"Like a sun mirror” A love letter to James Harden

A billet-doux to the mercurial Beard from writer and author Kylie Cheung, for better or worse his biggest fan.

Dear James,

Sometimes I think about the drastic actions that superfans take to achieve, even just to feel, some semblance of closeness to their idols. Like that guy, I forget his name, who shot John Lennon for the mere possibility of conjoining their names in the annals of history. Or Twitter user @ClubChalamet, who’s reduced herself to an online laughingstock, an entire page in the forthcoming DSM-6, in the name of worshipping Timothée Chalamet. On sitcoms, crazed superfans stalk their famous prey, aspire at restraining orders for a chance at obtaining a court-ordered autograph. Of course, I would never do any of that to you. I would sooner die than cause you a single moment’s distress.

Because there is nothing in my life more important to me than your happiness. My own happiness is secondary. Do I enjoy telling 14-year-olds on Reddit to drink bleach for calling you a “playoff choker”? Do I enjoy spending the waning days of my youth fighting strangers online (usually with usernames like @OutMeatedBySteph or @NIMBYs4Steph) about the particulars of your (indisputably brilliant) legacy? Not exactly. But my enjoyment is irrelevant. Fighting for your honor is a higher calling. It is infinitely bigger than me.

Why do I love you, James? I resent the question. People ask it all the time, their eyes glittering with expectation as if they’re on the brink of uncovering some great, Citizen Kane-esque origin story. Instead, they just get yelled at.

Because it’s disrespectful. It’s disrespectful and it’s embarrassing — for them, not for me, and certainly not for you, James. You are perfect.

I would turn the question back on my inquisitors: Would you ask a LeBron James superfan why they’re a LeBron superfan? A Steph Curry fan why they’re a Steph superfan? It should speak for itself. In fact if it doesn’t speak for itself, why I might worship at the altar of the greatest being to ever touch a ball, a legend who’s transformed the game, then I don’t see our conversation going anywhere productive.

Other than someone self-identifying as a “moderate,” almost nothing would cause me to swipe left on a dating profile more quickly than insults to your legacy, the typical woke mind virus nonsense that smears you as a “flopper,” or, worst of all, being asked, “LOL have u seen the pics of him without a beard????” I think every dating profile I’ve ever had has made it abundantly clear that my whole life has only ever been about one thing: you — James Edward Harden, Jr. So, it’s appallingly insulting for anyone to presume that they could possibly tell or show me something new about you. There are obviously exceptions to these rules; I might be able to laugh one or two of these things off coming from someone (almost) as handsome as you, James. But my loyalty to you is unwavering. You will always come first.

Increasingly I’ve found I prefer to date men who don’t watch basketball at all. I tell them that you won three championships — which isn’t really a lie, because surely in some other timeline of the multiverse, one where human hamstrings are indestructible, you’ve probably won six championships, maybe seven. I got the idea for this a while ago when I dated an Italian man who offered to cook me any Italian dish I wanted, and I asked for ratatouille, which turned out to be French, and I felt, like, really stupid. But then he told me he thought it was beautiful that he could tell me anything he wanted about Europe and I’d just believe it and that would make it, like, kind of real in a way. Voila!

Sometimes people — fools — point out to me that you’ve switched teams several times. “He’s disloyal — why be loyal to him?” First of all: I resent that our late-stage capitalist hellscape has wired everyone to see love in such transactional terms. I want nothing in return for the honor of loving you, James. And second of all: Hold on. I have a Notes app document locked and loaded with my talking points for why you had to leave each team, and these talking points are ironclad, I swear. In a past life, I just know I was a propagandist for some of history’s most brutal fascist regimes. And in this lifetime, I just so happened to find you. (Yay!)

When you were on the Nets, you had to leave, because what were you supposed to do about Kyrie Irving going down too many YouTube conspiracy theory rabbit holes and refusing to get vaccinated? (God, how I wish that — like you — he, too, didn’t have internet in his home.) What were you supposed to do about Daryl Morey being a liar — I repeat, being a liar?

There’s much more written on my Notes app propaganda — I mean, talking points — tab: why you should have won 2019 MVP, why you’re actually a playoff riser, and so on, and so forth. But I’ll spare you. The last thing I’d ever want to do is patronize you.

And in the name of not patronizing you, I’ll say it: I have been disappointed and devastated by certain moments in your career — typically every year around May, but that’s fine. May is only the month of my birthday, it’s no big deal. When I first started seeing my therapist, it disoriented her a little bit how much I would rather unpack the 2018 Western Conference Finals than my varying adolescent sexual traumas. But again: No. Big. Deal. Through all the low points, there is a part of me that’s sincerely grateful for the heartache. Because it is a gift to love truly. The price of that, of course, is pain. But in the grand scheme of things, that price is small. Maybe not always small, but certainly worth it.

And, in any case, short of anything Jeffrey Epstein-related, there is pretty much nothing you could do, no shortcoming on the basketball court, that could ever make me stop loving you.

I just watched the new season of Starting Five, and you obviously stole the show. Many were surprised to learn about your girlfriend (don’t worry, I will be OK) and your sons. To that I say: I am no pronatalist by any means. Fuck Elon Musk, and fuck JD Vance for every one of his wildly creepy podcast appearances whining about female fertility. That being said: If anyone on this Earth should be spreading their seed, blessing us with their progeny, it’s obviously you. And if Bryan Johnson really is onto something by consuming his teenage son’s blood to achieve eternal life, you and your son(s) ought to look into this.

Finally: James, you are the only person who will ever be allowed to ask me why I love you and receive an answer. I guess I could begin to concede, on some teeny, tiny level, why it might not be entirely self-explanatory that someone from the Bay Area who came of age in the era of the Golden State dynasty, the era of prime Steph Curry, would instead opt to be a James Harden superfan. Sometimes I get scared that I’ll forget the actual explanations for why I love you, because I’ve loved you for so long that it’s become one of those things that’s so natural as to be inexplicable, like being able to walk, like breathing, eating, sleeping.

But I think it goes back to 2012. I think it goes back to being really intrigued by how you played basketball and wondering why you came off the OKC bench instead of starting. Then you won Sixth Man, obviously. And, more than that, I was intrigued by the beard, intrigued by your simple explanation for it: that you felt like having a beard. Who needs any explanation for their bodily decisions or expressions of self, beyond that?

Not to sound like LeBron insinuating that he predicted 9/11, but I always knew you would be great. Still nothing could have prepared me for just how great. Watching you transform how offense is played over the course of your time in Houston felt like falling in love. Then, watching you blow up norms, enrage your haters, drop unthinkable numbers, then reinvent your game, over and over — here’s what I’ll say: even your biggest critics would never, ever call you boring. Even at your lowest points, the playoff eliminations, the hamstring injury, the losing streaks, all of it, there are two things no one can ever say about you: that you’re boring — and that you didn’t make the playoffs.

On that note, perhaps most importantly, I love you because you made me love basketball. You introduced me to a world that has brought me so much joy, so much pain, so much feeling. You introduced me to some of the friends I love and treasure so dearly.

Someday you’ll retire, and it will devastate me, and I’ll probably wind up at an inpatient facility. But I survived the 2018 WCF, so I can survive anything. And the truth is, you’ll never really leave. I’ll still see you every time I turn a game on, every time I see Luka Doncic or Anthony Edwards hit a stepback, every time I see Tyrese Maxey play with the confidence and aggression you taught him, every time I see a bizarre Tyrese Haliburton tunnel outfit, every time I see Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Joel Embiid at the free throw line. And however much they tortured me, I’ll thank the basketball gods for the time they gave us together.

Love,

Kylie

P.S. Speaking of how NBA fandom has introduced me to some of the people I love most in this world, I asked some of my friends to describe my love for you and this is what they said:

• “When the wives of sailors would spend months out on their widow’s walks anxiously waiting for some sign that their husbands would be safely returning home alive they were in fact suffering roughly one tenth of the pain and anxiety Kylie endures every time James Harden goes on a road trip over two games long.” — Matt

• “People say that Kylie is unhealthily obsessed with James Harden. But would you accuse a flower of being unhealthily obsessed with the sun? That which sustains you, allows you to flourish and grow? They are married in real life and this is not a joke.” — Zach

• “People often use the phrase ‘I would take a bullet for (person)’ too liberally. Like would I ACTUALLY take a bullet for Alex Caruso? Probably not (Sorry, Alex, it would depend on the body part). But I actually, 100%, non-jokingly believe Kylie would take a bullet for James Harden, which is a level of standom I did not realize otherwise relatively normal people are capable of.“ – Harrison

• “When I first learned of Kylie’s obsession with James Harden, I was scared she wasn’t doing a bit. After realizing how serious she is about him, I am now too scared to joke about it.” — Rohan

• “Everyone remembers where they were at a special moment in time. The birth of a child, when the Berlin Wall fell (personally I don’t), when Kevin Durant was injured in game 7 of the 2019 finals. Me? My special moment was witnessing Kylie see James Harden on the court for the first time. There’s never been a love so pure or innocent. No stars as crossed. If Shakespeare had foresight, he would have written James & Kylie.” — Zainab

• “Kylie has been accused of having a parasocial relationship with James Harden and I disagree. Parasocial obviously has negative contexts, but what it really means is a bond that is one-sided and only goes one way. I think “parasocial” is an inappropriate descriptor of how Kylie feels about James for two reasons. The first is that it is born out of a love so deep as to have elements of storge, philia and even agape loves all at once. Something like that can’t be categorized by a word so limiting. The second is that I truly feel that if James met Kylie he would recognize and reciprocate that love and shine it back upon her, like a sun mirror, rendering the “parasocial’ term not only inadequate but false.” — Sam