DeMarcus Cousins blasts James Harden as trade talks heat up

“My interest is to play with John Wall, to be brutally honest,” Cousins continued. “The (Harden) disrespect started way before. This isn’t something that, you know, all of a sudden started last night.”

Images from Tuesday night’s loss to the Lakers showing interactions between Cousins and Harden certainly point to how the situation was about to boil over.

Harden and the Rockets have reached a point of no return in light of the superstar’s polarizing postgame comments Tuesday night following consecutive blowout losses to the Los Angeles Lakers. Harden essentially threw his teammates and the entire organization under the bus.

The Rockets-Harden breakup has been a long time coming, and the protracted saga that kicked into high gear just ahead of tipoff of the 2020-21 NBA season — and then got progressively worse — could be nearing an end.

Things did quiet down for a bit when it came to the trade-demand drama, but Harden’s postgame comments clearly put the issue back on the front burner.

Houston has now elected to keep Harden away from the team. The star was not at Rockets practice Wednesday as trade talks with the Philadelphia 76ers and Brooklyn Nets heat up, as relayed by Shams Charania of The Athletic.

Cousins was asked if there was any scenario where he could envision Harden could rejoin the Rockets.

“I don’t know,” Cousins said, per ESPN. “But I honestly don’t care.”

Now it’s only a matter of the Rockets extracting everything possible out of a trade that rids the team of a malcontent who has no interest in being around any longer.