Landon Buford
During the off-season, James Harden has been in Atlanta and Las Vegas partying instead of in training camp in Houston. Harden played in a pre-season game against the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday night, where he finished with 12 points on 3 of 10 shooting.
After the game, he did not speak with the media, however on Wednesday, he addressed journalists for the first time at an afternoon press conference. But although there were a lot of questions to ask, Harden had little to say.
The most notable response came when ESPN’s Tim MacMahon asked why he was tardiness to training camp.
The full exchange can be found below.
Reporter: James what was the point you were trying to get across when you went to Atlanta and Vegas when training camp was starting?
Harden: I was just training.
Reporter: What were you training for?
Harden: Uh, the start of the NBA season.
Reporter: How did going to Atlanta and Vegas help you there, when the Rockets were starting training camp in Houston?
Harden: Uh, just you know, my personal trainers.
Harden reported to Houston visually out of shape.
On Thursday evening, retired NFL star, Anthony ‘Spice’ Adams was on Instagram Live with NBA analyst Ryan Hollins, and weighed in on Harden’s weight gain, and are we blowing thing out of proportion?
“We always overreact especially now, ain’t nobody got nothing to do, but be in someone else’s business. How do you know, the man doesn’t want to work on his post game. How do you know that? You have to be able to over power some people, and just because he has a little belly right now, what does that mean?” said Adams.
“If that man puts 40 on you, it doesn’t even matter, and he can always lose that. But, at the same time, you can’t be in the post looking like that stick figure you just put up. And at the same time bruh, it is cuffing season. It all types of snow storms everywhere right now, it is time for the big fellas to shine. You gotta have that belly when in the bed that man. The girl has to have something to grab on to, he’s killing two birds with one stone. He’s getting ready for cuffing season, and he is getting ready to get that post game something crazy.”
On November 16, 2020, James Harden officially requested a trade, which was something Heavy’s Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson reported the day prior, that Houston was interested in trading for Joel Embid, but Harden wasn’t available.
