With the James Harden trade to the Clippers in the news, I’ve recently looked back on the first time Harden was traded in his career in 2012:
When Harden was traded to the Rockets, it was pretty clear he was a good player that would be a starting guard on almost any NBA team.
However, it became clear very quickly that his offensive ceiling was a lot higher than people expected when he dropped 37 points then 45 in his first two games as a Rocket.
I just remember the excitement of those first few games where it was apparent this guy had a level to his game that not many could have foreseen based on his time in OKC.
As a kindergartner in a city just outside of Sacramento our school had morning assemblies. The year is 2001 and it’s toward the end of the year.
The school had a pretty nice courtyard where grades K-8 could all gather as one with a platform in the middle for student council.
As many of you know, the Kings and Lakers met in the Playoffs that year. So basically, we had a chant off.
The student council first told all the students that were Kings fans to chant “BEAT LA!” and the all the Lakers fans to chant “GO LA!”
Each kindergartner had their “8th grade” buddy with them.
He told me that we want the Lakers to win. So we chanted “GO LA!” and I went home and told my mom. She told me we wanted the Kings to win, not the Lakers.
I was 6 and really had no idea what was going on until a few months, when I started my first year of little dribblers.
I ended up becoming a passionate Kings fan over the next few years until they traded CWebb, but still remember chanting “GO LA!” as a kindergartner to this day.
I ended up becoming a nomadic bandwagon fan after the CWebb trade, but will always have a liking for both the Kings and the Lakers because of how impactful they were growing up in the 2000s.