James Harden Under Police Investigation After Nightclub Incident
An incident in Arizona over the weekend could be the worst thing to happen to the Houston Rockets since someone greenlit the decision to sign Carmelo Anthony in free agency.
At 2:30 a.m. Sunday, James Harden was at the Mint nightclub in Scottsdale where, according to the Arizona Republic, a woman alleges Harden grabbed her cell phone and threw it up on the roof to avoid her being able to sell footage of an altercation involving a member of Harden’s entourage.
Scottsdale police spokesman Officer Kevin Watts, however, pumped the brakes on the story at lightning speed.
In a statement, Watts said it was “far too early in the investigation” to determine whether there is any merit in the allegations or indeed if the event described by the alleged victim happened at all like she said it did.
Once again, it was a member of Harden’s entourage that got into a fight at the nightclub, not Harden himself, and the accuser says she was recording the incident on her cell phone.
According to TMZ, a member of Harden’s group offered her $200 for the phone — which she took — and Harden himself paid her $300 on the spot, which would seem to indicate that the phone was indeed destroyed and that Harden’s gang were the ones responsible.
TMZ also reports that the woman climbed up onto the roof to retrieve the phone, which was still recording when she found it. That’s impressive, insofar as a phone camera usually can’t record video for very long without either filling its memory, running out of battery, or producing recording quality that would make the Zapruder film look like an Oscar winner for cinematography by comparison.
Security personnel at the club broke up the fight.
Police have not released a list of suspects to the public, nor would they confirm or deny whether Harden was a person of interest in the investigation.
This isn’t the first time Harden’s had anger management issues involving cell phones.
During the Western Conference playoffs last spring, Harden got into the face of a Jazz fan at a Rockets home game and slapped the phone out of his hand.
The Jazz fan in question had heckled Harden, calling him “the worst flopper in the NBA,” which apparently set Harden off.
That fan, for his trouble, got a sharp warning by arena security to keep his opinions to himself, a fine case of the rent-a-cops enforcing the unwritten law of fan behavior at a home playoff game.
And besides, Harden had a legitimate beef. The worst flopper in the NBA is Marcus Smart, as anyone who watches “Inside the NBA” knows.
Still, if this is how Harden deals with cell phones, that could establish a pattern of behavior that may not hold up in even a misdemeanor criminal mischief case, but could come into play if the woman sues Harden for emotional distress in a civil case.
The Rockets did not comment on the allegations. They seem content to wait until Harden is positively identified as a person of interest in the case before saying anything.
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