The Mermaid Theory: Which NBA players become more appealing over time?
In December 2010, the hit CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother aired an episode titled “The Mermaid Theory.” It centered around an idea called – you guessed it – The Mermaid Theory, created by one of the show’s main characters, Barney Stinson.
No, we’re not talking about The Little Mermaid or the creepy mermaids from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Allow Barney to explain.
The premise behind the theory, as Barney says, is that sailors stuck at sea would long for female companionship. Eventually, they’d become so desperate that the manatees in the water would start to look like beautiful women – mermaids.
Barney, of course, uses this theory to make a point about platonic friendships. But that’s not our concern here.
The NBA Mermaid Theory
So, you may ask, how does this so-called “theory” apply to the NBA?
Let’s answer some key questions about where The Mermaid Theory fits in when it comes to basketball.
1. What is an NBA manatee?
In the NBA, manatees are the players that you probably, under normal circumstances, don’t want to have. Just like sailors have no interest in getting intimate with manatees, NBA general managers should have no interest in signing Kyle Singler for $25 million.
2. How do manatees turn into mermaids in the NBA?
The recipe is simple: They just need to have pretty much any potentially good quality. Sometimes more than one. After that, it’s only a matter of time before someone sees the player as a mermaid.
Some simple redeeming qualities can turn manatees into mermaids in the NBA. In James Jones’ case, he was a good locker room presence and LeBron liked him. Maybe the Thunder thought Singler’s scarecrow-like features could help distract opposing teams when they signed him to his current deal (or maybe they just didn’t have a fireplace where they could throw the money). Lance Stephenson, whom I’ll cover in more detail below, has funny dance moves and bothers opposing stars, if nothing else. All of these players had just enough good qualities to trick teams into signing them.
There are 30 NBA teams and a whole lot of money to spend in free agency every year. These manatee players are at least good enough to be in the league; someone’s got to sign them. Somewhere, there’s a conference room full of executives ready to talk themselves into dumping $72 million on Bismack Biyombo. Okay, that was kind of an extreme example. There’s no way that one would ever happen.
3. Which players make up the NBA’s All-Manatee-Slash-Mermaid team?
Let’s go position by position.
Point guard: Rajon Rondo
Rajon Rondo has been a manatee since the Boston Celtics traded him to Dallas in 2014. In the NBA, manatees play lazy defense. They can’t shoot. They hold the ball a lot and hunt for assists. Rondo checks all of these boxes.
Playoff Rondo, of course, is a different story. There was once a time when those two were the same person.
But now, Rondo just isn’t a good player for most of the NBA season. Conveniently, the NBA playoffs are the last thing before free agency, which has allowed Rondo to leave good final impressions in each of the past two seasons. But don’t fall into the mermaid trap; Rondo was mediocre last year in New Orleans, bad two years ago in Chicago, and downright cancerous in Dallas. His 2015–16 season in Sacramento served mostly to pad his stats, while keeping most of his worst qualities.
Out of all the manatees, Rondo is the easiest to see as a mermaid.
Shooting guard: Lance Stephenson
Since leaving Indiana in 2014, Lance Stephenson – not to be confused with his brother, whose real actual completely serious name is Lantz Stephenson – has had a strange career. Seven teams have taken a chance on Stephenson, including the Pacers again and, most recently, the Lakers, who signed Stephenson shortly after signing that LeBron guy.
Last year, Stephenson returned to Indiana and had his first good season in four years. We’ve got a Like Mike situation here. As soon as Stephenson puts on that new purple-and-gold jersey, he’ll go back to being a manatee, rather than the Hoosier mermaid who emerges once in a while. It’s like the World Cup cycle – soccer is good once every four years; so is Lance.
Small forward: Jeff Green
Six teams have talked themselves into acquiring Jeff Green. Doc Rivers has done it twice! Green is the perfect case study for this theory, because he’s proven time and time again to be a manatee, yet you just know it’s only a matter of time before your team’s dumb GM sees him as a mermaid. And when your team acquires Jeff Green, bad things happen. The Boston Big Three era ends. Chris Paul leaves town. The Orlando Magic remain the Orlando Magic.
Don’t sign Jeff Green. He may look like a mermaid in August or September, but remember: Just like the rest of these players, he’s a manatee.
(UPDATE: Somehow, I glanced over the fact that the Wizards followed my advice: they didn’t sign Jeff Green in August or September. They signed him in July. This could only be topped by Washington’s later signing of a mermaid below.)
Power forward: Michael Beasley
You might be noticing a trend: The Lakers signed three of the five manatee-slash-mermaids on this list in the past month. Not great, Bob.
Anyway…like Green, Beasley has tricked six different teams into remembering the potential he had coming out of college. The Heat might’ve had an excuse for drafting him, but then they went and signed him again in 2013. (It didn’t go well.) (Who could’ve predicted that?)
Beasley’s career highlight is making Anthony Tolliver extremely uncomfortable that one time. Does anything else really need to be said here?
Enjoy that L.A. lifestyle, LeBron. You’re gonna need something to distract you from basketball this year.
Center: Dwight Howard
Ah, Dwight Howard.
Howard was once a beautiful mermaid. (Like, have you seen those shoulders?) But after leaving Orlando, he went full manatee. Of course, the Lakers, Rockets, Hawks, and Hornets all saw him as a mermaid at different points. Now, it’s the Wizards’ turn to convince themselves that Dwight isn’t a manatee. Howard’s promises are just as unreliable as his free throw shooting:
Don’t fall for the trap, Washington. He’s a manatee. The over/under for the Wizards’ first players-only meeting is set for American Thanksgiving (Nov. 22).
4. What are the best NBA examples of “lonely sailors” in this scenario?
Doc Rivers and Magic Johnson come to mind.
Since coming to Los Angeles, Rivers has fallen for Jeff Green (for the second time!), his own son Austin Rivers, and seemingly every washed-up player who thrived in the Eastern Conference from 2008 to 2012 (see: Hedo Turkoglu). In some cases, a manatee just needed one or two good games against Rivers’ team to get Doc on board with signing him (see: Byron Mullens).
Johnson has only been team president of the Lakers for a short time. But just this summer, he’s signed three of the five All-Manatee-Slash-Mermaid players above. Magic is too optimistic; he seems to have faith that everyone can be a mermaid. (The previous top Lakers decision maker, Mitch Kupchak, made a much more crippling mermaid signing than any of these, shelling out $64 million for Timofey Mozgov in July 2016. Mozgov is most definitely a manatee.)
5. Can NBA coaches also be manatees-slash-mermaids?
Yes. The best examples would be Mike Brown and Byron Scott. Brown was fired three times within a span of four years after teams realized that he was a manatee — including twice by the Cleveland Cavaliers. Scott looked like a mermaid when coaching Chris Paul and Jason Kidd in their primes, but that image evaporated when he coached a young Kyrie Irving and later, D’Angelo Russell. Scott was ultimately fired from four different head coaching positions.
In the words of Barney Stinson: “The Mermaid Theory. It’s a thing. You owe me 500 bucks.”
