Montrezl Harrell: Why the Houston Rockets Would be a Great Fit for LeBron

Montrezl Harrell scored 42 of his team's 50 points in a Big3 game, set the league's single game scoring record, then got in a car, drove to Louisville, and played in a TBT game the next day.

Asked on the show whether his hands had cooled off yet, Harrell was blunt. "Nah, they didn't cool off," he said, before mentioning he had another game that day and travel back to the Big3 the next. "The basketball don't stop."

The record itself was almost an accident. The previous mark was 37, set by Isaiah Briscoe, and Harrell says he had no idea he was near it until someone told him. "I think Chris Hayes actually came over and told me that hey, like, you close to the scoring record, like you got like 36." Even then, he waved it off. "Honestly, I didn't even really have it in my mindset. I was just going out there and kind of just doing what my team needed me to do."

Context makes it stranger. That was only his second game with the Chicago Triplets this season, in week five, because he has been shuttling back and forth to play in Puerto Rico as well.

The Triplets are coached by Julius Erving, which is the part Harrell keeps circling back to. The Big3 championship trophy carries Dr. J's name, and Chicago came a few plays away from winning it last year before losing in Orlando. Harrell says the roster conversations started about a week and a half after that loss. "We want to make sure that it turns with a different ending this year."

The best detail of the interview had nothing to do with scoring. Harrell is deeply superstitious about footwear, and it costs him a closet.

"Every game, the shoes that I wear that game, I don't wear in any other game. No matter how good I play," he said. "So the shoes that I had on in that game where I just scored 42, y'all won't see them shoes ever again." It gets worse. He wears one pair in the first half and a different pair in the second, and has his entire career, in the NBA and in Australia, China and Puerto Rico. "82 games times two and a half."

Harrell then spent a long stretch talking wrestling, and he came in credentialed. He has been watching since it was the WWF, his list runs Stone Cold, Rey Mysterio, the Hardy Boys, Shawn Michaels and Randy Orton, and he owns an Ula Fala. He is unambiguously a Roman Reigns guy, and his critique of Seth Rollins was sharp enough to make the desk erupt. "You claim you're the visionary," Harrell said, arguing Rollins built a second Bloodline with Bronson Reed and Bron Breakker while criticizing Reigns for the same thing.

On LeBron James, Harrell does not think a Lakers return is happening, and his reasoning is about role rather than loyalty. "He's later on in his stage in his career to the point he's not trying to lead a younger team," he said. His sleeper is Houston, because of the bigs. "For the two years Bron had, they've been saying we need a big man, he's got to play big." He also floated Golden State and Philadelphia.

The heaviest part came last. Asked about the bubble, Harrell said he should never have returned. He lost his grandmother during it and could not say goodbye. "She slipped into a coma and I wasn't able to say my goodbyes. Something that I still struggle with to this day."

He came back anyway, with no warmup games, straight into a playoff series. "I wasn't mentally where I needed to be in order to help the team."