Why is it that the abused are the most likely to become the abusers? Why do people recreate their most painful and traumatic experiences? Why does Ben Simmons refuse to shoot the ball? Why can’t Rudy Gobert execute a single post move despite being over 7 feet tall? It is these exact questions that the great psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan (and Vaughn) set out to answer starting over a hundred years ago.
Freud began his theorization with a fairly simple foil, the pleasure principle. The basic idea of the pleasure principle is that we seek out to do things that we enjoy: eating delicious food, making wonderful love with a beautiful person or drinking all the pain away. But we also desire things that are far more dangerous, subversive and even deranged. When we have desires that might not benefit us but rather harm us we are going beyond the pleasure principle.
In classical Fruedian psychoanalysis, the primary example of going beyond the pleasure principle would of course be the oedipus complex, in which Freud claims that men sexually desire their mothers. We can see clearly how desiring one’s mother has a certain transgressive and dangerous nature to it. And sure, the oedipus complex is a bit far fetched but there is a reason we are still talking about it and there is a reason that incest in one of my most searched things on porn websites.
Regardless of Freud, Lacan is here to save the day and clean Freud’s mess up. Lacan calls forms of desire beyond the pleasure principle “jouissance”. More precisely, jouissance occurs when you experience a certain kind of pleasure through pain. Think, for example, of a mosquito bite on your arm: you know that scratching at it will eventually tear your arm into shreds and perhaps even cause you to be more itchy later on but you do it anyway. The desire to do something, like scratch at a mosquito bite, when you know its the wrong choice is jouissance. Jouissance is when you continue eating even though you are full and it hurts to stuff more food down your throat.
Lacan argues that there are many different types of Jouissance and I won’t bother going through them but he did forget one key type: Basketball Jouissance.
In sports fandom, the pleasure principle is obvious– if my team wins, I’m happy but if my team loses, I’m sad. As any fan’s relationship to sport develops, the relationship becomes more perverted and distorted. For example, fans of tanking teams are unsure if they should desire their team to win the game or lose so they can get a better pick. The more we watch the game, the more we begin to see the flaws in every player; the more we begin to go mad watching players make the same boneheaded and frustrating decision. Almost as a defense mechanism, we choose to turn these errors into something that we can root for. If we swear off a player for being soft then every time they do something soft we can now rejoice instead of cringe. The channeling of this hater energy, the perversion of fandom in which we root for lowlight plays, even if our team has no stake in the game, is Basketball Jouissance.
Without further ado, here is your starting lineup for the Jouissance All-Stars:
Ben Simmons
To understand Basketball Jouissance, look no further than Ben Simmons. When Ben Simmons fucks up, NBA Twitter starts licking its chops getting ready to roast Ben. Watching Ben lose his ability to attack the basket or just see him generally forget that he is one of the most dominant athletes in the league brings us fans a certain sick joy.
If, and when, Ben Simmons signs with a Chinese team NBA Twitter will be more crazy than Buenos Aires after Argentina won the World Cup. The images of Ben hanging out with a Chinese super model with her buccal fat removed is going to crack me up.
Russell “Westbrick”
When Westbrick was with the Lakers, or with Harden on the Rockets, or with PG on the Thunder, or with KD on the Thunder there was a certain disgusting joy in watching him play hero ball at the end of games while his far more offensively gifted co-star sighs. I have always been a hater of Westrbrook’s game and think that his MVP is one of the worst in the history of the league so watching him fail in the most epic ways throughout his career has been a joy for me.
If Westbrook didn’t sign to a team this season it would certainly bring me a sick joy watch him wait around and eventually go overseas. On the other hand, I actually hope that my Bulls sign Sir Westbrick. I honestly believe that the ‘Three Alphas’ era of Rondo, Jimmy and DWade was the Reinsdorf’s true moment of reckoning with just how bad GarPax were. Watching a Westbrook/Caruso/Demar/PWill/Vooch lineup just chuck up bricks for an entire game might send a message to ownership. It might make both the front office and ownership realize that not making a move at this year’s trade deadline was completely indefensible.
Rudy Gobert
This image is art. This image is the reason why following the NBA is more spectacular, dramatic and unbelievable than any piece of art. The NBA is a Greek tragedy that plays out in real time. On the cusp of the international Covid outbreak, Rudy decided to mock covid precautions and touch every mic in the room before leaving the press conference. Then, only a matter of hours later, Rudy Gobert became the first NBA player to contract Covid bringing the league to a hiatus and essentially making him the cultural catalyst for covid precautions around the country. The best part of all this is that if you follow the NBA you know just how fitting this is for Gobert.
Despite being 7 feet tall and having a wingspan that spreads from New York to LA, Rudy Gobert cannot post my ass up. I mean just watch him fail to post up some random Euro League guard. At this point, fans love to watch Rudy fumble the ball in the paint, get dunked on or get blown by. The Minnesota trade was a force multiplier for the Rudy Gobert hate. Not only did people already think he was super overrated before the trade but he also was essentially traded for the same amount as KD. There is no player in the league that fans love to call trash more than Rudy Gobert. I predict that he will walk away with the Jouissance all-star MVP at this years game in Qatar.
James Harden
“James Harden Retires Mid Game” could refer to literally a million different plays of his but I love that his most iconic mid game retirement comes from the offensive end. Does anything epitomize the Netzis era more than this clip? Kyrie nowhere to be found, Harden looking out of shape and over this shit and Steve Nash looking completely clueless, really awesome stuff here.
Harden has earned a sometimes well deserved and sometimes not so well deserved reputation as a lazy defender, a flopper and choker. Personally, I have always had a soft spot for Harden just because I love the entire way that the Harden-Rockets reimagined how the game could be played. Will there ever be another time that a defense decides that guarding a player from behind is the best strategy? But I digress, fans love to watch lowlight videos of Harden looking spaced out and lethargic. The ‘Harden was out too late at the strip club jokes’ are undefeated.
CP Zero Rings
When CP Zero Rings gets a super random injury in the middle of the Suns playoff run, I will die laughing man. Watching KD throw up his arms because of a Cam Payne campaign will really be a thing of beauty. Then again, I might prefer watching CP0 give up a huge lead in an elimination playoff game. Watching him fake an injury and then scream at the younger players on the team will be a thing of beauty.
Where is Kyrie Irving?
Rumor has it that Kyrie will not be attending the Jouissance All-Stars event in Qatar this year because he recently got in contact with Aaron Rodgers who convinced Kyrie that doing a 10 day sensory deprivation ayahuasca retreat will allow him to unlock deeper levels of consciousness. Shams and Woj have both reported that “There are growing levels of frustration within the Mavs’ front office as Mavs officials have been unable to get in contact with Kyrie since his 10 day retreat ended two weeks ago”.
In all seriousness, I am not actually sure that Kyrie qualifies for this list. Lots of fans still have a deep love and admiration for Kyrie’s game and there has never really been a ‘lowlights’ trend around things that Kyrie does on the actual basketball court. Additionally, all of the off court shenanigans have just been straight up annoying or downright offensive. No one was really laughing in a sick way when Kyrie posted a Jew hating movie on his Twitter and tripled down on it. That said, if Kyrie went on a 10 day sensory deprivation retreat in the middle of the season I would fucking love that.
Cheers to the haters!
The Reedbound 