JR SportBrief Hour 1

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It is the J.R. Sportbrief show on CBS Sports Radio. Happy Friday. I hope you had a good Friday. I hope you had a good Friday night. I hope you're having a great Friday evening.

Either way, good, bad, somewhere in the middle. I'm going to be here. I will be hanging out with you for the next four hours, and this is what I do every single weeknight, 10 p.m. Eastern Time, 7 p.m. Pacific. I am coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia.

A big thank you and shout-outs to super producer and host Dave Shepherd. He is coming to you live from New York City. Right now, this moment, this second, I don't think this game will take six hours, but it's going down in Boston. The Celtics and the Miami Heat are going back and forth, back and forth like Aaliyah, and Boston leads right now this second 67 to 66. This game is pretty much you go on a run. No, I go on a run. You go on a run.

I go on a run. So let's see if the Celtics can hold on to a run at this point in time or hold on to the lead and tie this series up at one all. What an accomplishment it would be for the Miami Heat if they exit Boston winning two games on the road going back to Miami where you would expect them to go up to go down there and at minimum pick up another victory. So let's see what the Celtics do. We'll have an idea. I would say probably in an hour or so. It's not going to take that long for this game to end.

But what do I know? We had a hockey game that went on for about six hours last night. And so we'll talk about the Celtics and the Heat. We will get into that that game between the Carolina Panthers and or excuse me, the Florida Panthers and the Carolina Hurricanes. One team plays in Charlotte. The other plays in Raleigh. Too many Panthers, Hurricanes.

It's kind of a mix now that I think about it. Got the Hurricanes and the Carolinas. Okay.

Yeah, sure. Makes sense. Hurricanes hit up there. Man, we got Hurricanes that hit Florida all the time. But then we got a team in Charlotte representing the whole Carolina's called the Panthers and then they got the Florida Panthers playing hockey. It just makes absolutely no sense, but we'll talk about the Panthers and the Hurricanes. We'll get into that. I the game finished after I got off here almost minutes after I got off here. The game finished up so we'll get into that.

We've heard rumors about James Harden really trying to go back to the Rockets LeBron James all day just kind of kicked all over the place for for getting older being older. And so we'll give you an update there and then earlier this afternoon. I think we all heard by now about the news of the passing of Jim Brown and then we'll talk about that momentarily Shep. How are you? You ready for the weekend?

I am always ready for the weekend Jr. Thank you for asking. How are you, sir?

I'm good, man. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you before we get into to anything of real substance. I got to let you know you can always follow me online at JR sport brief that is Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and then also just thank you. Thank you for tuning in.

I mean, how many how many radio shows do you listen to where people actually say? Thank you with a host says thank you for tuning in and being a part of the show. I appreciate it. So whether you're on the free Odyssey app, you could be tuning in on your local affiliate any place in North America Sirius XM channel 158 or you could be locked in on a smart speaker.

Thank you very much and I might as well kind of transition here. Thank you to Jim Brown to his contributions to the game of football his contributions to society. Not everything about Jim Brown was always a peaches and cream and not everything that he said or did, you know, maybe resonated with everyone but but who does but when it comes down to the game of football. He was the epitome of a football player and I am ridiculously comfortable saying that knowing that I was not around in the 50s or the 60s to see him play. There is a I would say a good portion of the audience listening to me right now who have not seen this man play but know all about him. There's a good portion who probably has seen him play and has seen him go out there and bust ass and the stories and the accomplishments are many and they are ridiculous.

This man was born down here in Georgia out on the coast on the islands. He grew up in New York and Long Island. He went to college at Syracuse where he didn't just beat people up in the game of football and be an all American. He was also what arguably is or was the greatest lacrosse player of all time. He participated in basketball dropping 15 points per game.

He goes to the NFL plays nine seasons, and just decimates everybody. He was the rookie of the year in 57 nine years nine time Pro Bowler nine seasons, eight time rushing champion nine seasons, three time MVP and when he walked away. He had more carries than anybody. He had more yards rushing than anybody. He had more rushing touchdowns than anybody. He had more all purpose yards than anybody. Jim Brown walked away from the NFL and said, And then he also walked away on his own terms.

Well, we'll talk about that. He won an NFL championship in 64 before we even got to Super Bowl one before we even got to AFC versus NFC 1964. If you want to know how damn good Jim Brown was as a football player, without a shadow of a doubt, you look at the accomplishments and what he did for his era and how it even bleeds on into now. The Cleveland Browns on their own YouTube channel and the NFL. They put together a piece highlighting Jim Brown and you will hear the impact of Jim Brown, not just from Jim Brown himself.

That will be the first voice you hear. Not just for for fans who happen to be someone like Steve Harvey, who spent his childhood in Cleveland, Ohio. You'll also hear from another Hall of Fame back. One of my favorites, Terrell Davis. Listen to this clip from the Cleveland Browns.

Listen to Jim Brown start you off. I don't know who wrote the list, but when I look at myself, God gave me a physique. This is Jim Brown, the most devastating ball carrier in the history of football.

I was 6'2", 232 pounds, and I had quickness in speed and the word got around that I was a different kind of guy. An animal, a real raw talent, man. See, my father made me understand. He said, Watch this. He don't run out of bounds. He gonna put his head down. He gonna get some more. And when he got tackled, he said, Watch how slow he get up. He said, You know what that is? He said, In life, just get up slow because you have to pick yourself up a bunch of times.

Ain't no need to rush it. And this dude never missed a game. Every Sunday we watched, Jim Brown was on the field. Jim Brown's the greatest back to ever play.

He was a bad man. And not only on the field. Jim Brown, being an activist, had an impact on me as well. Oh, well, you talk about his activism work.

We'll talk about that momentarily. Jim Brown, the football player, let's think about this. The running back position is the most physically demanding on the field. There's no other guy who steps out onto the football field and knows that every time he touches the ball, he is going to get hit. He is going to be tackled.

There are 11 guys on the other side who want to rip your head off. Offensive line is opening up a hole for you. They're trying to protect you so you can go down the field. The quarterback gets the ball.

They're protecting him so he can get rid of it. The running back gets the snap. And unless he's flipping it to somebody, he's getting hit. And when he's not getting hit, if the running back is out there, there's a good chance that he's probably blocking.

And he's probably going to be engaging with folks who are probably going to be bigger than him. And so to know that Jim Brown was a bulldozer and he walked away from the NFL, just leading in every significant running back category, including all-purpose yards, all respect to him. Because you don't just walk away from the NFL as a running back.

The NFL will typically chew you up and spit you out. That wasn't the case for Jim Brown. I just heard Terrell Davis tell you about everything that he's done and he was a bad man and it didn't just stop on the field. Yeah, he wasn't activist outside and off of the field. We remember the Cleveland and Muhammad Ali summit back in 1967.

There's that famous photo of Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Russell. And Jim Brown was never afraid to speak his mind, ever. At points, he had criticized Martin Luther King and how he fought for justice.

I mean, different strokes for different folks. Later on in life, I think Jim Brown said some many interesting things. Back in the sixties and the seventies, I mean, he was working with gangs, trying to stop violence.

He was trying to work with those who were imprisoned on the way out in transition programs. He was not shy in speaking up. LeBron James, who happens to be his own Cleveland legend, LeBron James went online today and just kind of shared a message of being thankful that he was able to become friends with Jim Brown.

LeBron James shared that, you know what, we wouldn't have an opportunity to speak up regardless of how people feel if it wasn't for you. And so Jim Brown certainly revered for what he did and for standing up for himself. Now, not everything that took place in Jim Brown's life was all peaches and cream. There were a lot of instances in his life where he was charged but not found guilty of assault and abuse and issues with women and vandalism. And these were things that he was never shy about discussing or openly putting out there as well.

Jim Brown, a few years ago, he was with Graham Bessinger and he was pretty much asked about some of these charges and he said, listen, man, they don't hold no damn weight. The facts is that I didn't do nothing. I didn't rape no damn body and there's no blood on nothing and no 20 feet somebody fell and all that kind of mess, man. I've never written all the things that I've done in my life to assist people and I don't do it.

You know, because you do it. But when you try, people try to then take everything you've done and lump it into this and put it against this, it doesn't fit, man. 87 years old, this man had to live. He was here for 87 years. I'm not going to say that everything he did was perfect. He admitted to vandalism and had some time spent there, had his issues, had his negatives, had his positives. We know that in the NFL, he decided to walk away on his own terms.

But if there's anything that I would respect about Jim Brown is that's how he, that's how he did everything. In 2015 in Los Angeles, California, Capital One, the bank, invited me to a golf tournament. It was a celebrity golf tournament. Why I was there, what the hell do I know?

I guess I'm somebody, whatever. I'm there on an early morning and there's Chris Tucker playing golf. And I'm like, oh, this is nice. I'm getting breakfast in the morning in the clubhouse and then boom, here's Lolo Jones. And I'm like, you're an accomplished athlete, but whatever, Lolo Jones is here. And I'm playing golf with Linda Cone from ESPN. And so we're lining up in our carts and then Chris Tucker's in front of me and this guy is here and this person is there. And I look over my right shoulder and sitting in a golf cart just by himself, minding his damn business. I don't know if he was going to play or not.

I look over and it's just Jim Brown. And every time anybody passed the man, he just just nodded and said hello. And he kind of just demanded and commanded that respect because I don't think anybody wanted to cross him. I don't think anybody wanted to cross him on the field. I think that was pretty evident. I don't think anybody wanted to cross him in life.

I don't think anybody wanted to have a cross word with this man, because if he believes something, he was going to let you know. And so all due respect to the greatest running back that the NFL has ever seen. No fear, no worries, and willing to do everything on his own terms, even walking away. Not just being a badass on the field, not just being an activist, but deciding to walk away from the NFL to get into the entertainment world, to get into acting, to do things on his own terms. This man was in the off season getting ready for training camp. He was putting together a film and a movie. He was going to be in the dirty dozen.

The entire film was delayed due to bad weather. The Browns were just like, man, when you coming back to play football? Oh, you don't come back to play?

Then we just going to fine you every time you miss a week. Jim Brown said, stick it. Said I'm gone. He left. He left on top. He left on his own terms. For a game that chews you up and spits you out, Jim Brown said, I'm not going to let y'all do that to me. I'm not property.

I'm not happy, or I should not just be happy that you're letting me play the game of football. I'm going to do it on my own terms. We can go back in time.

A matter of fact, let's go back to 1966. There was a show called Say Brother, and Jim Brown, you want to know what type of guy he was and how he viewed life and how he looked at sports, how he looked at himself as a black man in America? He says, man, nobody's going to try to use me. I'm going to do things on my own terms.

Take a listen to this. There are a couple of people in professional football that did not want me to succeed in the movie industry. And I know for a fact that one of these individuals contacted the head of Universal Studios, and there was kind of a move there. But my allies were able to say, now wait a minute, we know this guy. We know that he has a talent.

We know that we can make money from him. There is no reason to blackball him or to hinder his ability or opportunity to make a living. Was the resentment because you're not a trained actor or because you're black? Well, not because I was black and not because I was a trained actor. Mainly because I was an individual who understood that a top athlete, a champion, should quit at the right time. And I quit because I wanted to, and I wanted to look out for my welfare. And this was opposed by certain people in the National Football League. They felt that I should have been happy to play as long as they wanted me to. And then quit when they said quit and be happy to come back and coach in some capacity and make about $30,000 a year.

They resented my attitude of independence and not just because I was black, but because I had that attitude of independence. If you want to give Jim Brown credit for anything, give him credit for being the greatest running back of all time. But then also utilizing the system, utilizing the league, utilizing the platform that he got to his own benefit, to not be chewed up and spat out. That he was able, even through the course and through depth, through the ups and downs, he was able to go out there and do things on his own terms. Jim Brown, the greatest running back of all time, gone here at the age of 87. Had to stop and show some appreciation to him and what he did for the game.

And how he was able to be one of the first people to open up that door in the world of professional sports to do things on your own accord. It's the JR Sport Brief Show here with you on CBS Sports Radio. We are just getting warmed up, just getting started here on a Friday night. We got the Boston Celtics and Miami. I'll give you an update on the score on the other side of the break. And yeah, I don't think this one is going to go on for six hours.

We'll talk about those Panthers and the Hurricanes as well. It's the JR Sport Brief Show, CBS Sports Radio. You're listening to the JR Sport Brief on CBS Sports Radio. JR wants to hear from you. Call him now at 855-212-4CBS.

That's 855-212-4227. It's the JR Sport Brief Show on CBS Sports Radio. There's a little less than eight minutes left in the game in regulation, I should say. God knows how long the game will go on. But the Boston Celtics, they currently lead the Miami Heat 93 to 87. Jason Tatum with 29 points. Jalen Brown has 16. You look at the Miami Heat, led by Jimmy Butler, 18. Bam Adebayo, 16 points. And Caleb Martin, pretty much a little bit of a shocker, but he's the one, he's the leading scorer for the Miami Heat. 25 points tonight for Caleb Martin. So the Miami Heat are down by six. That's about seven and a half minutes left in the game. And let's see if Miami can kind of bounce back and walk out of Boston, go back to Miami with a 2-0 series lead.

It's a hell of a time for everybody in South Florida. You see Jimmy Butler walking around plenty of times with a Florida Panthers jersey because the Panthers right now are in the Eastern Conference Finals of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs. And the Panthers beat the Hurricanes last night in Raleigh. The final score three to two.

And it took us a long time to get there. It took four overtimes. This game started at 8 p.m. Eastern time. This game ended about four to five minutes to 2 a.m. So basically from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. they were out there playing hockey.

Now in typical fashion and form, you know, regulation is 60 minutes with your three 20 minute periods. They basically played an additional game last night. They played 80 minutes of additional hockey. They played almost two and a half games, almost two and a third.

They were out there forever. It was the sixth longest game in NHL history. Sixth longest game in NHL history. You got to go back to 1936, a sixth overtime game where they played almost an additional two hours of extra playing time.

That's two hours. It's about three games that they played in one night. And so this one was over. There was they were in the fourth overtime. They were getting ready to go to another intermission. They were getting ready to be prepared for the fifth overtime. And then with about 12 seconds left on the clock, Matthew Kuchuk decided to knock in the game winning goal.

Probably my favorite one so far in my life. Yeah, big. No big did not let it go to five overtimes there.

You know, but so many great contributions from everybody. Like just looking at this this sheet quickly. I mean, Monty played 16 minutes almost. Barkie took like a thousand draws.

I mean, I don't know. Like it was like we're not even in overtime. If Bob doesn't make that, that save on the break win a third. So Bob played great.

Everybody followed. Total team effort for two games, basically. Yeah, they had a practice schedule. Both teams had practice schedule. There was no practice today.

They cancel. They will be back in action Saturday night for game two in Raleigh. And I know there will not be no no four overtimes. Wayne Gretzky was on TNT last night.

They had to throw a whole lot of money at this guy to even show up and be an analyst over the past several years. And man, he was ready to go home. I'm hoping somebody scores this period. Let's face it. We're all getting to the point we love overtime hockey. And it's the greatest thrill in all of sports.

But OK, enough's enough. That's the that's the great one. You would think that the great one would be like, oh, yeah, more and more hockey. Wayne Gretzky is like, man, I want my bed.

Paul Bissonnette was up there with him. And before they got to the third overtime, listen to his analysis. What is possibly what is possibly being said at this point? Nothing. They're just trying to get nothing. They're looking at each other and they're saying, could someone please just put the puck in the net? Nobody nobody wanted to stick around.

And this is the part that really sucks. And I listened. I watched the the postgame press conference after this this marathon of a game. Hurricanes head coach who happened to be on the losing side.

Rod Brindamore. He stated the obvious. He said, yeah, we might have played forever. We almost went to five damn overtimes in a part that sucks.

Maybe the good part. It's still only one loss. Listen. It's a tough way to lose a game, that's for sure. Go that long. A lot of ups and downs in that game. And so it's one game. You know, at the end of the day, it's one game. It's just one game. Even though we basically played two, it still only counts as one game. It's it's one loss. One game. It's Jimmy Butler and Grant Williams just go nose to nose. Sweet. How cute of them. Nobody threw a punch.

Just nose to nose. Boston currently leads. Ninety six to ninety. Anyway. No way in hell they can go to multiple overtimes tomorrow. Not four of them. And I got to give credit to all the fans in Raleigh. They were they were sticking around. You know, we talked about this last night. Would I be done before the match or the game and the game ended a few minutes after I got off air.

And I really tried to think hard. What is the longest game that I've ever sat through in person? I've been to games and overtime. I don't recall.

I really don't. I think at one time I sat in the old Yankee Stadium for a couple of innings and and I just left. But I can't recall ever being in like a real marathon of a game. But how many people have been in a game in an arena for six damn hours? Hey, Shep, have you ever sat down at a sporting event and it went to overtime? The game just didn't end. Not that I can recall and definitely never going basically for an entire 15 minute overtime durations.

Yeah, it's pretty nuts. Hey, hey, Marco, is there a game that you've ever been to any sport? We just was like, damn, this is going on forever. Just one Yankees mariners game to ninety five. ALDS went 15. Oh my God in the rain because it was started raining.

I want to say in the 10th or 11th inning. Yeah, that that one. I don't remember the exact amount of time.

I'd have to look it up. But it felt like we were there until, you know, two o'clock in the morning. Refresh my brain. The Yankees lost that one. No, they won on a walk off Jim Lehret's Homer. They went up to 0 in the series, lost the next three in Seattle to lose the series and five.

That was the, you know, Brent Musburger, Griffey coming around. Well, I remember the pain up in the kingdom. That part. Right. That part. I do remember 15 innings and this was a weeknight, right?

Correct. Yeah, because I remember I was still in high school. I was a senior. I did not go to school the next day. I had no interest.

Well, I certainly understand that. There was part of me that actually wanted to go just because they won and it would have been fun to go the next day. But I was looking at the clock and I was like, I'm not getting up in like two hours.

Get the hell out of here. Because we kind of hung out a little bit after the game, too. So what time did you get back home? I mean, it's so many years ago.

I want to say it was probably around like three o'clock in the morning. Oh, you got that's not bad. I mean, right. That's that that's that's in full consideration that that none of us here give a damn about what a clock looks like.

Again, that's that's top of my head roughly. Now, I think we stopped to eat afterwards. So maybe it was like four like we got back into Jersey out of the Bronx around two or three and we stopped to eat something.

Maybe we got home at like four. I don't exactly remember the game. I remember afterwards. Not so much.

Yeah. Well, listen, not not me on a weeknight. I would have been looking for my bed. You know what? Now that I think about it, I was at a Monday night football game. This is Brett Favre's return with the Minnesota Vikings taking on the New York Jets at MetLife. This wasn't so much an overtime game and maybe it did go to overtime.

I don't recall. But before the game, it was raining all afternoon, all evening, all night. And it was a thunderstorm warning. And it's pretty much the one thing that they will stop an NFL game for is lightning. You know, you don't need anybody getting struck out there on the field, getting struck in the stands.

You have these big goal posts that are sitting there, giant metal attractors and in the end zones. And I remember I don't even know how long the delay was. And it was Monday night football. But I remember walking in the door postgame from New Jersey back up into Westchester and Yonkers. I remember walking home, getting home. It must have been a little after 2 a.m. And I went straight home. I ain't stopped to eat. I just got in my car and went back. And I don't even remember the score.

I know the Jets, I think they lost that game, which is pretty normal. But I think that's the longest event that I can remember being out past. So, hey, you go get a ticket.

I think everybody always wants their money's worth. I think there's been plenty of games I've gone to that have been a snooze fest. But you got to fit it in where you can. Speaking of fitting it in, the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics, they are just going at it. You're listening to the J.R. Sport Brief on CBS Sports Radio. I'm a new listener, but a long time radio personality over the years. And you're just enlightening.

Call in now at 855-212-4CBS. It's the J.R. Sport Brief Show here on CBS Sports Radio.

Let me enlighten you. This is like the 12th round of a boxing match. The Miami Heat won't go away. The Boston Celtics can't put them away.

102 to 100. The Miami Heat lead Boston right now. A little more than two minutes left in the game. Some guy named Jimmy Butler is back out here just going into fourth quarter mode. 27 points overall. And with Grant Williams in front of him, Jimmy Butler is just going for it. 855-212-4CBS.

That's 855-212-4CBS. It wouldn't shock me at this rate if we get an overtime game. And before we went to break, we did talk about the Carolina Panthers, or excuse me, the Florida Panthers. Hey Shep, do I need to put in a petition for them to change that damn name?

That would be nice. I mean, let's be honest. I mean, the only reason we talk about them is just because they're familiar with that other team that actually kind of makes some headlines. And more so because of our first overall pick than anything else.

I don't know what the hell you're talking about right now. You said Panthers. Yeah. Well, the only reason I know the Panthers right now, the only reason anyone knows the Panthers right now is because they have the number one overall pick. That's the only reason why anyone's talking about them.

Oh, you're talking about the Carolina Panthers and Bryce? Correct. Okay. Got it.

No need for ambiguity here. But the Florida Panthers, Miami, everybody in South Florida is happy. And this is also some NHL news. You know, we briefly talked about the Arizona Coyotes getting ready to move away. They don't have an arena to pretty much move into in there.

They're pretty much open for business all over North America. We were just in Kansas City for the draft a few weeks ago. Patrick Mahomes talking about how he would love if the Coyotes came to Kansas City. Kansas City has been opining for either an NHL team or an NBA team for a long time. I don't see the NBA jumping into Kansas City.

And it's kind of funky. Connecticut. Yes, Connecticut, which does not have a professional sports team. Smack dab in between two gigantic markets, two passionate markets between New York and Boston. They have the Connecticut Sun.

I mean, they got to account for something. And they haven't had the whalers for the better part of, I don't know, 25, 26 years that the whalers have been gone from Connecticut. And so the governor in Connecticut wants to bring the Coyotes to Hartford to replace the whalers. And amongst some other cities that are, I guess, trying to get their hands on the Coyotes here in Atlanta, I think that would be a complete waste of time that that didn't succeed here the first time.

I don't think they should even dare try it again. Certainly not downtown. And I don't think the suburbs would support it.

Portland. Kansas City, Houston, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City, Quebec City, Hamilton. Just throw the team up in Quebec. Put them in Quebec. You're going to put in, move an NHL team somewhere out the desert. Might as well just send it to Canada. Shep, do you care?

Where should they send this team? I do not care if I'm being 100% honest. I mean, I'm trying to think, like, hockey's just not, I mean, we were talking about this last night. Like, it doesn't get the same following, momentum, juice, energy in the States. So, if you're asking me. Out of every city that I mention. Right. From what you know. Quebec. Just, right. And just because it's Canada, right?

That's where I was going with that. They value hockey in Canada. We don't value hockey in the States. We just had the greatest four overtime game maybe in the history of the Stanley Cup playoffs. I mean, it had everything.

There was even a goal that should have been counted that was disallowed. And nobody cares. I don't know, that's not, nobody cares. JR, usually, like, we'll get tweets about this. The CBS Twitter account will get tweets about it.

Obviously, when you get tweeted because you're aligned with the CBS Sports Radio account, nobody tweeted about it. Oh. Well. You're going to, we're going to get some calls from Canada now, won't we? I'm just saying, like, I just think, yeah, I just think hockey, it didn't, and that's what I was saying yesterday. I think people care about it in New York.

I think they care about it in Boston. We know what happened to both those teams in these playoffs. Yeah, they're gone.

You got that right. Yeah. The other Boston team might be gone soon too, by the way.

Well, we'll get into that. I'm still shocked here that Atlanta is in consideration. Like, why?

For what? Central Atlanta, the city of Atlanta doesn't give a damn, does not want hockey. It's Falcons or Death.

That's it. You got the Bulldogs. You have the Hawks, the entire region, a good portion of the South. All about the Braves. Don't bring no hockey here. And then if you want to have hockey up north in the, in the, in the burbs up in Gwinnett, even further, or Paulding County, I don't know where you want to put a hockey team. I just, nobody cares. We care about the Braves and the Falcons and, and maybe people care about the Hawks.

It's a fun thing to do, but just, I don't know. And in Connecticut, I hate to tell you, my apologies to all my friends in Connecticut. There's just two parts to Connecticut.

It's either you are on the Massachusetts side of Connecticut, or you're on the New York side. And so to think that, oh my God, you know, we can get the best of both worlds, like, UConn hockey is not enough. Let Connecticut have college athletics, let it have the casino, let it have the Connecticut sun. There's no need to send an NHL team back to Connecticut to snatch up resources. There's enough hockey teams in New York City proper. There's a hockey team up in Boston. We do not need another team up in Connecticut. My apologies to people in Connecticut.

You want hockey, go to Boston or go down to New York. Anyway, there's another guy might be going back to a place where he, I guess, I don't want to say started, but blew up into a superstar at MVP. Every day, there's more and more news about James Harden going back to the Rockets. And it was a report earlier this week that he's the one who would not return if Doc Rivers was back. And there was also an additional report saying that James Harden and the Rockets have mutual interest in a reunion. And I'm saying to myself, if you're the Rockets, why do you want this? The last time James Harden was on the team, he pretty much forced his way out the door and he crapped on his teammates, pretty much forcing them to trade him.

You know, ultimately, he went to Brooklyn. Do you remember when he said this crap about his teammates? James, are you surprised that you all never made a run at all in this one? Which is not good enough. You know, we just, you know, obviously chemistry, talent wise, just everything. And it was clear, like I said, these last few games. They just, from the beginning of the game, it was aggressive.

Veteran team, obviously, championship team, and one of the best teams that we have in this league. You know, I love this city. I literally have done everything that I can. You know, I mean, this situation is crazy. It's something that I don't think can be fixed.

So, yeah, thanks. And a guy was traded two days later. Houston Rockets did not want to move him. He didn't want to show up to play for them when he actually played for them.

And they lost with all that young talent. The next thing you knew, he threw his own young teammates under the bus. And so now the Houston Rockets want to bring him back. Is James Harden via those comments, is he some type of, you know, prime example of leadership? James Harden, to me, comes across as a dude who's ready to quit anytime, anywhere.

He's supposed to be a mentor to Jalen Green and Kevin Porter, Jabari Smith. He's going to take away touches. James Harden's going to go out there and run the offense and he'll have 12 and 13, 14 assists per game.

He'll get himself 17 points. What are the Rockets doing? And there's been so much smoke, you have to believe there's this fire. And it's also been reported that James Harden isn't using the Rockets for leverage with the Sixers. Am I supposed to believe that? Maybe he is. Maybe he's trying to push Dow Maury towards a deal.

But just like Connecticut doesn't need a NHL team, the Houston Rockets don't need James Harden. This is the JR Sport Brief Show on CBS Sports Radio. I'm going to give you an update on this Miami-Boston game on the other side of the break. Don't move. They're still going blow flabouz.

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