With Its Spiralling TV Deals, Nine-Figure Salaries and Trophy-Buying Oligarchs, the Premier League Is a Bastion of Cut-Throat Capitalism
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TALL ORDER: RAKEEM CHRISTMAS DREAMED OF BEING AN ASTRONAUT, BUT 6FT 9IN MEN don’T FIT INSIDE SPACESHIPS With its spiralling TV deals, nine-figure salaries and trophy-buying oligarchs, the Premier League is a bastion of cut-throat capitalism. America’s basketball league, on the other hand, is an island of socialism in a sea of free market meritocracy, embodied by the NBA Draft. FHM follows one young basketball prodigy as he bids to go pro... Words: MaTT BLaKE PhotograPhy: BrETT carLsEn he uncomfortable in a deep East Coast drawl. He turns silence in Rakeem to FHM and grins. “I’ve got a swaggy Christmas’s hotel mentality – I gotta look fly all the room is broken by the time,” he tells us. “Especially for buzz of hair clippers tomorrow – the biggest day of my life.” attacking his high-top “If only your momma could see fade. The college you now,” says Amira, who is both basketball prodigy Rakeem’s aunt and manager. frowns into his black “She can,” Rakeem replies. “She’s iPhone 6 while a looking down right now.” portly barber in a Rakeem doesn’t remember his flat cap shaves lines into his head. mother. Landra ‘Jenny’ Hamid The atmosphere is tense. Rakeem’s was only 28 when she died of the THE FLY LIFE: Rakeem’s AUNT AND MANAGER aunt, girlfriend, uncle and his agent auto-immune disease lupus. Rakeem AMIRA BROUGHT HIM UP mill nervously about without a word; was five. “During her funeral, I don’t AFTER HIS MOTHER DIED they know better than to disturb think I was crying or anything,” he Rakeem during the most important tells us. “I was just there not knowing haircut of his life. what was happening. I really don’t He doesn’t talk; he just swipes remember anything at all.” the tiny iPhone in his giant hand with Rakeem stayed with his the intensity of a confused caveman grandmother on St Croix in the Virgin trying to read his own palm. If only Islands until he was 13, before she the device could let him see forward took him to Philadelphia to live with to the following evening. For tomorrow Amira, then a 22-year-old graduate of HIGH HOOPS: At SYRACUSE night, the 23-year-old from the tiny UNIVERSITY, RAKEEM WAS A Caribbean island of St Croix will learn PROLIFIC POWER FORWARD if he is to become a millionaire. It is the night when the moneymen of America’s 30 professional basketball teams gather at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center to pick the best young college Drexel University. She shepherded of checks and balances. In the NBA, hopefuls they want to sign for the him through high school, applying Socialist for example, the richest teams pay season ahead. Those who make it the same focus to his studies as she heavy taxes to support the minnows; will get a chance to live the life of knew his mother would have done. dreams there are salary caps and, with just every American schoolboy’s dreams: “He is my everything,’’ Amira tells Sports in America are not like sports a single league, no relegation. roaring crowds, unimaginable wealth, us. “My son, my nephew, my brother, in Europe, and not just because we Then there’s the NBA Draft – the women, cars and a place on court my best friend. I always told him, like to kick stuff while they prefer to most socialist aspect of all where, beside their heroes. Those who ‘If you want to be a physicist or an throw it. No, operationally speaking, rather than be punished for losing, don’t will probably wind up playing in astronaut, I’ll Google it and, within European football is more ‘American’ the worst performers of the previous Europe or China, or not at all. This is a month, I’ll know everything I need than basketball. And basketball is season get the first picks of the where it starts. It is also where it can to get you there.’” more ‘European’ than football. upcoming college prodigies. end. Tomorrow night is the NBA Draft. But adolescents of 6ft 9in don’t Hear us out: in Europe, with its “It’s to help out the smallest teams,” And Rakeem Christmas is on the list. fit inside spaceships, so he chose long history of socialist values, the Rod Thorn, outgoing president of When the buzzing stops, Rakeem basketball instead, developing a sporting arena is a snake pit of basketball operations, tells us when unfolds out of his seat into 6ft 9in of reputation as a prolific power forward. unbridled, shit-or-get-off-the-toilet we visit NBA HQ in Manhattan. tattoos and brawn. “I’m back!” he says By the time he was 18, US capitalism: clubs that win the league “Basketball’s different to other sports colleges were trampling each other gain more revenue, buy the best in that you only have five players on to sign him. He chose Syracuse players, pay the highest wages, court at any one time. So one guy “How many people have University in New York, where he and then win the league again. makes a huge difference – especially majored in communications and Not so in America. For a nation so if he’s someone like Michael Jordan, the opportunity to do the rhetorical studies. He also dominated geared towards the capitalist dream, Shaquille O’Neal or LeBron James the college team’s basketball court, where society’s winners get rich and – he could win you the league.” Y thing they love the most which brings him here, to the NBA get laid, and losers get left to rot or Put simply, the NBA Draft is a bit Draft – arguably the biggest media shot by police, the American sports like the dole – except with up to a for millions of dollars?” circus in world sport. model is a carefully tailored system 25 per cent chance of becoming a ALAM PHOTOGRAPHY: 074 NOVEMBER 2015 075 what can we learn from the NBA? multi-millionaire. But, like the dole, the room in a burnt-marmalade it’s also easy to cheat the system. This blazer and cricket-white chinos. Tears and is called tanking – losing on purpose “Looking flyyyyy, G,” Rakeem tells for a better chance at scoring a him with a fist-bump and a bro-hug celebrations superstar for the season ahead. (they played together at Syracuse). The next day is Draft Day and it’s “Tanking has certainly become But it’s nothing compared to what time for Rakeem’s final strategy more of an issue in recent years,” Rakeem’s selected: a navy suit with meeting with agent Stephen Pina. says Thorn. ”But it’s difficult to tell an eye-burning floral-pattern jacket. In the hotel room, Pina is running your fans, ‘We’re not going to try to “The draft is about standing out,” through which teams he thinks are FULL SWING: INSIDE win.’ That’s a tough sell and I like to Rakeem says. “The world’s cameras likely to pick Rakeem. “At pick 24 – THE BARCLAYS CENTER think it doesn’t happen as much as are on you, so you gotta look fly.” which is Cleveland – you’re one of the media would have you believe.” We want to tell him our great aunt two players they want,” Pina tells his has something similar covering her young client. “At 27 – the Lakers – WILL HE, Won’T HE? RAKEEM AND AGENT StEPHEN PINA WAIT NERVOUSLY FOR HIS NAME TO BE CALLED kitchen table in Burnham-on-Sea, you’re one of three. The 76ers just Standing out but we assume he wouldn’t know called me and said if they can, they’re where that is. And anyway, he’s going to try to grab you. But I also and looking fly back looking at his phone again. know New Orleans, Dallas, Boston, The world’s media are already outside the Westin Times Square Hotel in Manhattan when we arrive for the “ It’s Peter Pan syndrome; Annual NBA Pre-Draft Style and Gifting Suite – surely one of the most basketball is a sport where bizarre pre-season rituals in any sport. In the two days prior to the draft, you don’t have to fully grow nearly two dozen members of the NBA draft class make their way to up until you retire” the top floor of the five-star hotel to help themselves to free headphones from Beats by Dre, clothes from Sean John, booze from Hennessy, San Antonio and Brooklyn are all swing by 7pm. Outside, a group of it could be something else. It’s easy boxer shorts from Ethika, mobile in the mix.” It’s puzzling. Brooklyn Nets fans sing ‘Brook-lyyyn’ to forget that these are still young phones from Samsung, jewellery, Before we head to The Barclays for 15 minutes between swigs from men. It was only for this trip that trainers and gourmet cheesecake. Center, Rakeem’s extended family their ‘Thirst Aid’ beer hats. This is a Rakeem decided to leave his “College players aren’t allowed to – including his father, aunts, uncles sensory overdose of uncut Americana, trademark SpongeBob SquarePants accept any kind of gift, sponsorship or and cousins – have flown in for a mainlined through our eyes. backpack at home. “I wear it payment of any kind,” Amira explains. Chinese meal in Manhattan. As we enter, two ESPN everywhere, but I thought I should “But that ends as soon as they join Even his 63-year-old grandmother, sportscasters at a lit-up TV coffee grow up for the Draft,” he laughs.