Either Moses Malone Jr. has fabricated some outrageous claims or James Harden has a very fragile ego. Malone, the son of Hall of Famer and former Rockets center Moses Malone, has filed a lawsuit alleging Harden orchestrated a robbery that left Malone Jr. beaten and robbed up to $50,000 in jewelry at a nightclub last year, according to Isiah Carey of KRIV.
Malone’s suit claims Harden took offense when Malone commented in a Facebook post about Harden charging $250 for a basketball camp. He alleges Harden then paid the robbers $20,000 to rob and attack him. According to KTRK, this was the original post on social media:
Eyewitness News received a screenshot of Malone’s Facebook post. In it, Malone wrote, “Don’t he make WAY more $ then (sic) Donald Driver???? But, he charging 249$ & the inner city kids have NO CHANCE to go to his camp. Hollywood Harden #Fact.”
Four men have already been charged in the case for assaulting Malone. According to the Houston Chronicle, court documents say one of the men, Darian Blount, told Malone that the attack was related to the Facebook post:
The warrants state Blount approached Malone with up to 15 people behind him outside of V Live, yelling at him about a Facebook post involving Harden. According to court documents, Blount said Malone had “disrespected James Harden and that he needs to be punished after that.”
Of course, Harden was not present nor are there any documents explicitly connected him as the “mastermind” of this whole thing. But the Houston Chronicle did call him “a frequent visitor” of the popular nightclub where the incident took place, whatever that’s worth.
Harden’s attorney, Rusty Hardin, provided the following statement to KRIV in light of the new lawsuit:
“I am in Boston for depositions so I haven’t seen the petition but I have previously discussed Mose’s allegations with James and others, and I am totally comfortable that the allegations are untrue. Unfortunately, I am afraid this is just another example of people shopping for a deep pocket when they find that the people actually responsible have no money.”
We’ll find out eventually if Malone is fishing for money or actually has some sort of proof that Harden was behind the assault and robbery instead of some random friends fighting in Harden’s name. Malone also filed a lawsuit against the nightclub in August for $1 million in damages.
No matter how this turns out, this is already one of the oddest sports stories of 2017.
