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A Viral Video of an NBA Analyst Detailing James Harden As the ‘Problem’ Curiously Gets Deleted

Also in Traina Thoughts: Michigan coach embarrasses himself; Kevin Harlan hits milestone; J.J. Watt keeps up the good work and more.

Jimmy Traina

1. So, who ordered the code red?

If you missed it over the weekend the Dallas Mavericks analyst on Bally Sports Southwest, Brian Dameris, went viral for a video in which he explained why James Harden, now on the Clippers, is a problem.

Dameris didn’t rant, he didn’t yell, he didn’t call Harden any inappropriate names. He calmly and methodically went through Harden’s ridiculous history and detailed why Harden is nothing but a headache and a joke (my words, not Dameris’s).

Here’s what Dameris said in the two-minute video about Harden on Friday night when the Mavericks hosted the Clippers:

“I hope you’re taking notes. I’m telling you in advance, ‘You’re welcome,’ for the wisdom I’m about to spew. Because, listen, I get on my knees every night and pray for someone to believe in me like Daryl Morey believed in you. You wanted a certain coach; they brought in Mike D’Antoni. You wanted to play a certain style, they played it. You wanted Dwight Howard; they brought him and got rid of him when you were tired of him. You wanted Chris Paul; they brought him in and got rid of him when you were tired of him. They brought in your old friend Russell Westbrook. You wanted to go to Vegas on off days; they looked the other way. You wanted the team to stay over so you could go out at night; they changed the schedule, and it didn’t work. 

“And you know what? You said, ‘I’m going to break up with my wooby, not good enough. I see the bright lights of New York, I want to go there with my old pal Kevin Durant. It’s gonna work, the Big Three [with Kyrie Irving].’ And after one year, you wanted out. You realized ‘Oh my God, I took this guy for granted, the guy that believed in me—I want back with Daryl Morey.’

“They traded Ben Simmons for you; how did they pull that off? And you know what, you went there and you got a partner who got the MVP—he won MVP! And what did you say afterwards? ‘They didn’t hand me the reins.’ You’re the point guard. You were holding the reins. And what did you do when you had the reins? You scored nine points in Game 7 against Boston; you blew a 3–2 series lead.

“So they fired their coach, not good enough. You broke up with the guy who believed in you again. You said, ‘The bright lights of L.A., that’s where I want to go, let’s see if that works.’ 

“Listen, James, have you ever had those friends who had bad roommates? Over and over again they complained about their bad roommates. ‘This guy’s terrible.’ They never thought to be self-aware enough that they’re the bad roommate; they’re the problem. Hey, James, YOU’RE the problem.

“If this doesn’t work this year, in this system, with this team, then you’re going to go and point fingers at everybody else and you’re going to go home and start swiping right for another team. There’s not going to be anybody left because James, you’re not The Beard, you’re not the system—you’re the problem.”

Nothing Dameris said there was wrong or out of line or not factually correct. He provided the facts and accurately summed up Harden’s recent behavior.

But something very curious has happened. The video, which was originally posted on the Mavericks’ official Bally Sports Southwest Twitter account, quietly got deleted after it went viral.

As we all know, though, you can’t ever delete something from the internet. The clip of Dameris calling out Harden is still all over TikTok, and there are some versions still floating around Twitter.

So now the question is why did Bally Sports Southwest take down the video? Did Harden’s agent complain to someone? Did the Clippers complain? Was the NBA front office not happy to have a public account of how Harden has embarrassed the league out there in social media land?

Sources told me that there was zero outside influence at all. The decision to take down the clip solely came from Bally Sports Southwest executives who felt the clip “did not reflect the Mavericks organization.” Somehow, those at Bally Sports Southwest were not in agreement with Dameris’s “editorializing,” according to a source, because it went against the network’s “values.”

Huh?

Laying out facts is against values?

This just makes things even more bizarre. You could understand why Harden or someone in Harden’s camp would be upset with the clip. But why on Earth would anyone from Bally Sports Southwest have an issue with an NBA analyst giving dead-on, solid analysis?

This just leads to more questions. Were the Mavericks upset with Dameris taking Harden to task? Did Bally Sports Southwest think the NBA would be upset with a player getting called out in such direct fashion? Did Bally Sports Southwest think it would bad business to have their analyst go after Harden, since Clippers games air on Bally Sports SoCal?

Whatever the case, Dameris did nothing wrong, said nothing wrong and it’s pathetic that Bally Sports Southwest deleted the clip.

Oh, and the Clippers are 0–4 since acquiring Harden.

2. I saw people get on USC quarterback Caleb Williams for crying in the stands with his parents two weeks ago after the Trojans lost to Washington. 

Williams, though, has nothing on Michigan interim coach Sherrone Moore, who gave a truly absurd, embarrassing and cringe-worthy tear-filled interview after the Wolverines beat Penn State on Saturday.

3. I told you in Friday’s Traina Thoughts that J.J. Watt has done an outstanding job calling out NFL refs and the league office for terrible officiating and ridiculous fines. 

The future Hall of Famer kept it up over the weekend and even discussed his feelings about the topic during a segment on CBS’s NFL Today.

4. Kevin Harlan’s call of the Texans’ 30–27 upset win against the Bengals was the 500th game of his NFL play-by-play career. CBS celebrated the occasion with a nice moment.

5. HBO has released the trailer for the in-season edition of Hard Knocks, which features the Dolphins.

6. A brand-new episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina dropped Thursday, and it features no guest. It’s an all–“Traina Thoughts” edition with weekly contributor Sal Licata from WFAN Radio and SNY TV.

This week, I detail my struggles in trying to book a guest for this week’s podcast, we reminisce about the horrible experience they had when we took pictures with Larry David and we discuss the NFL’s prime-time schedule woes and flex-scheduling changes that need to happen. We also discuss Troy Aikman’s call of Chargers-Jets on Monday Night Football, including his repeated criticism of New York quarterback Zach Wilson, and we speculate about LeBron James’s recent streaming issues with YouTubeTV.

We also address tweets regarding whether sports can be enjoyed without gambling on them, an important trait for NFL play-by-play folks, the Apple TV remote control and much more.

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on YouTube.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: I saw the best comedian in the game today, Bill Burr, at Madison Square Garden on Friday night. I will detail the entire experience on this week’s SI Media Podcast, which comes out Thursday, but for Traina Thoughts, I'm going to feature Burr videos in this space all week.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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