Oh, no.
Look, I know this is all fun and games, and that kid must be real good at masking his feelings. But if this ever happened to me in front of hundreds of other kids my age, I’m grabbing my drawstring bag, walking directly out of the gym and never touching a basketball ever again. Probably emptying my Poland Spring out onto the floor while I’m at it. To make it worse, Harden celebrates by high-fiving the crowd and getting swarmed by admiring fans. The equivalent of not only “kicking him while he’s down,” but also spitting in his face, giving him a wedgie, taking his lunch money, and throwing his tied-together shoes over the telephone wires.
There’s no chance that kid got a second of sleep that night.
I’ll bet all my money that he went home, powered up some 2k16, played Harden 1v1 with his level 99 MyCareer player and posterized him over and over until the memory somewhat faded away.
B’lieve dat.
MD
PS. There’s roughly a 100% chance this kid’s 2k16 MyPlayer looks something like this:
