In 2020, ESPN presenters gave plenty of reasons why the Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA Championship, but none pointed out that LeBron James, LA’s best player, is a Capricorn.
One fan logged into his massive spreadsheet filled with every NBA player’s sun and moon signs. He took LeBron’s and compared them to those of the other Lakers players, including the newly acquired and incredibly talented Anthony Davis.
“I noticed a trend,” the fan told me. “Their synergy was great, they had at least ten players who were compatible with LeBron and Davis.”
As an NBA fan, that's blasphemy. We're taught to believe that success is determined by talent, game planning, and effort. It would make more sense to cheer for rivals than it would to check birth charts and moon signs before games.
But, for over half a decade, Twitter user Zodiac GM has tried to convince the stubborn crowd that astrology is real.
“It's a different way of looking at basketball,” he admits. Going off his track record, he’s being humble, it’s a fantastic way to look at basketball.
As mentioned, he predicted the 2020 Lakers would be great. He also saw the success of the reigning champion Denver Nuggets before many other people.
Once they swapped out Paul Millsap (Aquarius) for Aaron Gordon (Virgo), “their whole starting five was compatible. Back then, not a lot of people looked at the Nuggets as elite, but I saw them as sneaky good because of their synergy.”
(NB: He doesn’t take into account rising/ascendant signs as it is “impossible” to find public figures' birth times).
Most recently, a team’s failure has been his biggest success. Damian Lillard (Cancer), one of the best players in the game, was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks, who have Giannis Antetokoumpo (Sagittarius), an even better player.
Future predictions everywhere chalked the Bucks down as favourites to win it all - Damian and Giannis are just too good. Zodiac, however, checked the spreadsheet and foresaw an “awkward fit”.
Damian’s water sign, he predicted, would clash with Giannis’ and two other Bucks players’ fire signs. Bingo - the Bucks have been one of the most disappointing teams this year.
Or, at least they were, recently they’ve been winning games and playing at their best. This doesn’t mean Zodiac is moving the spreadsheet to the recycling bin - he’s still a basketball fan more than an astrology extremist. He admits that talent can overwhelm a lack of synergy and that basketball games are actually decided by more than star signs.
”Of course, there's other analysis that I look at,” Zodiac explained. “I look at the whole function of the team. I already have a general idea of what the team is about, but I try to really mix in all the energies.”
“What I mean by that is: I include the head coach - what's his energy like? Who are the best players - do they match with the coach?”
“Do they have a good defence? Are they talented? Positional-wise, are the synergy fits with one another? I kind of form it into one and get a general idea. ‘Okay, I think that's a good (or bad) mix right there’.”
Astrology has allowed Zodiac his own unique, if blurry, peek into the NBA’s future, but he first used it for something far more important.
His younger brother is autistic and non-verbal. Growing up, Zodiac didn’t know of the autism diagnosis, just that his little brother wouldn’t talk to him.
“We didn’t get along too well,” he admitted. “We were still young.”
“I was trying to figure out: ‘How come you’re always crying? How come you’re so impatient?’. Once I got into astrology, I just thought: ‘If I study his sign, maybe I can learn something about him since he can’t really communicate.’”
His brother is a Cancer with an Aries moon, which, Zodiac said, explained the restlessness and agitation.
“I started looking at it differently and I said: ‘Okay, maybe I need to be more patient with him’. And I developed a better relationship that way because I understood him and it helped me out to build from there.”
Despite his unshakeable and validated belief in it, Zodiac’s still got a long way to go before sporting string pullers see astrology as he does - evidenced by him not hearing back from any NBA teams when he sent them his star-sign stuffed CV.
“I figured they probably just looked at it like: ‘Eh, what’s this guy talking about? This guy’s crazy.”
Buoyed by a brotherly bond and his fulfilled sporting prophecies, he has become the strongest (and only) advocate for astrology the sports world has seen.
He will, and should, continue believing in his philosophy, perhaps until it’s as engrained in basketball as the basket and the ball. To him, the only reason it's not there yet is because of a lack of knowledge.
“You know, a lot of people just see it being the horoscopes,” he said, “but there’s more depth with astrology and understanding your sign.”
“You have to really read and understand it, truly study it."
Just studying the basics of it - that’s still surface level. You have to go deeper than that.”
Zodiac refused to share his name, hometown or even his own star sign with me. Despite this, he’s become the face of a new perspective within the game.
As for the masses, ESPN still hasn’t brought up LeBron’s Capricorn energy or pointed out, as Zodiac has, that Pisces are dominating the league.
But, recently before a big Bucks game, a presenter said she’ll be looking for one thing between Dame and Giannis - “synergy”.
