Dennis Young: All the tortured euphemisms being used to call James Harden overweight

NEW YORK — What you can get away with saying changes quickly. It was just 2016 when former Rockets coach Kevin McHale complained that he got fired because “James Harden had sprained his ankle during the summer and came in overweight.” It was only 2014 when the New York Daily News ran a “Fat-letes” slideshow centered around Bartolo Colon.

In 2021, a gentler approach is, rightly, demanded by readers. But that presents a bit of a challenge when a formerly lithe scorer shows up to the NBA season with a new gut, and then starts the season scoring at the lowest rate he has in a decade.

It’s telling that perhaps the only writer to call James Harden “fat” in a headline was a known sexual harasser, but at the same time, Harden’s physique is clearly newsworthy, especially after the Nets traded away the farm for him.

Until he begins producing like his older, leaner self, his fitness will be dissected, just with different words than it would have been a decade ago. (And if he keeps the pounds on but starts balling, he’ll become slightly less hated. Harden might never engender the affection that Boris Diaw did, but a chunky guard taking over New York has obvious appeal.)

It’s worth noting, too, that Harden’s body has been insanely scrutinized over his NBA career. It was less than a year ago that features were written about “Skinny Harden” and his gutbusting pandemic workout regimen.

This isn’t a meditation on how fairly Harden has been treated by the media. Harden isn’t particularly sympathetic anyway, going maskless to strip clubs during the pandemic and earning unusually open hatred from his now-former teammates in Houston. It’s a look at the sparks flying off the euphemism treadmill when it reaches unsafe speeds.

So far, the most prominent dancing around the subject was done by NBA TV announcer Ro Parrish, who got his digs in over a giggling Brendan Haywood.

“I wanna talk about some aesthetics,” Parrish said before what would be Harden’s final game as a Rocket before the Nets trade. “James Harden definitely had a pregame meal.”

Here’s a survey of how major outlets have covered the newly hefty lefty.

The Houston Chronicle, Harden’s old local paper, was all over it. Here’s how three different writers described him:

“He looks pretty much like he’s looked throughout his career. He’s probably slightly heavier than when we last saw him in the NBA bubble but definitely not alarmingly so.”

“While Harden isn’t in midseason shape, he didn’t look nearly as rotund as the Kris Kringle-like figure he cut in a couple unflattering screenshots making the social media rounds.”

“....isn’t in MVP shape.”

Several outlets went with simply “out of shape,” including the Washington Post, Sports Illustrated (which added “woefully” before) and the Sporting News (which added “and out of sorts” after). Even the league’s official media organ, NBA.com, wrote that he “appears to be out of shape.”

A Philadelphia Inquirer columnist cautioned the Sixers about trading for someone who had been “letting himself go physically like that.”

Karl Ravech of ESPN narrated a preseason highlight segment by saying Harden was “looking a little heavier than he has,” then brought on Brian Windhorst, who said that “His conditioning is not tip-top.”

“Conditioning” is Windhorst’s preferred buzzword. “You’re looking at a guy not dedicated to his conditioning, looking at a guy who turned down a $100 million extension and didn’t dedicate to his conditioning,” the ESPN reporter said on Rich Eisen’s radio show.

Marc Stein of the New York Times also got in on the conditioning, with a possible food pun sprinkled on top. “The state of Harden’s game (and conditioning) is not making it any easier on the Rockets in their quest to assemble a palatable trade,” Stein tweeted.

“Poor choices and poor conditioning” were to blame for the Rockets’ ugly start, according to Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer.

Even as the line between websites, TV and newspapers has been significantly blurred, a few digital outlets were blunter. “Harden is a bona fide scorer assuming he sheds the excess weight,” Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo wrote.

Harden has “additional pounds procured in the offseason,” SB Nation’s Spurs blog wrote before going off the rails. “In some ways, the weight gain is reminiscent of when Axl Rose came out of a self-exile in 2002 and made his first major national television appearance in quite some time.”

The Ringer joked about his “current surplus of water weight,” while the Daily Beast said that Harden is “appearing to have packed on a few pounds.”

The Barclays Center is right across the street from a Shake Shack, unfortunately. Indoor dining is banned in New York City because of an uptick of coronavirus cases, though, so whether Harden is loading up on burgers or salads, he’ll have to do it in a sidewalk yurt or the comfort of his own home.

When Harden was officially introduced as a Net on Friday, he was asked how he would “describe his conditioning level.” Laughing at the question, Harden said it was “great.”