In what marked his third game with his new team, James Harden and the Los Angeles Clippers faced the Dallas Mavericks last Friday night.
But the most memorable moment from the Mavs’ 144-126 victory didn’t come from Luka Doncic, Kawhi Leonard, or Harden himself, but rather Bally Sports Southwest analyst Brian Dameris’ pregame takedown of the Clippers’ recently acquired star guard.
“With this team, you’re going to go and point fingers at everybody else, and you’re going to go back home and you’re going to starting swiping right for another team, and there’s not going to be anybody left,” Dameris said, capping a two-minute monologue in which he criticized Harden’s multiple trade requests throughout his career. “Because James, you’re not the beard, you’re not the system, you’re the problem.”
Bally Sports Southwest later deleted its social media posts containing the rant, but not before it went viral. Speaking to Bleacher Report’s Chris Haynes, Harden addressed Dameris’ takedown, which he said he hasn’t seen but has heard about.
“I didn’t even hear exactly what he said, but people were telling me he was going in on me,” Harden said “He doesn’t know me or the situation. That would be f***ed up if I went at him and started being disrespectful to him, but I can’t. They don’t know anything. They just go off what they see on social media or hearsay.
“I don’t know exactly what he said, but I pay that s*** no mind. … I do a really good job at ignoring the noise because it doesn’t affect me. It’s just people talking. I guarantee that if you put whoever is talking in this situation, it wouldn’t be beneficial for them. That’s my mindset, but my focus is getting wins.”
Regardless of where you stand on Harden’s career decisions, it was a bit jarring to see an analyst on a team’s official broadcast go at an opposing player so strongly. While the rant was certainly entertaining — and clearly well rehearsed — it also felt oddly personal and out of place on a local pregame broadcast.
From a sports media perspective, the bigger story here might actually be Bally Sports Southwest’s decision to delete the clip, which Haynes said didn’t come from Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, but rather Bally Sports executives.
As for Dameris, it would be surprising if he took issue with Harden’s response. If anything, he’s probably most upset the 2018 MVP hasn’t heard it, as he began the monologue by asking his producers to pipe it into the Clippers’ locker room — something they apparently didn’t do.
