Louis is going we're going to the next round. This is ridiculous. How did we do this? How did we accomplish this? What happened? And then

they give up the goal with a minute something then they give up the time goal like two seconds left then in the double overtime they give up the winner and they lose and I'm listening to the radio today and it's like well, you know guys nobody thought they'd be there and this is a young team and those are all fair points. I'm'm listening to the radio today and it's like, well, you know, guys, nobody thought they'd be there and this is a young team and those are all fair points. I'm not going to disagree with that. However, over the course of a series and over a season, expectations can be adjusted based on what we're

seeing with our own eyes, right? If you are Golden State, before you had Jimmy Butler, your expectations weren't very high because that team fucking sucked. They were a mid lane 500 team. Once you add Jimmy Butler, everything you did before Jimmy Butler has nothing to do with what the expectations are, right? You get in, you expect if you're a team like Golden State, you expect to be the young inexperienced Houston Rockets team, and they did, right? You expect that. My expectation watching the Blues was when you're up 3-1 with two minutes to go, you win that game, and if you don't, it is a tragedy. I don't

care that you shouldn't have been there anyway, and I don't care that that's the best team and you know, president's trophy. I don't give a shit. Two minutes to go in the game. You're up three to one. You've chased the MVP caliber goalie three times in that series. You're up three to one in game seven in their place. You've outplayed them in almost every game. What the **** and you outplayed them in the games you lost at least one of them. You know you could have should have won one of those. So I couldn't go

on the radio today and be like, you know what guys, it was tough but you know, we shouldn't have been there anyway. Expectations change and the expectation for a hockey team that's up three to one with two minutes to go is you win that game and you're in the next round of the playoffs. Then once you get there, if you lose to Dallas or whoever, you go, okay, well, it was a hell of a run. I do think that losing the way they lost impacts the way you look at a season like

that. How can it not? But I'm listening to these people here and this is partially why I think I just would have never had a chance to be successful here in sports and I and this isn't to rip the people who are in sports here. It's just not my style like to just kind of sit back and go aw shucks, you know, we lost that and it sucks and it was brutal and it was embarrassing but we shouldn't have been there anyway. But you were there and in the same

breath you're telling me that in a seven game series you felt the Blues were a better team in that series than the Winnipeg Jets. So if you were the better team and you outplayed them in most of the games and you guys were crushing and you were up 3-1 with 2 minutes to go and you don't win the game, then you blew it. If you don't want to call it a choke job, don't call it a choke job, but you know goddamn good and well when you're up 3-1 with 2 minutes to go, your expectations for this season

changed. So you can't go back and tell me, well, we weren't supposed to be there anyway. So I mean just being in the playoffs is great. I would accept that when you were down to nothing when it was to nothing in the series two games to none and you shouldn't have been in the playoffs. You barely squeaked in and you had a 12 game winning streak and it's a young team and they weren't supposed to do anything anyway. If you would have lost that series and gotten swept or lost for one, I would have said, yeah, okay, and each game was like 4-1 itself. And like,

okay, cool, we're a young team, we're on the come up, we're trying to build. You can't tell me that once you get it to game seven and you've won three of those games and the three you won were dominant victories and you gave away one of the games on the road, you can't tell me that when it's 3-1 with two minutes to go, your expectations didn't change. That's the kind of bullshit I hate. You should be enraged by that today. Oh, but man, they gave it their best effort. You got one of the best goalies in the league in the net for you. Guy who's won a Stanley Cup. Your expectation should be that he keeps the fucking puck out

of the net twice in two minutes and he didn't do it. So there was that. That was a great game seven though and I found myself flipping over that a lot more than the game seven of the Rockets which was dreadful. God damn dude like give me something better than that. Jalen Green's I mean dude you seem you're a fine player, nice regular season player but I've been seeing media people talking about what the Rockets need. Rockets may need two hoopers. They don't have any shooting of which to speak. Now you'll have moments where like Van Vliet was

great from games like three to six or whatever it was. Van Vliet couldn't miss for a stretch. He's a great shooter and he's always been a great shooter. Regular season he wasn't great but he turned it up for a couple of playoff games and he was a key in winning. You don't have shooting. You're grimy. You're gritty. You're dirty. You know, you scrap with these guys and that's great. But ultimately when it's all said and done in a game that you needed to score points, by the way, you held Golden State to really will say under 100. There was a the fourth quarter was a giant

number like 60 something points were scored, but the game was kind of out of hand anyway. Like they were just as terrible as you for the most part offensively. They just drilled a fuck ton of threes and their other dudes made big plays. But that's hideous. You know, talk about expectations changing, right? The Rockets hadn't been into the postseason since what? 2019? 2020? What was it? 20? Was it bubble? Was the bubble the last time the Rockets were in the playoffs? Okay, and that's not hadn't been into the postseason since what 2019-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20 look at point spreads and you see who's favored and all that. It was a very tight series. Every game home team would be favored by a handful basically and it would kind of flip back and forth with home versus road.

But I think your expectation if you're a Rockets fan was to be hey, let's put out a good game and battle these guys and if we lose hey, you still lost to Steph Curry and he's still goat level and Jimmy Butler is a great playoff player and we're still young and blah blah blah. To lose in such a hideous fashion last night at home and you also reveal that your star player quote unquote really isn't a star player and you can give them the benefit of the doubt first playoff series whatever but for six of those games to be almost a no-show like what are we doing? So

hey good for the Rockets for getting there. But I don't think what they're doing is something that's sustainable for long term success, particularly in the playoffs, they're gonna have to go out and find a couple of shooters, they got to find legitimate perimeter scoring threats, they got a lot of good glue guys, a lot of good energy guys, they don't have legit one onone hoopers that are going to do shit for them, so they got to find that. So nice season, but to lose that game the way they lost

it, even losing to Steph Curry isn't shameful because again those guys you know that they can get hot and hit 23s. The shameful part is that you were just dreadful and all of your deficiencies were revealed in one game because you kind of escaped them even though it was a 3-3 series you kind of escaped most of your deficiencies throughout that series that game 7 was a lot like game 1 but throughout the series you were able to to kind of overcome things and Van Vliet kind of bailed you out a lot hitting 6-7 threes basically every game down the stretch kind of bailed you out a lot, hitting six, seven threes basically every game down the stretch, kind of bailed you out there. You hit more threes than you usually hit,

but they still got some work to do, especially when you got the West, you got Oklahoma City who can ball, but we'll see what they're gonna do. I'm not sold on Oklahoma City. They got the Nuggets. That's tonight, that'll be fun. But that's what you got going on in the NBA right now.

Jim Harden, our buddy, I had almost turned a corner on this guy. So Jim Harden, James, I never liked him when he was in Houston. Hated everything about his game. Hated the constant free throw shooting. Hated the hunting fouls. I hated that shit. Most people did. But since he played for your team, it was like, okay, we can live with it because he's our guy. If you don't want him to shoot free throws, don't foul foul him that's one of those lines that we got from Mike D'Antoni one of my favorite drops we used to play is they asked him about Jim Harden getting

fouled all the time and shooting tons of free throws said well if you don't want to shoot free throws don't foul him right so like I hated Jim Harden everything about him just despised him then he kind of bounces around and I didn't like him in Philadelphia him and Darrell I didn't like him in in Brooklyn but then he's in this situation in LA and he kind of finds kind of a different groove about him he's a good distributor of the ball he's the guy that on any given night's gonna give you seven eight nine ten assists gonna dish the ball not gonna shoot volume right he's not a volume shooter anymore he's not a guy that on any given night is going to give you seven eight nine ten assist gonna dish the ball Not gonna shoot volume right? He's not a volume shooter anymore. He's not a guy that's gonna shoot it 25 times

He's a guy that's gonna shoot it 12 14 times. That's who he is right? That's James Hart So I'd kind of turned a corner and Jilly asked me before the game when we were making some bets She asked me if I felt that Game 7 Harden would show up or is this a different type of thing? I said, you know what, Jilly, I'm going to say something here. I think that James Harden has kind of turned a corner as a player and I don't expect him to have a no-show game in this one. I think he'll play well. Now in his defense, they were getting run out of the building so the stats are a bit skewed but my man attempted eight fucking shots and I'm watching the broadcast and I hear Reggie Miller, I think it was Reggie Miller and he's like no wasn't Reggie no it was somebody else.

Granhill it was Granhill. So Granhill goes you know they're gonna need James Harden he can't shoot more he's two of eight but he's got to be two of 18. He's just got to shoot. I don't think he ever shot after that. Did he finish two of eight, two of ten, something like that? Total no show offensively and you realize that James Harden is still James Harden. He is the same guy he has always been and he always will be. He is a guy that runs from these moments. Now staunch defender could say well he had 13 assists and the points weren't there because

they were down by 30. Very fair. That's fair to say. But the dude makes 30 some odd million dollars a year and he's a future Hall of Famer and a superstar player. Even guys like let's think of Chris Paul. Chris Paul who's one of the all-time great assist men of all time. I guarantee you in close out games and clutch games Chris Paul's not shooting the ball eight times in his prime. And I understand that Harden's not in his prime so to speak but the guy can still play. Like Chris Paul whose

main job it is to distribute the guy can still play. Like Chris Paul, whose main job it is to distribute the basketball to other people. 10 assists is the minimum for him in a game. A double double is almost a lot because that dude's going to get 10 assists and he's going to hit five, six little mid range jumpers from the elbow, like a double double, almost a lock for prime Chris Paul.

Guy that's going to throw that Crescent City connection lob to Tyson Chandler, right? Like you're gonna get that. I guarantee you and closeout games are a clutch game and I'm not talking about once Chris Paul joined up with with James Harden because he was kind of the the Robin to the Batman. I'm talking star Chris Paul early in LA, playoff series, lobbing it to DeAndre Jordan, that type of shit, lobbing it to Blake Griffin. I'd like to know if there were closeout clutch games like that where homeboy only shot the ball eight times and that's coming from one of the great distributors of the basketball of all time.

Never been known as a volume shooter but I guarantee you Chris Paul didn't disappear in those kind of games and now I'm gonna have to know. I'm gonna have to look at a Chris Paul game log to find out but I feel like Chris Paul didn't disappear in those kind of games and only shoot the ball eight times. And we saw that all the time in Houston. All the time. And it's the same guy. I said this on Twitter. James Harden is basically the, he's the dad that comes back into the kid's life and everybody's like, you know, your dad's a fucking loser and he's just going to bail on you again. And you're like, no, he's not. My dad's amazing. He's taking me to fucking Disney World and you're going to see he loves me. He's back.

And like he spends a couple of days with the kid and he's trying to convince people that he's still the you know, he's a different guy and whatever. Then the kid sitting outside with his suitcase ready to make the trip to Disney World, got like some Mickey Mouse ears on. He ran it and dad never shows up. You know what he's like? It's kind of like at the end of like the end of Blow when Johnny Depp gets arrested again, right before he's going to take his daughter, who, by the way, is Emma Roberts, was going to take his daughter to Disney World and all that shit.

And then he got arrested and the girl's just sitting out there on the curb on her suitcase sad. That's James Harden fans. Every year when you're like, maybe James Harden's different, maybe this is a different world for James Harden. It's not a different world for James Harden. James Harden is James Harden. Let's look at a game log here. I need postseason game logs for Chris Paul and I need to see game sevens or game sixes like closeout crunch time games. All right, here we go. I'm interested in this. I'm using him as an example because if the argument is, well, Jim Harden also had 13 assists, great. Shoot the fucking ball. It's the end of the season. The

game's on the line. The season's on the line. Let's go. New Orleans, they played a game seven in 2008 against the San Antonio Spurs in which they lost, okay? 2008, one, two, three. That is a game. This actually 2008. This was a second round series for the Pelicans, and they played San Antonio. Let's see. Chris Paul, in that game, had 14 assists. He also shot the ball 18 times. He shot the ball 10 more times than James Harden didn't close that game against the Spurs.

That's a dude that's known to distribute the basketball. Okay, get younger at the time I get that but still the next year they played Denver in the first round. They lose to Denver in the first round. Let's see. Now, granted, they also lost by 60 in a playoff game to Denver that year, so he didn't play a ton. Let's see. When he's playing with the Clippers, they're playing at Memphis. 7 of 17 in a victorious game 7 over the Grizzlies. That was in 2012.

Jim Harden sitting over here shooting the ball eight god damn times. And by the way, again, in that game in which Chris Paul shot the ball, let's see, 17 times in that game seven against the Grizzlies. Let's see, that was a game. Yep, that was game seven. He only had four dimes in that game. That was a weird game for him, but he scored 19 points. Point being in all of this is that even dudes who are known as distributors, which Harden has become that, but even dudes who are known as distributors still get up 18 to 20 shots when they're a star player. And by the way, you are a star player. Your team is you and Kawhi. It's not like a team loaded with legends everywhere

and young studs. You're still a prime level superstar in the game and you shoot the ball like eight times because you run from those situations. It's easier to run from those situations than to fail. It's easier to go, hey I went two of eight, like do you not want to go two of 20? Like and that's the difference in the mindset of like him and someone like Anthony Edwards. Anthony Edwards will not let a game go by that he doesn't put up 22-23 shots with the season on the line. You talk about delusional confidence, that dude could start out 0 of 12. They were awful shooting the ball against the Lakers in game five.

But you just keep shooting. Same thing with Kobe. Like Kobe will keep shooting. Kobe ain't looking to get you involved. Kobe's gonna shoot until the ball starts going in the hoop. If it takes him 35 shots to get 26 points, he's gonna do it. Harden's over here like, hey, it's enough for me.

And that's who Harden is, and that's who Harden always will be, and that will be his legacy. Super great player, great passer, great shooter. His legacy will also be that he gets fouled all the time and loves titty bars. Those will all be true. And whether it's fair or unfair, because some might say, oh, but look at his numbers, like they broke it down, like his numbers in game sevens really aren't that different than the rest of the series. It's not just about the total numbers. It's about moments. It's about

certain things that happen in these kind of closeout games. And if you go back and watch them, you'll see them and people in Houston experienced it and people in Philadelphia experienced it and other Clippers have. Now, if he plays his ass off, do they win that game? Probably not. They got their dicks knocked off. But eight shots ain't going to do it, bro. It's just not going to work out. So anyway, more to come.