Joshua Harris’s Philadelphia story offers insight to Crystal Palace fans

There are billionaire owners – step forward Roman Abramovich and Mike Ashley – who will never be held accountable. Then there are investors such as Joshua Harris, the American worth $2.7bn who has added Crystal Palace to a sporting portfolio that already includes franchises in the NHL and NBA.

A jeans-wearing , football-playing, marathon-running 50-year-old who made his fortune as a ruthless, pragmatic businessman by perfecting the skill of breathing new life into failing companies, Harris should be an interesting entrant into the Premier League’s shareholders’ circle. He will have an 18% stake in Palace, with his business partner David Blitzer taking an identical holding.

Harris’s Manhattan-based Apollo Global Management, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, owns more than 40 companies, with roughly 350,000 employees, and manages $113bn in assets.

Selhurst Park devotees googling his sporting ventures will note they are enduring wildly contrasting fortunes. Whereas his takeover of the New Jersey Devils – the three-times Stanley Cup winners – has meant a renovated stadium and a team continuing to challenge for honours, his stewardship of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team has been far more intriguing and highly controversial.

When Harris took charge in 2011 the roster he inherited from the previous coach, Doug Collins, was nothing special. So, as most billionaire supremos would do, he appointed a well-known coach, splashed some cash and thought a championship push would follow. It did not and that got Harris thinking.

What is the point of spending millions when you can start from scratch and build something which could prosper for years to come? A Moneyball vision with the draft process at the forefront was put in place and is being marshalled by a 37-year-old Dutchman, Sam Hinkie. It is an unprecedented leap of faith – the 76ers are the only NBA team to have a scouting system totally dependent on analytics staff. It is all about what you can project in terms of talent, not what you see.

To judge by results it is a stance which continues to backfire with mind-numbing regularity. As things stand, Philly are the worst team in the league by a considerable distance, one filled with rookies and workmanlike individuals who will do a job yet not a lot more. Building is the buzz word yet only four healthy players from the 2014 training camp took part in this summer’s preparations. Carl Landry is the only squad member with more than three years of NBA experience coming into this season, though the forward is out until January after wrist surgery.

They have won once in 26 matches this season, that solitary triumph coming in their 19th game. The 76ers are a laughing stock.

What was seen as a project harnessing youth, excitement and potential is fast turning into a nightmare. And the fans have started to turn.

The franchise purchased for $300m may have doubled in value and are by a very long way the most frugal in terms of money spent on wages, falling $20m below the salary cap . No matter – they remain on course to fail once again.

The plan, ill-conceived or not, is to grow assets. A large percentage of their draft picks were about the long term; four or five will be at elite level with experience under their belt and there will be enough left in the squads to trade wisely. They have endured bad luck; an injury to the highly rated Joel Embiid forced him out for the majority of 2014 after Nerlens Noel sat out the entire 2013 campaign because of ruptured knee ligaments.

To become a franchise who regularly compete is the aim. But the perceived tanking – losing on purpose to ensure a profitable draft – has angered many NBA franchise owners. Harris has denied such a strategy. “We are not out to lose,” he has said. “We are out to win every game.” A recent attempt to reform the whole pre-season process was six votes short of being passed.

It would be wrong, though, to equate this approach to what happens next at Selhurst Park. Steve Parish, the chairman, is entrenched at the club and under his stewardship Alan Pardew’s side are enjoying an impressive campaign. Palace have said the initial injection of capital from Harris and Blitzer will go into developing the stadium.

Harris is the latest prominent US figure in the boardrooms of the Premier League, where Manchester United (the Glazer family), Sunderland (Ellis Short), Aston Villa (Randy Lerner), Arsenal (Stan Kroenke) and John W Henry (Liverpool) have American owners. The complex world of US sport, with its lack of relegation and need to fret about missing out on huge TV riches, simply does not translate into the Premier League and English football as a whole.

Harris, ever the pragmatist, has his eye on the bigger picture, something which should warm Eagles fans’ hearts this winter. A keenness to promote youth and build a squad should always be welcomed in these cash-crazy days.

The Devils have enjoyed finally seeing a hole in the roof of the Prudential Center fixed and a new team in the front office has been established, enabling the franchise to compete on the business side, something lacking under the previous owners who were forced to enlist the help of the NHL to ease crippling debts before Harris saved the day in August 2013.

Harris is not seen too often in Philadelphia, leaving his close associate Scott O’Neill as a management focal point there and at New Jersey. Sources insist he is not one to meddle in team affairs, rather an owner happy to sit back and observe.

Sources in New Jersey speak warmly of a personable, media-friendly owner not afraid to spend when necessary, a man who has taken his son on to the team aeroplane to mix with the players, a move which went down supremely well.

He sees the bigger picture and, although finishing last in the Eastern Conference looks like a nailed-on certainty for the 76ers with this campaign still in its infancy, a low finish will at least go some way to ensuring a healthy position when it comes to the drafts for the 2016 season.

It has not been easy to watch but, to his credit, Harris has been on hand to answer key questions and has never shied away from being anything other than totally transparent.

This year, however, was supposed to be key for this grand plan. After all, supporters can stomach only so much. Yet nothing appears to have changed. Philadelphia are three years into a reboot which still has not left square one.

It may be construed as taking large steps back to take larger ones forward eventually. In some ways it is mildly refreshing in a market flooded with gargantuan contracts that someone has been able to assess a situation and not lose the plot while all crumbles around him.

• This article was amended on 24 December to remove a reference to basketball stars such as Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Love and Blake Griffin earning more in a season than the combined salaries of the Philadelphia squad.