Teambuilding is merely an exercise in collective eugenics; a geneticist of sorts hand picks desired traits and abilities, and engineers a finished product to incorporate them. The logistical realities of operating with entire human beings rather than sequences of genetic code require more imprecise maneuvers, but the underlying goal is the same: perfection, in all of its pragmatic glory.
There are, however, those teams that come to exist as a matter of random chance rather than designed formula. Their point guards don’t have perfect vision. Their bigs don’t have the ideal height and hops. Their wings have imperfect jumpers. They consist of the same guanine, adenine, cytosine, and thymine that constitutes those perfectly engineered specimens, but the sequence is subtly different. In the world of Gattaca, they are the in-valids, those made — and made imperfect — by nature itself, in stark contrast to the orchestrated makeup of all that surround them.
The Denver Nuggets as we knew them — the wonderful, inspired, and deeply flawed team left in the wake of the Carmelo Anthony trade — were unquestionably in-valid. The limitations ingrained in their very code were supposed to keep them from ever entering Gattaca’s gates; without Anthony and without Chauncey Billups, the collection of supporting pieces in Denver was supposed be rebuffed at the playoff threshold altogether. No team can fully fake their way into a playoff-worthy record, and the players on the Nuggets roster were destined to be something inferior.
The Nuggets found their way in. There were tests of blood and vision and resolve, but none could turn away a capable team that knew it belonged. Obviously Denver would have been better off with a perfect profile, but chance’s creation was good enough to pass as legitimate perfection. They weren’t, however, good enough to win. The fact that the Thunder — a team of two stars, a deliberate model, and all the trappings of a valid contender — took the series and eliminated the Nuggets from the playoffs is no surprise, but then again, it’s also not the point.Â
Vincent (voiceover): We used to swim as far out as we dared — it was about who would get scared and turn back first. Of course, it was always me. Anton was by far the stronger swimmer, and he had no excuse to fail.
It should have been expected that the “genetically superior” team would win out in any measure of competitive worth, but those rare exceptions beg for us to look at something beyond mere expectation. In the film, Vincent “always” lost to his biologically perfect brother in their battle of wills. The system was built for him to fail, and fail he did — many times, we’re led to believe.
Yet twice in the film, we see Vincent win in a race against his brother. First as a young adult:
Vincent (voiceover): It was the last time we swam together out into the open sea. Like always knowing each stroke to the horizon was one we’d have to make back to the shore. But something was very different about that day. Every time Anton tried to pull away, he found me right beside him. Until finally, the impossible happened. It was the one moment in our lives when my brother was not as strong as he believed, and I was not as weak. It was the moment that made everything else possible.
And finally, in the analogous representation of Vincent’s journey to the elusive “other side” of the world that had been denied him for so long on the basis of his makeup:
The Nuggets, in-valids though they were, haven’t yet won. They failed, just as so many other in-valid playoff teams have failed before them. Anton still swims harder and farther, leaving the Nuggets behind to face their own limitations.
Gattaca may be, in part, a story of the triumph of human spirit, but that resilience is hardly the lesson here. Sure, the Nuggets went hard and believed, but there’s no revelation in the fact that a playoff team trusts in its potential. Instead, it would do us all good to reflect on one of Gattaca‘s other themes: makeup can tell us all kinds of practical information, but internal sequence and structure alone don’t offer sufficient basis to discriminate. Denver didn’t follow the model of other championship contenders, but it wasn’t the oft-diagnosed lack of a star player that damned the Nuggets to their first round exit. It was their struggles to contain Kevin Durant, the failure to create shots against pressure, and the inability to utilize all of their available assets effectively.
Denver would have been better off with a star, but that privilege isn’t the only way to achieve success. Vincent, for example, was able to do brilliant work once given the opportunity, despite all of his flaws:
Director Josef: Godliness. I reviewed your flight plan. Not one error in a million keystrokes. Phenomenal. It’s right that someone like you is taking us to Titan.
It was somehow right that Vincent, with his likelihood for heart failure, his myopic vision, and his various other limitations, was to lead the human race to a brave new world. Just like someday, it will be right for a new breed of championship contender — not at all unlike these Nuggets — to bring home the title, and debunk a generation of critics who claimed that “no team could ever win a title by doing X.” Certain skills and production are mandatory for success in this game and this league, but the formation — the very makeup — of a team is fully flexible. Star power isn’t important, so long as that aforementioned production comes from somewhere on the roster in a reliable fashion.
The Nuggets don’t need one star, nor two; after all, every atom in our bodies was once part of a star, which makes the Nuggets already glow with their own star power. Moving forward, they need a composite fix to either address their team weaknesses or bolster their strengths. In this series, Denver simply failed to break through. That event, whether through these Nuggets or some other in-valid team either known or unknown to us now, is coming. Those teams will swim out together into the open sea time and time again, until finally, inevitably, they experience the kind of moment that makes everything else possible.
