Hey, this is Kevin O'Connor. Welcome to the new feed for the mismatch. Thank you so much for subscribing.

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On today's episode, Chris Vernon and I are joined by a very, very special guest, Bill Simmons.

We talked about the rockets and the James Harden mess that's happening there and what could happen next.

Then we go on up the teams that were higher on or lower on than the consensus as well as rookie of the year odds. All that next.

Welcome to the mismatch. I'm Chris Vernon. Enjoyed to me as he does every Tuesday from the wringer.com is Kevin O'Connor, aka Kevin O'Bomer, Kevin O'Connor, Kevin O'Connor, Kevin O'Conflict, Kevin O'Camera, Kevin O'Candy Lane, Kevin O'Kinis, Kevin O'Connor.

Vernon, we got a guest today. We do was a big weekend for our inaugural mismatch feed pod. And so as we told you, we are going to be bringing on different people throughout the weeks and who better to have first than the man himself Bill Simmons. He joins us now. What's up, Bill?

I think I invited myself on, but that's fine. No, that's fine. We can pretend it was your idea. And it's like, Hey, man, I'm ready. Tell me when. Well, this is perfect because you've been talking about this situation. In fact, last week on your podcast talked about the situation that we're starting with today, which is James Harden was supposed to be at rockets camp. Everybody is having their training camps in the NBA.

James Harden was seen at Little Baby's birthday party with a hundred grand, which by the way, I will say this before we get a good friend to give. I mean, that was evidently his gift to Little Baby $100,000 per day.

Then he was seen in a in a gentleman's club. Then he was seen in Drea's nightclub in Las Vegas. So he's been all around the world over the course of the past couple days everywhere except for rockets camp. Steven Psyless said, obviously, it's an issue to not have our best player here.

We don't really know when he's going to show up. Well, let's start with that. What the hell are the rockets going to do about this? Well, first of all, you made it seem like it was a big deal that James Harden was at a strip club in a nightclub.

He calls that Thursday. Yeah, right. Or Friday. I just think he's living his life. It's a staring contest. We knew this was going to be how it played out. I did my pot on Thursday. I thought he would get traded before the season.

I still feel that way. And I don't like the league that this league is becoming. So too much power empowerment. This is beyond player empowerment. This is just being shitty to an entire fan base.

Like, let's call for what it is. This is somebody who is getting paid. I think like what 40 40 million dollars a year, 41 million dollars a year, who has been with this franchise for eight years and had a connection with the city and the community.

And just because they didn't make the finals the last two years, which I think he's at least partially blame just decides he wants to leave. And now he's just going to do whatever the fuck he wants.

I don't know why they don't just stop paying him. Like he's supposed to be there when I go back to the 70s and 80s when I was growing up when people didn't show up for training camp preseason stuff like that, they got fined.

Teams are so afraid of star players now. And Kevin, I don't understand that piece of it because I always hear the argument of, oh, they don't want they don't want to make the agents upset. They don't want to send a message out that they're not player friendly to other teams.

At some point, this is your best guy. And he's allegedly the leader of your team. And he's just basically taking a shit on your franchise. How do you just stand by and not find him at least?

I mean, the player empowerment era has fans believing it in media too for that matter that teams should listen to every demand that a player has.

And with James Hardin last year, last summer when they traded to Chris Paul for us a Westbrook, that was a situation where Moory felt like he had to do something.

And in that situation, they gave up their entire future for one year of Russell Westbrook. And I can't help but look at this mess that Houston is in right now and think James Hardin has nobody to blame, but James Hardin for these issues.

The Chris Paul relationship did not go well, forced the trade to get Russell Westbrook and now forcing his way out after Russell Westbrook wanted out and he wants out too.

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