James Harden is not the only NBA player who enjoys patronizing gentlemen’s clubs while on the road, but the Houston Rockets star has a reputation for being a frequent customer. Following Harden’s poor performance against the Heat in Miami last weekend, a fan couldn’t help wonder if one of Harden’s favorite hobbies could have a direct impact on his on-court performance.
Reddit user AngryCentrist, a Rockets fan, went to great lengths this week to see if Harden’s performance in road games could be positively or negatively impacted by the quality of gentlemen’s clubs in the city in which the Rockets are playing. His methodology was actually quite complicated. He compared Harden’s stats in road games to his overall stats over the past four seasons and came up with a formula for determining which games Harden was “sub-par” in or “very sub-par.”
In order to determine which cities had the best strip clubs, AngryCentrist used the average google review rating for the first 10 strip clubs in each city that showed up in a Google search. You can see more of the work here.
The analysis is extremely in-depth, and the conclusion is hilarious. The Reddit professor found that there is a correlation between Harden’s performance in road games and the quality of strip clubs in the cities where the games take place. Harden’s best performance, according to the research, comes in the city with the “worst” strip clubs, which is Toronto. His worst performances came in Miami, which has the “best” strip clubs.
Could defensive scheme, matchups, and other basketball factors play a role in Harden’s performance on the road? Of course, but you have to give this guy credit for his statistical analysis. Heck, Harden has supposedly spent so much money at strip clubs that one honored him the way an NBA team would. It was worth looking into.
