Josh Harrellson

Standing 6-foot-10 and going by the nickname "Jorts," Josh Harrellson is the kind of guy who makes you do a double-take — and not just because of the height. He came out of Kentucky, which is basically a finishing school for NBA bigs, and got drafted in 2011, carving out a journeyman career across multiple teams including the Knicks and Heat before settling into a long second act in Japan, where he became a naturalized citizen and national-team player. He was never a star, but that's not really the point — at 208 centimeters you occupy space in a way that demands respect, and he clearly had enough craft to keep getting roster calls. The "Jorts" nickname alone tells you he had a sense of humor about himself, which honestly goes a long way in a locker room. A solid role-player era, a fun Twitter presence, a Kentucky pedigree — not a headline grabber, but the kind of player every good team quietly needs.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Josh Harrellson is an American-born professional basketball player, born on February 12, 1989, in St. Charles, Missouri, who later became a naturalized Japanese citizen and has played for the Japan national team. Standing 208 cm tall, he played for the University of Kentucky and in the NBA for the Knicks, Heat and Pistons before a long career in Japan's B.League. He is known by the social media handle bigjorts55 on X (formerly Twitter).

Name (English)

Josh Harrellson

Name (Japanese)

ジョシュ・ハレルソン

Reading

じょしゅ・はれるそん

Born

February 12, 1989 (age 37)

Origin

St. Charles, Missouri, United States

Height

208cm

Occupation

Basketball player

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Snake

University

University of Kentucky

• Xhttps://x.com/bigjorts55
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A7%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A5%E3%83%BB%E3%83%8F%E3%83%AC%E3%83%AB%E3%82%BD%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q611468

Tags

• Basketball player

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.