James Harden of the Houston Rockets is one of the best players in the NBA, and according to his head coach Mike D’Antoni, once the NBA returns to action in July, Harden will be ready for the challenge:

“Probably the worst thing you can do is take basketball away from him. He has used this to recharge, to get in better shape and still always has that incredible fire,” D’Antoni told Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle.

Indeed, recent video surfaced of a supremely svelte Harden getting a workout in with some friends in quarantine. Harden’s weight has sometimes been an area of concern for his detractors, though his heft has not taken away from his brilliant scoring ability and strength, making him an amazing on-ball creator and scorer as well as a talented post defender.

Harden has led the league in scoring the past two seasons and is pole position to lead it again this year as he is averaging 34.4 points per game alongside his new star teammate Russell Westbrook.

Now that the NBA is finally getting back to business after a long layoff due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it will be interesting to see how the new slimmed-down Harden performs compared to his “chunkier” look from years past.

Certainly, Harden has cemented himself as one of the players in the NBA, as he has been a perennial MVP candidate and did manage to take home that prestigious hardware in 2017-18, when he averaged 30.4 points per game, 8.8 assists per game and 5.4 rebounds per game while shooting 10 threes a game and hitting 44.9 percent of his shots from the field on a sky-high 36.1 percent usage rate.