On Tuesday night, James Harden made his NBA preseason debut. An opportunity to get some run, get a bunch of shots up in the first half, then park it on the bench and let the scrubs have their turn. Harden did just that, scoring 12 points on 10 shots in 21 minutes.
Normally, the former NBA MVP would be getting clowned on Twitter for going 3-for-10 from the field, and scoring a third of his points from the free throw line. Instead, Harden was getting shamed for something much worse. He was being shamed for looking thiccc as hell:
Some would say it's a bad angle, others might point out that he has multiple layers of clothing on, not to mention they're all the same color, and that color happens to be all red, which makes him resemble Santa Claus, who, I'm not sure you've heard, is rather large. After all those excuses, though, the most believable reason for Harden looking like this is that he did what we've all done during this pandemic - put on a quarantine 15. Who remembers Harden's Thanksgiving plate?
Sheesh. Assuming he had seconds plus dessert, he gained five pounds on Thanksgiving night alone. Mix in a few nights at the strip club (which was apparently open recently for Harden to make it rain dollar bills) and it starting to become clear where this extra weight came from. Big guard, indeed.
Twitter, despite being the home of "body positivity," fat-shamed Harden into another dimension when that picture began making the rounds. As much as we'd like to say it wasn't nice, this is an NBA player who is being paid $41 million this season. The least he could do is show up in shape, though Harden has been known to "play himself into shape" during his career.
Anyway, enjoy the tweets, which are gold:
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