James Harden clearly isn’t returning to the Rockets, and that may ultimately have crushed the business model for his Thirteen restaurant in Houston.
Contrary to many expectations at the time, the Houston Rockets and former Most Valuable Player (MVP) James Harden didn’t reunite in the NBA’s 2023 free agency window.
Two years later, that might have sealed the fate of Harden’s Thirteen restaurant venture in the city.
Michael Shapiro of Chron.com reports:
Thirteen… is currently locked and closed due to $2.2 million in “delinquent rents and other amounts due to the lease,” per a notice posted on the restaurant’s door.
Per the notice, “the door locks to the premisies have been changed and tenant shall be excluded therefrom due to non-payment of rent.” A new key can be provided to Thirteen’s management if the delinquent rent is paid.
It’s probably a safe assumption that Thirteen would have been more successful, from a business standpoint, if its celebrity owner was actively starring for the local team.
Though Thirteen opened in 2021, after Harden had leveraged a trade from the Rockets to the Brooklyn Nets, it’s fairly clear in hindsight that he planned on eventually returning to the Rockets as a player. That would almost certainly have been boosted interest, and perhaps it was part of the business model.
But after hiring Ime Udoka as head coach in April 2023, the Rockets went a different direction and subsequently signed veteran Fred VanVleet as their veteran point guard, instead of Harden.
That didn’t sever all ties between Harden and the city, as he remains very active in community work and is part of the Houston Dynamo ownership group in Major League Soccer (MLS).
Yet, in the cut-throat world of high-end restaurant economics, Harden not returning to the Rockets made it unlikely that Thirteen (named after his Houston jersey number) could thrive, long-term, in a high-rent Midtown location.
Perhaps its time has already come and gone.
Now 36 years old, Harden will soon enter his third season playing for the Los Angeles Clippers, a team from his hometown. “The Beard” was an All-Star last season and remains among the NBA’s elite talents, but Udoka and the Rockets ultimately reached the conclusion that the overall team fit was better with VanVleet.
With VanVleet as its veteran leader, Houston finished No. 2 in the Western Conference last season. Harden and the Clippers were three spots behind at No. 5, and considering his relatively advanced age, expectations are for Los Angeles to be his final NBA stop as a player.