Fired Rockets coach predicted eventual James Harden/Daryl Morey fallout years ago

Over the years, Kevin McHale has been very outspoken about his former boss Daryl Morey. McHale previously criticized Morey's over-reliance on analytics and the Rockets' long-time approach of hoisting 3-pointers, which intensified when Mike D'Antoni replaced McHale at the helm.

McHale also seemingly had a level of disdain towards James Harden, who many believe got McHale fired just 11games into the 2015-16 season with the Rockets- his fifth season in the big chair.

Naturally, McHale isn't surprised at the current saga playing out between Harden and Morey and seemed rather amused by it all. McHale had quite a bit to say about the role that Morey has played in the situation, citing Morey and Harden's days in Houston, while pointing out that he saw this coming several years ago.

McHale was on Sirius XM's Give and Go with Rick Kamla and Amin Elhassan and shared his two cents.

Fired Rockets coach predicted Harden/Morey fallout years ago

I was coaching James when he first came from OKC.

When I'm running the left wing and you've got the ball in the middle and it's going to be a break and James just quits running and all of a sudden the three-on-two turns into a two-on-two and I don't get a shot, no one gets a shot, just because the guy is not running or throwing the ball ahead.

Alot of little things that were not demanded that James do after awhile, I was like man that only lasts so long.

You're not gonna win if you don't do little things. Like if you're not a player that can go out and get defensive stops, you better be a great team defender. Larry Bird wasn't a great individual defender but he was a great team defender. And he was always in the right spot.

Always willing to make the plays. 

Diving on balls, just doing all of that stuff. And those were all of the things I said James can do it, he just didn't want to. So I was like this is only gonna last so long when your top guy isn't willing to just do a lot of the dirt-working things that it takes to win- not NBA games during the season- but what it takes to win championships.

It's so freaking hard to win 4 series, to win a championship.

At some point, when you're playing a team every bit as good as you are so you've gotta just do all of the little things. 

I thought Daryl let him slide on alot of that stuff. Eventually, that comes back and bites you in the rear end.

So, there it was. It came back and bit him in the rear end now."

McHale 193-130 as the Rockets' head coach from 2011-2016, reaching the Western Conference Finals in 2014-15 and leading the Rockets to three consecutive postseason appearances. In other words, he had a front-row seat to everything that played out between Harden and Morey during his Rockets days.