James Harden Supports MSU Victim

MSU flag hanging in Mrs. Horvath’s classroom.

Campbell Nicholson, reporter

On February 13th, 2023 there was a horrific mass shooting on the campus of Michigan State University. Three people were killed and five others were critically injured. One of which was a 20-year-old international student, John Hau.

John is currently paralyzed from the neck down. He has always been a fan of NBA superstar James Harden. Many people don’t like Harden because of his ‘annoying’ style of basketball that he plays which involves drawing lots of intentional fouls and shooting lots of free throws. Whether you like him or not you can’t deny that he just did an amazing deed.

On February 23rd James Harden went out of his way to support the young fan. Harden sent Jon a pair of game-worn shoes, as well as gave him his phone number. John and Harden have facetimed multiple times now. Harden also contributed heavily to John Hau’s Gofundme and invited him to sit courtside at a future 76ers game. 

John requested that Harden wore a headband for his next game, trying to recreate his 2020 game in which he wore a headband and dropped a 44-point triple-double. Harden of course agreed and hit the game-winning shot against the grizzlies to wrap up his 31-point performance.

7th grader Will gave his opinion on this topic, “I think that it was a very good deed by Harden. I never disliked Harden before, but I respect him a lot more. I think that there should be an NBA Man of the year award but I think someone else should win it.”

This was no doubt a very good deed by Harden. Harden tried to give him a positive moment during a horrible time.  I think that we should all respect him for that, but let me know what you think.