{"id":23914,"date":"2021-01-21T11:44:32","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T11:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/2021\/01\/james-harden-and-the-death-of-heliocentrism\/"},"modified":"2021-01-22T12:51:34","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T12:51:34","slug":"james-harden-and-the-death-of-heliocentrism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/21\/james-harden-and-the-death-of-heliocentrism\/","title":{"rendered":"James Harden and the Death of Heliocentrism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Two of the United States\u2019 dumbest obsessions are stardom and statistics, and nobody demonstrates the ultimate emptiness of both quite like James Harden. The 31-year-old basketball player, who just forced his way to the Brooklyn Nets after spending the last eight seasons with the Houston Rockets, is a perennial MVP candidate and a three-time NBA scoring champion. He\u2019s also a living, breathing, endlessly dribbling embodiment of everything that America misunderstands about success. <\/p>\n

In 2019, the basketball analytics writer Seth Partnow wrote an influential article for the Athletic <\/em>titled \u201cThe New NBA Heliocentrism.\u201d<\/a> The premise was that teams now revolve around their star players to a degree unprecedented in league history. Partnow used a complex series of formulae and some colorful charts to illustrate what was obvious to anyone who\u2019d paid attention to the sport over the past few years: a small handful of star players like Harden were doing the vast majority of the \u201cfun stuff\u201d (i.e., holding the ball and, eventually, shooting it). Meanwhile, their teammates\u2019 job duties had been reduced to a glorified game of fetch. They were expected to jostle with opponents, to hurl their bodies on the hardwood floor, to run in endless circles for the singular purpose of making it easier for Harden and his fellow sungods to score.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The logic behind the heliocentric NBA is based on the type of \u201ccommon sense\u201d beloved by mainstream economists and boomer dads. Essentially, if X is good, then increasing the amount of X will lead to ever-increasing amounts of goodness. <\/em>If a basketball team gets 100 attempts to score during a game, the team will maximize its scoring potential by giving more of those attempts to its most talented player. A team will optimize its offense even further if the star in question sticks to \u201chigh value\u201d shots. This term refers to shots close to the basket (which are valuable because they\u2019re the easiest to make), 3-pointers (which are valuable because you get an extra point for making one), and free throws (which are valuable because nobody\u2019s allowed to bother you as you shoot). The heliocentric model of basketball is thus a data-driven one\u2014in the 2020 playoffs, for example, Harden averaged<\/a> 1.15 points per possession while feasting almost exclusively on high value shots. By comparison, his teammate P.J. Tucker averaged<\/a> 0.98 points per possession. Letting Harden use all of your team\u2019s possessions would give you one of the best offenses in the league. Letting Tucker do so would give you the worst<\/a> (by far). <\/p>\n

To be fair, even the fiercest proponents of the heliocentric model wouldn\u2019t recommend letting a team\u2019s best player take all <\/em>the shots. And following the repeated playoff failures of teams (like Harden\u2019s) that stick to the \u201cnothing but dunks, free throws, and 3s\u201d diet, many data nerds have begrudgingly accepted the importance of \u201clow value\u201d<\/a> shots during crunch time. Common sense is once again invoked\u2014if you actually let Harden use 100 percent of the possessions, his teammates would probably be quite annoyed (as a Sports Illustrated KIDS <\/em>book puts it, \u201cnobody wants to play with a ball hog\u201d<\/a>). And if other teams know you\u2019ll only shoot from a few spots on the floor, they can safely ignore the rest of the court. It\u2019s hard to win basketball games when you\u2019re that predictable, or when four out of five players on your team feel like underappreciated pawns. Plus, sometimes the star will need to rest. You have to ensure that all of their hard work isn\u2019t erased during these brief absences. Start adding up all the qualifications, and suddenly heliocentrism starts looking less like a foolproof blueprint for success and more like a \u201crule of thumb\u201d that got too big for its britches. <\/p>\n

Harden\u2019s tenure in Houston ended because the tensions inherent to the heliocentric model couldn\u2019t be resolved. It certainly wasn\u2019t because the star wasn\u2019t given enough opportunity to shine. The team\u2019s former general manager, a data-minded MIT grad named Daryl \u201cDork Elvis\u201d Morey, \u201cspent [years] constantly churning the roster around Harden, searching for the right superstar players to pair with him and the right role players for the supporting cast,\u201d as a 2018 ESPN<\/em> story put it<\/a>. Each time Harden decided he wanted to play with a famous friend, the team moved heaven and earth to acquire that player\u2014and to get rid of them<\/a> once they tired of playing Yoshi to Harden\u2019s Mario. The entire team was designed around catering to Harden\u2019s desires, which mostly involved taking a lot of shots and not playing defense.<\/a> The numbers said this was Houston\u2019s best chance at reaching the pinnacle of NBA glory. After several of the most remarkable playoff collapses<\/a> in league history, and Harden\u2019s subsequent proclamation that the team \u201c[couldn\u2019t] be fixed,\u201d<\/a> it\u2019s fair to wonder if the heliocentric model has been discredited once and for all. The Rockets gave Harden every perk a star could possibly want, and in the end all they managed to do was choke in the biggest moments<\/a> while pissing off<\/a> almost everyone else<\/a> on the team<\/a> (along with most NBA fans outside of Houston).  <\/p>\n

A clever defender of heliocentrism might argue that Harden\u2019s failure in Houston is not an indictment of the model itself, but rather the excesses to which it was taken in this specific case. It\u2019s easy to paint Harden as a uniquely selfish and reckless star. His penchant for egregious flops<\/a> (pretending to be injured) and whining to referees<\/a> has made him one of the most disliked players in recent memory. Even in a league where superstars are chummier than ever<\/a>, many of Harden\u2019s fellow A-listers think he\u2019s kind of an ass<\/a>. The fact that he skipped training to party (maskless!) at strip clubs<\/a> around the country seems to support the idea that Harden is Just a Bad Apple\u2122. <\/p>\n

Heliocentrism can go too far, to be sure. But in more sober and responsible hands\u2014say, like those of LeBron James\u2014the model can still be the most efficient way to achieve success. Right?<\/p>\n

Heliocentrism and Musk-Worship: Two Symptoms of the Same Disease<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s no coincidence that defenses of NBA heliocentrism sound an awful lot like defenses of contemporary capitalism and its rockstar CEOs. Data nerds can find numbers to show that capitalism is the most efficient way to reduce extreme poverty<\/a>, improve gender equality<\/a>, or even protect the environment.<\/a> If you complain that this obviously doesn\u2019t reflect reality, the nerds insist the model is sound\u2014it\u2019s just that the execution sometimes leaves a bit to be desired. When Elizabeth Warren said that \u201ccapitalism without rules is theft,\u201d<\/a> the implication was that, yes, it\u2019s bad that employers steal billions of dollars from workers<\/a> each year\u2014but if those employers were simply more honorable, the power structures of the modern economy would be fine. When sex pest Joe Biden<\/a> claimed to support an end to the \u201cera of shareholder capitalism,\u201d<\/a> the catch was even more obvious. \u201cWe must reward work as much as we rewarded wealth,\u201d said Biden, expressing an idea as impossible as it was insincere. The average full-time Amazon warehouse worker makes just over<\/a> $31,000 a year. Jeff Bezos makes nearly $150,000 per minute<\/em><\/a>. There\u2019s no way to reward the former \u201cas much\u201d as the latter without significantly reducing the latter\u2019s rewards. Clearly this would require changing the fundamental premise on which the current socioeconomic system operates. <\/p>\n

However, to paraphrase Upton Sinclair, it\u2019s difficult to get someone to accept a truth when their salary depends on rejecting it. In the political world, no amount of evidence seems capable of persuading capitalism\u2019s defenders that the world\u2019s problems can\u2019t be solved by the right means-tested tax credits. Elon Musk can make $15 billion in a single day, while a seething pool of investors pushes Tesla\u2019s stock market valuation so high it would take the company 1,600 years<\/a> to sell enough exploding cars to pay up\u2014and yet somehow, respectable shapers of public opinion like Forbes <\/em>chief content officer Randall Lane can insist that \u201cGreater Capitalism\u201d<\/a> would put an end to such absurdity. In case you were wondering, \u201cGreater Capitalism\u201d is functionally indistinguishable from the current version except for a slight uptick in elite benevolence. The same power structures can remain in place as long as the people at the top aren\u2019t jerks about it. As Lane puts it, \u201ctreating employees well doesn\u2019t mean a conflict with business necessities. It just means giving them proper respect.\u201d <\/p>\n

What exactly does \u201cproper respect\u201d mean, though? Like Anselm\u2019s definition of God<\/a>, it can only be described in the negative. \u201cProper respect\u201d is not <\/em>more money. It is not<\/em> better healthcare or working hours. It is not<\/em> more control over workplace conditions. \u201cProper respect\u201d is a vibe, more or less, that can be conjured by the occasional pizza party or a pat on the back. The boss who needs more ideas for how to convey \u201cproper respect\u201d<\/a> will find a vast industry of consultants ready to advise him, for a fee.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s much simpler in the NBA. There, proper respect<\/em> translates directly into a chance to compete for the title<\/em>. The league has long been notorious for its \u201cringz culture\u201d<\/a>\u2014the notion that only winning a championship can validate a player\u2019s career. Even decades of sustained excellence can\u2019t compensate for the failure to win a ring. You can break historic records like Karl Malone, win multiple MVPs like Steve Nash, or change the entire culture of the sport<\/a> like Allen Iverson. But if you don\u2019t have a title to your name, you\u2019re doomed to spend the rest of your life being viewed as a disappointment<\/a>. A real<\/em> baller is expected to sacrifice anything (salary, stats, pride, proximity to family and friends, etc.) for the mere shot at a \u2018ship.<\/p>\n

The obvious question\u2014one that the basketball media tends to avoid as assiduously as the political media avoids confronting the failures of capitalism\u2014is why? <\/em>Who decided the raison d\u2019etre <\/em>of an NBA player is to have a championship on their resume? Did millions of people individually arrive at that conclusion by observing some natural truth, or was the idea drilled into their heads by a media built to churn out stories that benefit its corporate backers? On a personal level, it would seem obvious that having legions of fans and millions of dollars would be more desirable than a piece of jewelry and some memories. It\u2019s not as if the mere possession of a ring determines one\u2019s future prospects. In fact, the only players more widely derided than those without rings are those who do <\/em>have rings they \u201cdidn\u2019t deserve,\u201d<\/a> like the legendary bust Adam Morrison<\/a>. Meanwhile, ringless ex-stars like Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller, and Chris Webber have gone on to lucrative broadcasting gigs and endorsement deals. Still, the heliocentric NBA\u2014propped up by owners who can make billions<\/a> off big-name stars and lauded by a cadre of notoriously fawning sportswriters<\/a>\u2014tells the vast majority of players they should accept their second-class citizenship in exchange for the warm fuzzy glow of \u201cbeing a champion.\u201d What tends to go unsaid is that the sacrifice is rarely worth it.<\/p>\n

Both capitalist America and the heliocentric NBA are based on lies that have grown increasingly untenable in recent years. Ironically, \u201cthe data\u201d show the assumptions that underpin both have been proven to be false. 50 years of trickle-down economics has not produced a rising tide<\/a> that lifts all boats, as exhaustive research from the London School of Economics has shown. Maximizing the ball dominance of stars like Harden has not led to more championships for their teams (on the NBA\u2019s all-time list of highest usage rates in a season, none of the top 20 players won a title<\/a>). The sample size is big enough. These \u201cdata-driven\u201d ideologies have failed.<\/p>\n

The Myth of Star Power<\/h2>\n

Just as the death drive of capitalism has accelerated in recent years, so too has the NBA\u2019s lurch into heliocentrism. In both cases, the most puzzling aspect is how fervently people have refused to acknowledge the obvious.<\/p>\n

The birth of the NBA\u2019s heliocentric age can be traced to 2010, when LeBron James left his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers to join forces with fellow superstars Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat. The three players\u2019 massive salaries consumed almost the entire Heat budget, but most observers viewed that as a fair trade\u2014such a starry triumvirate would render the rest of the roster largely superfluous. Were the Heat top-heavy? Sure. But the level of pure talent couldn\u2019t be matched by anyone else in the league, and the prospect of riding the stars\u2019 coattails to a title would attract seasoned veterans willing to accept minimum salaries. <\/p>\n

Then a funny thing happened. Almost from the moment James set foot in South Beach, there arose a chant: he needs more help<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>It turned out that collecting a handful of stars wasn\u2019t the sure-fire path to success that many had thought. As the years went by and the Heat\u2019s Big Three began to slip, the refrain grew louder. He needs more help!<\/em><\/a> This was quite a conundrum, since the stars\u2019 presence ensured there wasn\u2019t enough money or playing time to attract the young players who would\u2019ve provided that help. When James eventually jumped ship and returned to Cleveland\u2014with so much leverage over the franchise he was able to pick his teammates and coaches<\/a>\u2014the song was the same. He needs more help!<\/em><\/a> <\/em>It wasn\u2019t long before James\u2019 penchant for short-term decision-making and paternalistic treatment of his teammates<\/a> depleted Cleveland\u2019s resources as well, and he decamped for the Los Angeles Lakers. Once he arrived in Hollywood, the cycle repeated itself once again. The King, as always, needed more help<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Even for the brightest star in the NBA, under the most optimal conditions imaginable, a heliocentric approach has never really worked. James is a far superior player to Harden, and many consider him the greatest of all time. Yet whenever James has won a title, it\u2019s never been thanks to his (or his fellow stars\u2019) efforts alone. Whether it was Mike Miller draining seven 3-pointers<\/a> for the Heat in the 2012 Finals or Rajon Rondo energizing the Lakers<\/a> in the 2020 Finals, unheralded teammates have always been essential for James\u2019 teams to succeed. It may be true that it\u2019s hard to win a championship without a superstar\u2014or two, or three\u2014but it\u2019s flat-out impossible to win without significant contributions from others. <\/p>\n

Likewise, despite the fetishization of individual \u201cinnovators\u201d and \u201cjob creators\u201d like Bezos or Musk, it\u2019s become increasingly clear that a successful society is not determined by how many stars it boasts. The stock market has never been higher<\/a>, and neither have our rates of depression and despair<\/a>. Nearly 800 Americans now boast net worths exceeding $1,000,000,000<\/a>, while over 50 million go hungry<\/a>. Who can say, with a straight face, that the tradeoffs have been worth it? <\/p>\n

It\u2019s always been a lie that great success comes from catering to the whims of \u201cgeniuses.\u201d Capitalism didn\u2019t invent the iPhone<\/a> or save ordinary people from fear and destitution. Heliocentrism hasn\u2019t delivered a single NBA title or made the game more enjoyable to play and watch. It\u2019s time to acknowledge the obvious, and try something new. <\/p>\n <\/section>\n\n\n

This post was originally published on Current Affairs<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Catering to the whims of stars above all else doesn\u2019t work\u2014either in sports or society at large.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1670,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23914"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1670"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23915,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23914\/revisions\/23915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}