James Harden and the Legend of the Fat Suit
Gather round for a tale of mystery, betrayal, and player tanking.
A young boy is stepping out of the backseat of his mothers car, waiting right there for her to extend her hand and escort him to the front door of his grandparents illuminated house. It’s icy, and a little too cold even though he’s bundled in more layers than he can keep track of. The mother takes her sons hand and begins leading him up the driveway filled with cars. As they approach, he’s beginning to hear the muffled laughter of adults and children from inside the house. He begins to pause for moment, until he looks through the window to see a wonderfully decorated tree in the living room. The tree is wrapped with shining string lights and decorated in various ornaments, each surely holding their own sentimental value. When they approach the doorstep, the mother beings to knock and, quickly, the door is flung open to reveal a large man with a grey beard, who happily welcomes his new guests into the house.
Inside are scores of people, all in small groups happily chatting with one another, the boy immediately takes off his coat, and before it can even fully flop to the floor, he’s already happily running towards a group of children laughing over on the other side of the room. The day is grand, as I imagine Christmas Eve always is when you’re with a happy family.
Before everything wraps up however, the large man with the grey beard calls all the children over to a corner of the living room.
“Come along, children. Please take a seat. Grandpa has a story that’s going to knock your socks off!” a deep voice calls out as it sinks into a large, soft looking chair. The kids all huddle in front of it, currently occupied by the bearded man himself. In but a moments the children are quiet, waiting patiently to hear what grandpa has to say. Most of the adults have escaped to a different room, so the only thing that can be heard here is the fireplace, crackling with life.
Grandpa clears his throat, and with a soft, but deep voice, begins his tale. “For this story, we’re going to go back a little while, back when X had just begun what we know now as their grand plan to absorb every other company.” Unbeknownst to the children, a small device on top of the fireplace begins glowing a faint red.
“But of course, that was a great thing, Elon is very smart, and the name is super cool, X is the coolest letter, after all”. The device stops glowing.
“Anyway, I hope you’ll bear with me here. This is the story of James Harden and the Legend of the Fat Suit. To properly tell this story we’ll have to start back in 2019.”
“Now, at this point, James had done many great things, he twice lead the NBA in scoring, he lead the league in assists, he won an MVP, and he pushed the KD-Steph Warriors to seven games in the Western Conference Finals. He was living a life of fun, hanging out with Lil Baby, going to strip clubs, and was beloved in Houston.”
“Grandpa?” One of the kids in the front row interjects “what’s a strip club?”
The bearded man stutters for a moment, then dejectedly says “That’s not important, listen here and don’t interrupt. Now, James had a partner for the last two years, Chris. Those guys didn’t get along at all. People said James was lazy and didn’t want to work when Chris had the ball. That Chris was hard to work with because he like things done his own way. Eventually, they had to be split up, it wasn’t going to work anymore. So the Rockets traded Chris for this other guy, Westbrook.”
“More like WestBRICK” shouts one of the kids in the back.
“Hey now,” the old man calmly interjects, “Westbrook was a great player in his own right. To that point, he’d also lead the league in scoring twice, lead in assists twice, not to mention he averaged a triple double three times!”
“Sure,” that same kid in the back row exclaims, “But that whole triple double thing is so played out, it was cool the first time, but let’s be honest with ourselves, he was stat padding the entire time, we forgave him for it the first year, but when that’s all your doing year after year, and every time your team is getting bounced in the first round, you have to realize that maybe he just wasn’t playing the right way.”
“I don’t know if that’s entirely fair, to do that takes tremendous athletic ability and knowledge of the game. There’s a reason only Oscar had done it before him.”
“Right, but what’s more impressive? Getting three triple double seasons in a row or winning in the playoffs? You can’t even say the team wasn’t good enough, he had Paul George with him for two of those years. PG even got MVP votes one year, we’ve seen how far he can go into the playoffs with other teams, why is it that with Westbrook he couldn’t even get out of the first round? It’s selfish basketball that’s made to look unselfish. He’s not focused on winning. It’s a bastardization of the game!”
The old man ponders for a moment, then, in an attempt to find common ground says “I do think Westbrooks MVP should’ve gone to Harden, it was clear who was impacting winning and who was just trying to feed the narrative. But I digress, that isn’t important to what I’m saying. There was a new found hope that Westbrook could reinvigorate the team, and Harden himself. Westbrook was more physical, and after Morey traded away the teams only center, the entire team was made of smaller guys. Just wings and guards, no bigs. Ultimately, however, it was a failure. The Rockets barely squeaked by the Thunder in the first round, only to get beat down by the Lakers.
After that, James saw everyone he worked with move on, the coach left, the GM, Morey, went to Philly. The owner was an asshole and James didn't see a reason to keep this going in Houston. He demanded a trade, but there was a problem, the team didn’t like the return they were getting for him, so they weren’t dealing him. Fast forward to the beginning of the season, James is still in Houston, so, what does he do? He wants out, but just sitting out will cost him money, and goodwill with other teams. Enter the fat suit. James showed up to training camp completely overweight, not at all ready to begin the season. Even so, the team had to push on, however, James wasn’t done there. During games, the rascal decided that trying was over, if the Rockets wanted a capable player, they needed to trade him and find someone else. He would stand by the three point line with his hands on his knees, walk during transition, wouldn’t go for loose balls-”
“But grandpa”, another kid in the front row begins, “Isn’t James kind of always like that? I don’t think anyone would describe him as someone who plays hard. He always has his hands on his knees when he’s not in the play, you can go back to any year and see evidence of this. It’s just who he is”.
“No.” Grandpa cuts in, “This was different, it was more intentional, it was to send a message. Anyway, after just eight games, the Rockets traded him to Brooklyn. Now this is where it gets crazy, he gets to Brooklyn and he’s skinny. He’s in shape. Despite only taking a few days off he looks almost like a different person. This is where the legend of the fat suit really begins. How else would he have lost all that weight in such a short time?”
“Well..” One of the kids begins to ponder aloud, “He’s rich, right? So he could’ve just gotten liposuction. Or maybe he just started taking his health more seriously once he was in a place he wanted to be.”
The old man stares in shock. He looks blankly at the child for a few moments before regaining his composure. “Well, now, I don’t know about all that. That’s what they might tell you, but that’s why they call this a legend, you have to suspend disbelief for a moment to really see the truth. Now, in Brooklyn, things weren’t so peachy either. He thought he’d be amongst people who understood him, people who didn’t take these things too seriously. He joined Kevin and Kyrie, he’d played with Kevin before, and thought things would be easy with those two by his side. However, Kyrie immediately became irritated and James’ lack of drive, his work ethic wasn’t there anymore, and Kyrie was cooking him every practice. That being said, Kyrie was out a lot, whether that was due to personal issues, injury, or whatever else was going on with him, he missed a lot of time. That irritated James, because Kevin also missed a lot of time, which suddenly meant James was responsible for running the entire show some nights in Brooklyn. That’s exactly why he left Houston, he was tired of running that game.”
“I thought he left Houston because he couldn’t win there anymore?” A child speaks up.
“Well,” grandpa thinks for a moment, “Yes, that is why. But also, he didn’t want to do all that work, he didn’t want to be the guy anymore.”
“So, is James just lazy like everyone says?”
“No!” The old man suddenly shouts, “He wasn’t lazy, he had a lot of miles on him, he’d been running the offense with no real second star for a long time, he’d endured so many playoff failures. He wanted a collaborative effort, and when he got there, not only was that not what happened, but the other stars there didn’t appreciate him. They both believed they were better, just because they were better one-on-one players. They had deeper bags, well, they had won titles whereas James hadn’t. It was a toxic environment, and then James, for the first time in basically his entire career, got hurt in the playoffs, at the worst time, when Kyrie was already injured. Even though he tried to play through it, nobody cared. They lost.”
A child on the edge speaks up, “What did James do after that? Did he recognize his own personal failures, even though it wasn’t all his fault everything happened the way it did? Did he reflect on what was truly important to him, get in shape, and really push for a title with the team that clearly had the most talent on paper?”
The old man wipes some sweat from his brow “I mean, not exactly. Kyrie missed a bunch more time because he decided to out himself as an anti-Semite, and Kevin is always injured at this point, so a lot of it fell on Harden once again. Eventually, he demanded a trade, and, in order to be certain that trade happened, he brought out the fat suit again! It wasn’t quite as drastic this time, mostly because people caught on to him when he did it the first time. His play declined ever so slightly as the season went on, people wondered if he was just washed, and now that he was overweight again, it was clearly time to move on. So eventually, Philly traded for him and he was back with his old GM. Philly was ecstatic, they had shipped out their most hated player this century in order to acquire him, and welcomed him with open arms as their true second star to Joel Embiid.”
"But wait,” begins one child with a confused expression “Shouldn’t the Philly fans be a little more cautious, they just watched this guy tank his way out of two places in two years, wouldn’t it be a little silly to think this isn’t a reflection on him, and that it’s just the teams he was on that were the entire problem?”
“Some were cautiously optimistic, sure, but the fans decided to welcome him, to give him a chance. I admire that. The billboards I saw driving around Philly around that time were really sweet.”
“Grandpa, what’s a billboard?”
“Sorry, you know how there are all those big screens along the highway that are just live feeds of whatever X Æ A-12 Musk is thinking? Those used to be ads, and sometimes they’d be sweet messages. Anyway, after James showed up in Philly, he vowed to get in shape and really push for a title. It was clear he wanted to win one, badly. Although, tensions started to rise almost immediately. James wanted to secure his future and make sure to put the pressure on Morey. So on Christmas day, right before the games began, James’ camp floated out that he wants to go to Houston after this season, effectively killing all the positive vibes the team had built up to that point.”
“On Christmas?”
“On Christmas, can you believe it? Anyway the rumors swirled for months. Would he stay? Would he go? Would he opt in or out? What does Embiid think? It was an exciting time for the fans of 29 teams. After everything, the rumor is Morey reneged on a handshake deal with Harden that he’d give him a massive extension after the first full year. That extension never happened, then James went to China and blasted Morey, calling him a liar and saying he’d never play for him again. Morey was steadfast that he wasn’t trading James unless the deal was good for him. It was a standstill. What do you kids think happened next?”
A bunch of eager tiny voices all called out “The fat suit! The fat suit! Did he use the fat suit?”
“Well it gets even crazier, what happened was he-”
Just in that moment a few adults come back into the room, filling the room with their obnoxious laughter. “Hey kids!” One adult with eyes redder than Santa’s coat exclaims “Time for bed! Did you like Grandpas story?
All the kids angrily shout at the parents “We were just getting to the good part!”
“Awh, that’s too bad, maybe Grandpa will finish next year, ok? Now come on we have to say our nightly thanks to X for giving us our free speech back. Bed time!”
The kids all sigh, and then begin filing up the stairs and getting ready for bed. Grandpa has already made his way into the room where the parents had been this whole time. “Finally,” the bearded man says “these fools hogging all the good grass”.
This Christmas Eve was a success, and as the lights fade inside they won’t fade on the outside, a house decorated in string lights and festive lawn creatures. A long driveway that gets more festive with every step, and at the end of it all, a shiny mailbox with THE HARDENS plastered onto the side.