Best NBA players of the 2000s
I'm not exactly sure what I expected from such a list, but this wasn't quite it. Kobe at #3 and Shaq is #6? Hrm.
Michael Jordan's 23 most memorable moments
Michael Jordan is set for induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame this weekend and in honor of the best player ever, ESPN is counting down with video of his 23 most memorable moments.
The overtime spike in NBA basketball
The distribution of point differentials at the end of NBA basketball games shows that a tie is more than twice as likely as either team winning by one point. A possible simple explanation from the comments:
1. Teams down by 2 late are most likely to take a 2 point shot, while teams down by 3 will most often take a 3 point shot. The team's choices make ties a likely outcome.
2. A Tie is a stable equilibrium, while other scores aren't. If a team leads with the ball, they will be fouled, preventing the game from ending on that score. IF a team has the ball with a tie, they'll usually be allowed to wait and take the last shot, either winning the game or leaving it as a tie.
Update: This study about golf putting seems to have something in common with the overtime finding.
Even the world's best pros are so consumed with avoiding bogeys that they make putts for birdie discernibly less often than identical-length putts for par, according to a coming paper by two professors at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. After analyzing laser-precise data on more than 1.6 million Tour putts, they estimated that this preference for avoiding a negative (bogey) more than gaining an equal positive (birdie) -- known in economics as loss aversion -- costs the average pro about one stroke per 72-hole tournament, and the top 20 golfers about $1.2 million in prize money a year.
Bill Simmons on, what else, basketball
In an interview with the New Yorker about basketball and his new book, The Book of Basketball, Bill Simmons offers up his take on how players skipping college impoverishes the NBA.
The lack of college experience also means that you probably have less of a chance to have a conversation with a Finals player about English lit or political science. For instance, if you're a reporter, maybe you don't ask for thoughts from modern players on the Gaza Strip or Abdul Nasser, or whether they read Chuck Pahlaniuk's new book. These guys lead sheltered lives that really aren't that interesting. Back in the seventies, you could go out to dinner with three of the Knicks -- let's say, Phil Jackson, Bill Bradley, and Walt Frazier -- and actually have a fascinating night. Which three guys would you pick on the Magic or Lakers? I guess Fisher would be interesting, and I always heard Odom was surprisingly thoughtful. I can't come up with a third. So I'd say that the effects are more in the "didn't really have any experiences outside being a basketball player" sense.
The other drama
During the TV coverage of the NBA playoffs, the NBA is running commercials showing great moments in playoff history that have been edited to isolate the players from the crowd. There's Bird stealing the inbound pass, Dr. J's improbable behind-the-backboard reverse layup, and Kobe lobbing the ball to Shaq for a thunderous dunk.
The Kobe/Shaq clip is worth a closer look because although the NBA picked this clip because it represents a dramatic moment in the NBA playoffs involving two of the best players in history on a storied team, what it actually shows is how dysfunctional Shaq and Kobe's relationship was even then, in their first championship season.
Bryant creates 95% of the offense here by crossing Pippen over and throwing a perfect lob to O'Neal. O'Neal throws it down and the camera follows him as he heads down the court yelling in celebration, totally blowing right past Kobe, who has his hand out to high-five Shaq. Kobe half-heartedly grabs at O'Neal's forearm as he passes; Shaq doesn't even notice. From his celebration, you'd think Shaq had made an amazing play, but Kobe made that whole thing happen. And if you look at the box score for the game, it was clearly Bryant's game: he had 25 points, 11 rebounds, 7 assists, and 4 blocks to O'Neal's 18/9/5/1.
The unedited clip of the play1 shows an awkward ending to this awkward moment. After celebrating with the Laker bench, Shaq looks for Kobe and the two finally acknowledge the play together. But it's a brief moment; they slap hands and go their separate ways, foreshadowing Shaq's departure four years later.
[1] What's also striking about the clip is that it shows just how much Kobe has improved the mechanics of his game since then. Even though he makes a great play here, he's still got those jittery feet that characterized his early career, at times looking like a dog skittering around on freshly polished linoleum. Any stuttering footwork is now long gone, replaced by the silkiest and smoothest of movement. ↩
Update: fxguide has a good look at how these commercials were made from a technical standpoint.
Kobe vs. LeBron
From a few days ago on TrueHoop, a lengthy debate about who is the better player: LeBron James or Kobe Bryant. LeBron has the statistical dominance but Kobe's game is the prettiest.
[LeBron] just doesn't move like the best basketball player in the world. Put almost any part Kobe Bryant's game in super slow motion, and you'll see beauty. Every little part of his game is refined, perfected, tested and honed ... Put LeBron James clips in super slow motion, and you're liable to find things here and there that he could do a little better. That footwork, that release, that way that he walks a little bit like a duck. There is a cognitive leap. Could the best basketball player in the world have noticeable flaws?
There's also an interesting argument in there that LeBron's game is such that it's very difficult to say why he's so good other than, well, just look at him play! In the same way, LeBron is difficult for kids to imitate on the playground whereas Kobe's catalog of moves are easy to imitate but difficult to get perfect to the extent that Kobe has.
Bill Simmons in conversation with Malcolm Gladwell
I mentioned Malcolm Gladwell's piece on underdogs the other day. It's one of the many subjects that he and Bill Simmons tackle in a three-part email conversation they had recently: part one, part two, part three. Simmons says of LeBron James:
Let's wrap things up by tackling LeBron James. As the 2009 postseason rolls on, the King has become its most compelling story, not just because of his insane numbers, that Jordan-like hunger in his eyes, even the fact that he's still on cruise control to some degree. (Note: I would compare him to Nigel Tufnel's amp. He alternated between "9" and "10" in the regular season, and he's been at 10 in the playoffs, but I can't shake the feeling that he has an "11" in store for Kobe and the Finals. An extra decibel level, if you will. In my lifetime, Jordan could go to 11. So could Bird. Shaq and Kobe could get there together, but not apart. And really, that's it. Even Magic could get to 10 3/4 but never quite 11. It's a whole other ball game: You aren't just beating teams, you're destroying their will. You never know when you'll see another 11. I'm just glad we're here. End of tangent.)
I have a hunch that Kobe may not even make it to the finals. They've got to beat the pesky and superstarless Rockets first and those Nuggets are looking good, although the long layoff could affect their momentum. Gladwell shared one of his ideas for changing the NBA draft: let the best teams pick first.
I think the only way around the problem is to put every team in the lottery. Every team's name gets put in a hat, and you get assigned your draft position by chance. Does that, theoretically, make it harder for weaker teams to improve their chances against stronger teams? I don't think so. First of all, the principal engine of parity in the modern era is the salary cap, not the draft. And in any case, if the reverse-order draft is such a great leveler, then why are the same teams at the bottom of both the NFL and NBA year after year? The current system perpetuates the myth that access to top picks is the primary determinant of competitiveness in pro sports, and that's simply not true. Success is a function of the quality of the organization.
Another more radical idea is that you do a full lottery only every second year, or three out of four years, and in the off year make draft position in order of finish. Best teams pick first. How fun would that be? Every meaningless end-of-season game now becomes instantly meaningful. If you were the Minnesota Timberwolves, you would realize that unless you did something really drastic -- like hire some random sports writer as your GM, or bring in Pitino to design a special-press squad -- you would never climb out of the cellar again. And in a year with a can't-miss No. 1 pick, having the best record in the regular season becomes hugely important.
Simmons and Gladwell did this once before in 2006: part one, part two.
Star Trek lens flares
Did you notice all the lens flares in Star Trek? JJ Abrams' rationale for them -- he refers to them as "another actor" in the movie -- is pretty interesting.
I love the idea that the future was so bright it couldn't be contained in the frame. The flares weren't just happening from on-camera light sources, they were happening off camera, and that was really the key to it. I want [to create] the sense that, just off camera, something spectacular is happening. There was always a sense of something, and also there is a really cool organic layer thats a quality of it.
Someone clever took some footage from the old series and added a bunch of lens flaring to make it look like the new film.
The result is supposed to be funny but I thought it also somewhat validated Abrams' remarks above. (via snarkmarket & waxy)
Henry Jenkins and Snarkmarket also address my biggest problem with the movie, that the cadet-to-captain thing happened way too quickly to Kirk and his crew. Jenkins' contention is that the new movie treats the Enterprise as a start-up company; Tim adds this gem of a line:
But it's not academia; it's the NBA. You give these kids the ball.
So, which NBA player is Kirk supposed to be? While not an exact comparison, I'm going to say that Kirk is Tony Parker to Spock's Tim Duncan. And Scotty = Manu Ginobli?
Dikembe Mutombo's career done
Dikembe Mutombo's long NBA career came to a sad end last night with an injury to his knee.
His 18-year NBA career ended Tuesday night with a gruesome knee injury midway through his 1,297th game. He left the floor on a stretcher after every single teammate had surrounded him on the floor. That gesture spoke volumes about what they thought of him. He's the funniest, smartest professional athlete you will ever meet.
Aside from the finger wagging, I always liked Mutombo. Back when I still watched college ball, Georgetown was my team and it was a lot of fun seeing Alonzo Mourning and Mutombo block all those shots. (via truehoop)
Bill Simmons' NBA MVP picks
I need to make more time to read Bill Simmons' column each week. His NBA MVP picks are an informative hoot. (Informative Hoot happens to be on the shortlist of possible alternate names for kottke.org.)
All But the Championship
TrueHoop looks at the recent ABC teams in the teams in the NBA, those that have flown high but have not secured a championship.
Some may argue that the true window to win a title began when Jerry Sloan took over as head coach [of the Utah Jazz] during the 1988-89 season, and while Karl Malone and John Stockton had been paired up since the 1985-86 season, the Jazz did not make it to the Western Conference Finals until 1992. That's when they became title contenders. As we all know, Stockton's career consisted of dishing out over 15,800 assists, which is over 5,000 assists more than Mark Jackson, who is 2nd on the NBA's all-time assists list. Karl Malone, meanwhile, went on to finish 2nd on the NBA's all-time scoring list. To have that kind of talent for so long and not come away with a title is almost unimaginable, if not crushing to a franchise. The window came to an abrupt close in 2003, when Stockton retired and Malone went to the Lakers in a last-ditch effort to win a title. The ultimate kicker? Between 1991 and 2003, Utah's 632 wins were the most in the NBA.
Is two steps really traveling?
TrueHoop recently investigated a seemingly simple aspect of the NBA game: the traveling violation.
The question is basic: If you're dribbling the ball in the NBA, and you pick up your dribble ... how many steps can you take before you have broken the traveling rules? It's a fundamental part of the game. But I asked several NBA players, and the answers were far from simple.
In addition to asking the players, TH's Henry Abbott also talks with some NBA officials, gets the low-down on how the call is really made, and makes an argument that the rule should be rewritten. The intro to the series is here.
No free throw improvement
As athletes get bigger, stronger, faster, and more well-trained and records repeatedly fall in other sports, the percentage of free throws made in college and NBA games has largely stayed the same.
The consistency of free-throw percentages stands out when contrasted with field-goal shooting over all. In men's college basketball, field-goal percentage was below 40 percent until 1960, then climbed steadily to 48.1 in 1984, still the highest on record. The long-range 3-point shot was introduced in 1986, and the overall shooting percentage has settled in at about 44 percent.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's amazing that with so much at stake in the NBA game (wins, money, championships, glory), there are still players whose FT% is in the 50-60% range over the course of a season...for a shot that undefended and never changes! I wonder how the putting percentages have changed over the years in golf (if they even keep such statistics). The Times' Room for Debate blog has a related discussion on unbreakable sports records.
LeBron averaging a triple double?
If the NBA game were played at the pace of the 1962 season, the year Oscar Robertson averaged a triple double and Wilt put up 50 PPG while pulling down 26 RPG, LeBron James might be averaging 40.1 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 10.0 assists this season.
Okay, so you've all seen Wilt and Oscar's numbers from 1962... but have you ever sat down and looked at the league averages that year? In '62, the average team took 107.7 shots per game. By comparison, this year the average team takes 80.2 FGA/G. If we use a regression to estimate turnovers & offensive rebounds, the league pace factor for 1962 was 125.5 possessions/48 minutes, whereas this year it's 91.7. Oscar's Royals averaged 124.7 poss/48, while Wilt's Warriors put up a staggering 129.7 (the highest mark in the league). On the other hand, the 2009 Cavs are averaging a mere 89.2 poss/48. It turns out that the simplest explanation for the crazy statistical feats of 1961-62 (and the early sixties in general) is just that the league was playing at a much faster tempo in those days, with more possessions affording players more opportunities to amass gaudy counting statistics.
(via truehoop)
Basketball, Moneyball
Michael Lewis cast his Moneyball lens on basketball in this week's NY Times Magazine. The Billy Beane of the roundball story, more or less, is Shane Battier, a guard for the Houston Rockets. Battier doesn't seem like a great basketball player, but he does a lot of little things that helps his team win.
Battier's game is a weird combination of obvious weaknesses and nearly invisible strengths. When he is on the court, his teammates get better, often a lot better, and his opponents get worse -- often a lot worse. He may not grab huge numbers of rebounds, but he has an uncanny ability to improve his teammates' rebounding. He doesn't shoot much, but when he does, he takes only the most efficient shots. He also has a knack for getting the ball to teammates who are in a position to do the same, and he commits few turnovers. On defense, although he routinely guards the N.B.A.'s most prolific scorers, he significantly Âreduces their shooting percentages.
Battier sounds like an intriguing fellow but the most interesting part of the article is about how the players' incentives differ in basketball from other major American sports.
There is a tension, peculiar to basketball, between the interests of the team and the interests of the individual. The game continually tempts the people who play it to do things that are not in the interest of the group. On the baseball field, it would be hard for a player to sacrifice his team's interest for his own. Baseball is an individual sport masquerading as a team one: by doing what's best for himself, the player nearly always also does what is best for his team. "There is no way to selfishly get across home plate," as Morey puts it. "If instead of there being a lineup, I could muscle my way to the plate and hit every single time and damage the efficiency of the team -- that would be the analogy. Manny Ramirez can't take at-bats away from David Ortiz. We had a point guard in Boston who refused to pass the ball to a certain guy."
No wonder it's so hard to build a basketball team with the right balance of skills and personalities. Take five guys, put them on a court, let them do whatever they think they need to do to get a larger contract next year, and maybe you get some pretty good results. Now, consider a situation where the plus/minus statistic is the basis for player salaries and all of sudden, players need to figure out how they can make the other four guys on the floor better. And while everyone is making adjustments to each others' games, each player is adjusting to everyone else's game, and the process becomes this fragile and intricate nonlinear dance that results in either beautiful chaos or the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers.
PS. The brief author bio at the end of the article continues the recent game of "next book" Whack-A-Mole from Lewis. Since the publication of The Blind Side in 2006, Lewis' next book has been listed in various outlets as being about New Orleans/Katrina, financial panics (which turned out to be an anthology edited by Lewis), his sequel to Liar's Poker about the current financial crisis, and now is listed as "Home Game, a memoir about fatherhood". I give up.
Former Sonics fan files for free agency
When the Seattle Supersonics up and moved to Oklahoma to become the Oklahoma City Thunder, Sonics fan John Moe became a fan free agent. He arranged recruiting calls and visits with several teams around the league to see if they would have him.
So was he welcoming me aboard then?
"I am absolutely welcoming you into our franchise. We could use some [Timberwolves] fans right now. You're part of the blueprint. Absolutely."
I thanked him for the offer but told him I had other teams to talk to.
Michael Jordan beat 1-on-1
At one of Michael Jordan's basketball camps back in 2003, the NBA star was beaten in a game of 1-on-1 by John Rogers, the CEO of a Chicago investment firm. See also LeBron James getting beat at HORSE.
Update: Rogers also regularly hoops it up with Barack Obama.
The next Jordan
TrueHoop's Henry Abbott makes a list of all the "next Michael Jordans" that have come into the NBA in recent years. Harold Miner! I haven't thought about that guy in years.
LeBron James loses at HORSE
LeBron James gets beat in a game of HORSE by a mere mortal. The crowd's stunned silence when James loses is amazing. (via mr)
Celtics win the NBA Championship
John Gruber, the sorest winner on the web when it comes to sports or Apple, points out that I was wrong in my prediction that the Lakers would win the NBA Finals this year. I didn't actually care about the series either way...but after rooting for him in Minnesota for all those years, it sure is great to see Kevin Garnett win a championship.
I was also wrong about Paul Pierce. I never liked him as a player; thought he was soft, lazy, & petulant, settled for the outside shot too much, and just didn't have what it took to be his team's star player. He's put all that behind him; in this series, Pierce showed that he's definitely one of the top players in the league, deserving of his accolades. Count me among the number of Paul Pierce fans.
Mirror neurons and sports
Rampant speculation from Jonah Lehrer on why people care so much when they watch overpaid athletes play sports. It is, perhaps, all about mirror neurons:
"The main functional characteristic of mirror neurons is that they become active both when the monkey makes a particular action (for example, when grasping an object or holding it) and when it observes another individual making a similar action." In other words, these peculiar cells mirror, on our inside, the outside world; they enable us to internalize the actions of another. They collapse the distinction between seeing and doing.
This suggests that when I watch Kobe glide to the basket for a dunk, a few deluded cells in my premotor cortex are convinced that I, myself, am touching the rim. And when he hits a three pointer, my mirror neurons light up as I've just made the crucial shot. They are what bind me to the game, breaking down that 4th wall separating fan from player. I'm not upset because my team lost: I'm upset because it literally feels like I lost, as if I had been on the court.
Prediction: Lakers in six
The NBA Finals start tonight, pitting the LA Lakers against the Boston Celtics. Despite having finished with the best regular season record in the league, the Celtics find themselves underdogs against the Lakers, who ripped through the tough Western conference bracket with little difficulty. I'm going with the majority on this one: Lakers in six games (possibly even five) and continued heartbreak for New England fans after the high of the Red Sox's second World Series victory last season.
Non-player declares for NBA draft
Despite having no basketball playing ability or experience, college junior Zach Feinstein has declared himself for the 2008 NBA Draft. You can find him listed on the NBA's official early entry list under "unknown individuals". (thx, jared)
A list of the top one articles
A list of the top one articles by Neal Pollack about how sportswriters should stop writing about the NBA MVP race and, oh yeah, lists of stuff are dumb:
Sportswriters and pundits, on the other hand, are treating the MVP race with the gravitas of a presidential election. That's because they make up the Electoral College. When they're debating who's going to win the award, they're not really talking about who they think the best player is; they're talking about whom they should pick as the best player. It's the ultimate circle-jerk of sports-guy self-regard.
Steve Nash directed his own Nike commercial.
Steve Nash directed his own Nike commercial. Nash's original concept for the commercial is clever:
At first, the idea was to shoot on different mediums -- camera phone, 8-millimeter, 16-millimeter (the eventual choice), security footage. My idea was the city was watching me. The genesis was a lot of people film me or take a picture of me in the city on cellphones. If it's such an appetite to see me do normal things, it was an idea to do something people like.
(via truehoop)
LeBron James dropped 50 points on the Knicks
LeBron James dropped 50 points on the Knicks in Madison Square Garden last night to chants of MVP from the New York crowd. It's good to be the king.
Update: Did you see the buzzer beating three pointer at the end of the first quarter?! He shot it almost from mid-court, floating left. It looked effortless. It was almost like Jordan's game ending shot against the Jazz in game six of the '98 Finals, but, again, from almost mid-court.
For the first time since 1982, an NBA
For the first time since 1982, an NBA team has won a game protest and the next time the Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat meet, they'll replay the final 51.9 seconds of the disputed game before playing the scheduled full game.
Todd Gallagher explores the myth of grabbing
Todd Gallagher explores the myth of grabbing a dollar bill off the top of a basketball backboard and tries to find someone who can do it.
The legend of touching the top of the backboard has gone on for years, and it has been excitedly attributed to so many different players that it's commonly assumed any number of guys in the NBA can do it. But in a sport where any individual achievement is promoted ad nauseam, we've never seen any proof of it actually being done.
Check out these videos of his leading candidate, James White: White doing a between-the-legs dunk from the free throw line and his dunks from the 2006 NCAA dunk contest.
A good but not great profile of
A good but not great profile of Steve Nash in Play, the NY Times' occasional sports magazine.
My first and second years in the N.B.A., I used to get really nervous in a tight game. But now I wait for that moment when things are really close -- that's what I really love. Having the ball in my hands and the responsibility makes me feel calm and open. Not to have that, not to get to that point in a game, would feel really...really confining.
I also liked how he involved not-so-good players on his college team:
If he had a guy on the right wing in transition who he knew couldn't shoot the ball, he'd throw a pass that was just good enough to include the guy in the fast break, but just bad enough that the guy wasn't in a position to get off a shot and would have to pass the ball back.
This video features a nerdy-looking Seattle Sonics
This video features a nerdy-looking Seattle Sonics fan rapping about Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant, and Steve Nash. I know that doesn't sound very funny, but it somehow is. Very. (via truehoop)
Top 20 plays of the 2007 NBA playoffs (so
Top 20 plays of the 2007 NBA playoffs (so far). It's a good list but YouTube sucks for watching sports highlights...the quality is just too low. (via truehoop)
What a game! How badly does the
What a game! How badly does the NBA want the Cleveland Cavaliers in the finals? Very very. TrueHoop's got more.
Better living through self deception
Interesting article about how people tell their stories and think of their past experiences and how that influences their mood and general outlook on life.
At some level, talk therapy has always been an exercise in replaying and reinterpreting each person's unique life story. Yet Mr. Adler found that in fact those former patients who scored highest on measures of well-being -- who had recovered, by standard measures -- told very similar tales about their experiences.
They described their problem, whether depression or an eating disorder, as coming on suddenly, as if out of nowhere. They characterized their difficulty as if it were an outside enemy, often giving it a name (the black dog, the walk of shame). And eventually they conquered it.
"The story is one of victorious battle: 'I ended therapy because I could overcome this on my own,'" Mr. Adler said. Those in the study who scored lower on measures of psychological well-being were more likely to see their moods and behavior problems as a part of their own character, rather than as a villain to be defeated. To them, therapy was part of a continuing adaptation, not a decisive battle.
The article goes on to describe the benefits of thinking about past events in the third person rather than in the first person:
In a 2005 study reported in the journal Psychological Science, researchers at Columbia University measured how student participants reacted to a bad memory, whether an argument or failed exam, when it was recalled in the third person. They tested levels of conscious and unconscious hostility after the recollections, using both standard questionnaires and students' essays. The investigators found that the third-person scenes were significantly less upsetting, compared with bad memories recalled in the first person.
"What our experiment showed is that this shift in perspective, having this distance from yourself, allows you to relive the experience and focus on why you're feeling upset," instead of being immersed in it, said Ethan Kross, the study's lead author. The emotional content of the memory is still felt, he said, but its sting is blunted as the brain frames its meaning, as it builds the story.
But things like eating disorders and mental illness aren't external forces and thinking about a bad memory as if it happened to a third party is not the truth. The standard model of the happy, smart, successful human being is someone who knows more, works hard, and has found, or at least is heading toward, their own personal meaning of life. But often that's not the case. Self-deceit (or otherwise willfully forgetting seemingly pertinent information) seems to be important to human growth.
Consider the recent findings by a group at Harvard about the effects of mindset on physical fitness:
The researchers studied 84 female housekeepers from seven hotels. Women in 4 hotels were told that their regular work was enough exercise to meet the requirements for a healthy, active lifestyle, whereas the women in the other three hotels were told nothing. To determine if the placebo effect plays a role in the benefits of exercise, the researchers investigated whether subjects' mind-set (in this case, their perceived levels of exercise) could inhibit or enhance the health benefits of exercise independent of any actual exercise.
Four weeks later, the researchers returned to assess any changes in the women's health. They found that the women in the informed group had lost an average of 2 pounds, lowered their blood pressure by almost 10 percent, and were significantly healthier as measured by body-fat percentage, body mass index, and waist-to-hip ratio. These changes were significantly higher than those reported in the control group and were especially remarkable given the time period of only four weeks.
Just by thinking they were exercising, these women gained extra benefit from their usual routines. The idea of thinking about oneself reminded me of Allen Iverson's training routine, which utilizes a technique called psychocybernetics:
"Let me tell you about Allen's workouts," says Terry Royster, his bodyguard from 1997 until early 2002. "All the time I have been with him, I never seen him lift a weight or stand there and shoot jumper after jumper. Instead, we'll be on our way to the game and he'll be quiet as hell. Finally, he'll say, 'You know now I usually cross my man over and take it into the lane and pull up? Well, tonight I'm gonna cross him over and then take a step back and fade away. I'm gonna kill 'em with it all night long.' And damned if he didn't do just that. See, that's his workout, when he's just sitting there, thinking. That's him working on his game."
What Iverson is doing is tricking his conscious self into thinking that he's done something that he hasn't, that he's practiced a move or shot 100 perfect free throws in a row. I think, therefore I slam. (I wonder if Iverson pictures himself in the first or third person in his visualizations.)
Carol Dweck's research looks at the difference between thinking of talent or ability as innate as opposed to something that can be developed:
At the time, the suggested cure for learned helplessness was a long string of successes. Dweck posited that the difference between the helpless response and its opposite -- the determination to master new things and surmount challenges -- lay in people's beliefs about why they had failed. People who attributed their failures to lack of ability, Dweck thought, would become discouraged even in areas where they were capable. Those who thought they simply hadn't tried hard enough, on the other hand, would be fueled by setbacks.
For some people, the facade they've created for themselves can come crashing down suddenly, as with stage fright:
He describes the sense of acute self-consciousness and loss of confidence that followed as "stage dread," a sort of "paradigm shift." He says, "It's not 'Look at me - I'm flying.' It's 'Look at me - I might fall.' It would be like playing a game of chess where you're constantly regretting the moves you've already played rather than looking at the ones you're going to play." Fry could not mobilize his defenses; unable to shore himself up, he took himself away.
In a slightly different but still related vein, Gerd Gigerenzer's research indicates that ignoring information is how smart decisions are made:
In order to make good decisions in an uncertain world, one sometimes has to ignore information. The art is knowing what one doesn't have to know.
Research done by Edward Vogel at the University of Oregon shows the capacity of a person's visual working memory "depends on your ability to filter out irrelevant information":
"Until now, it's been assumed that people with high capacity visual working memory had greater storage but actually, it's about the bouncer - a neural mechanism that controls what information gets into awareness," Vogel said.
And data from another study indicates that perhaps one of the things that the brain does best is forgetting ("motivated (voluntary) forgetting", in the words of one researcher):
The findings suggest that despite the brain's astonishing ability to archive a lifetime of memories, one of its prime functions is, paradoxically, to forget. Our sensory organs continually deluge us with information, some of it unpleasant. We wouldn't get through the day -- or through life -- if we didn't repress much of it.
Perhaps the way to true personal acheivement and happiness is through lying to yourself instead of being honest, loafing instead of practicing, and purposely forgetting information. There are plenty of self-help books on the market...where are the self-hurt books?
Alex Reisner's cabinet of statistical wonders
While bumping around on the internet last night, I stumbled upon Alex Reisner's site. Worth checking out are his US roadtrip photos and NYC adventures, which include an account and photographs of a man jumping from the Williamsburg Bridge.
But the real gold here is Reisner's research on baseball...a must-see for baseball and infographics nerds alike. Regarding the home run discussion on the post about Ken Griffey Jr. a few weeks ago, Reisner offers this graph of career home runs by age for a number of big-time sluggers. You can see the trajectory that Griffey was on before he turned 32/33 and how A-Rod, if he stays healthy, is poised to break any record set by Bonds. His article on Baseball Geography and Transportation details how low-cost cross-country travel made it possible for the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants to move to California. The same article also riffs on how stadiums have changed from those that fit into urban environments (like Fenway Park) to more symmetric ballfields built in suburbs and other open areas accessible by car.
And then there's the pennant race graphs for each year since 1900...you can compare the dominance of the 1927 Yankees with the 1998 Yankees. And if you've gotten through all that, prepare to spend several hours sifting through all sorts of MLB statistics, represented in a way you may not have seen before:
The goal here is not to duplicate excellent resources like Total Baseball or The Baseball Encyclopedia, but to take the same data and present it in a way that shows different relationships, yields new insights, and raises new questions. The focus is on putting single season stats in a historical context and identifying the truly outstanding player seasons, not just those with big raw numbers.
Reisner's primary method of comparing players over different eras is the z-score, a measure of how a player compares to their contemporaries, (e.g. the fantastic seasons of Babe Ruth in 1920 and Barry Bonds in 2001):
In short, z-score is a measure of a player's dominance in a given league and season. It allows us to compare players in different eras by quantifying how good they were compared to their competition. It it a useful measure but a relative one, and does not allow us to draw any absolute conclusions like "Babe Ruth was a better home run hitter than Barry Bonds." All we can say is that Ruth was more dominant in his time.
I'm more of a basketball fan than of baseball, so I immediately thought of applying the same technique to NBA players, to shed some light on the perennial Jordan vs. Chamberlain vs. Oscar Robertson vs. whoever arguments. Until recently, the NBA hasn't collected statistics as tenaciously as MLB has so the z-score technique is not as useful, but some work has been done in that area.
Anyway, great stuff all the way around.
Update: Reisner's site seems to have gone offline since I wrote this. I hope the two aren't related and that it appears again soon.
Update: It's back up!
Best-player discussions are commonplace, but who's the
Best-player discussions are commonplace, but who's the worst player in the NBA? I'd vote Antoine Walker as well...I've always felt his game was crap. (via truehoop)
LeBron James' new house: 35,440 sq ft, 2200 sq
LeBron James' new house: 35,440 sq ft, 2200 sq ft master suite (with 2-story walk-in closet), theater, casino, barber shop, bowling alley, and a limestone bust of LeBron wearing a headband.
Collection of photos of basketball players with
Collection of photos of basketball players with normal people. (thx, brian)
Free throws
Free throw shooting is one of my favorite topics. It's the whole relaxed concentration aspect of it: can you focus enough so that the years of practice undertaken to train the unconscious self to shoot override the conscious self's desire to take control of the situation at hand? To me, this battle of the two minds within the individual is the essence of sport: you know how to make the shot, you know you can make the shot, but will you make the shot? Free throw shooting lays this battle bare for all to see. It's the same shot every single time (and the easiest way to score a point in sports), you don't have to be in top physical shape to shoot it, and yet a surprising amount of professional basketball players can't make more than every two out of three attempts.
So, as for Gene Weingarten's assertion (via truehoop) that if an average person took a year to practice, he could beat the best free throw shooter in the NBA, I say "hell yes". Maybe a retired podiatrist would be a worthy candidate: 71-year-old Tom Amberry shot 2,750 in a row in 1993. Amberry was a star college basketball player and was offered a contract with the Lakers after WWII, so maybe that's not fair...but just look at the guy.
Truehoop, a basketball blog that's one of
Truehoop, a basketball blog that's one of the best out there on any topic, has been purchased by ESPN. Congrats, Henry.
Before NBA player Jason Kidd split with
Before NBA player Jason Kidd split with his wife, his free throw routine included blowing a kiss to her. After the ugly breakup, he kisses his fingers and wipes them on his butt...kiss my ass!
True Hoop's Henry Abbott does a bit
True Hoop's Henry Abbott does a bit of research into baby names inspired by NBA players. "[Kobe] was drafted in 1996, and in 1997 the name debuted at #553. 2001 was its best year ever, when it was the 223rd most common name in America. Donald, Keith, Troy, Lance, Simon, Chad, Dante, Douglas, Tony, Joe all ranked lower."
Great True Hoop piece on Allen Iverson. "
Great True Hoop piece on Allen Iverson. "In other words, missed in all the hand-wringing about his lackadaisical practice habits in the NBA is the possibility that so much of his work is cerebral. Unlike, say, Jordan, who was a craftsman, someone who would take hundreds of jumpshots a day, Iverson imagines the possibility and then acts it out."
In response to complaints from players, the
In response to complaints from players, the NBA is going back to their old ball on Jan 1. "roundly criticized"...har har.
The NBA admits that its new ball
The NBA admits that its new ball is a piece of crap and that, hey!, they should have consulted the players before they made the change. I can't believe that businesses still function like this...what a bunch of idiots.
Changes in rules and enforcement for the
Changes in rules and enforcement for the upcoming NBA season: travelling will be called more, no more full-length leg tights, no extending your arms to gain an advantageous position in the lane before free-throws, and no more wearing rubber bands. It'll be interesting to see if the travelling calls stick...last year, I'd say an uncalled travelling violation occurred on at least 1 out of every 5 or 6 possessions. (via truehoop)
Henry Abbott reports on what he's learned
Henry Abbott reports on what he's learned about William Wesley, a behind-the-scenes power player in the business of basketball. "Enter William Wesley. How's this for a resume? He was right there in Michael Jordan's ear. The whole time. 'Wes' helped pull off one of the great feats of modern legend-making. He held the hand of one of the NBA's less likable characters -- an angry, cussing, yelling, gambling, adrenaline addict with some sort of over-competitive personality disorder -- as he became the most successful pitchman in sports history, complete with his own animated children's movie."
Think you got teh hops? Here's a
Think you got teh hops? Here's a photo of Orlando Magic player Dwight Howard kissing the rim in practice. (via th)
Dwyane Wade highlight reel. The one where
Dwyane Wade highlight reel. The one where he goes between the legs while splitting the pick and roll defense is insane (around 2:43). (via th)
Allen Iverson, greatest soccer player ever?
Buried in this extensive listing of the most valuable players in the NBA by Bill Simmons, is a little muse about NBA stars playing soccer, which I will reproduce here in its entirety so you don't have to go searching for it:
By the way, I've been watching the World Cup for four weeks trying to decide which NBA players could have been dominant soccer players, eventually coming to three conclusions. First, Allen Iverson would have been the greatest soccer player ever -- better than Pele, better than Ronaldo, better than everyone. I think this is indisputable, actually. Second, it's a shame that someone like Chris Andersen couldn't have been pushed toward soccer, because he would have been absolutely unstoppable soaring above the middle of the pack on corner kicks. And third, can you imagine anyone being a better goalie than Shawn Marion? It would be like having a 6-foot-9 human octopus in the net. How could anyone score on him? He'd have every inch of the goal covered. Just as a sports experiment, couldn't we have someone teach Marion the rudimentary aspects of playing goal, then throw him in a couple of MLS games? Like you would turn the channel if this happened?
Link via David, with whom I was chatting last week about Mr. Iverson's excellent chances, soccer-wise.
Damn it. I was really pulling for
Damn it. I was really pulling for the Mavericks and Nowitzki to win it. Bummer: Antoine Walker has a championship. Not so bad: Gary Payton, Alonzo Mourning, and Dwyane Wade have championships. And not a bad way for Shaq to celebrate his last season as a superstar.
Classic quote from Shaq comparing the three
Classic quote from Shaq comparing the three guards he's played with to Vito Corleone's sons in The Godfather. Penny = Fredo, Kobe = Sonny, and Dwyane Wade = Michael.
The tragedy of Kevin Garnett. According to
The tragedy of Kevin Garnett. According to the Wins Produced statistic, Garnett is far and away the best player in the NBA, but his teammates have always been bad. Hopefully Garnett can find "a few co-workers who can help him achieve the recognition his performance indicates he clearly deserves".
NBA playoffs
Many basketball fans don't care for the pro game, but you'd have to be made of stone if you're not appreciating the NBA playoffs this year. Have you been watching? What a bunch of great games and series.
Round one featured an old-fashioned duel between LeBron James and Gilbert Arenas, Phoenix battling back from a 3-1 series deficit against a perplexing Lakers team (with Kobe playing team basketball!) to win, and an aging Shaquille O'Neal -- after the refs demonstrated that he was no longer good enough to bull his way through defenders in the post and not get called for offensive fouls -- going for 30 points and 20 rebounds in game six, playing a finesse game unseen from him since his college days at LSU.
And in the second round, the Clippers and Suns are going at it like cats and dogs (2 overtimes in game five, 253 total points in game 1), the defending champion Spurs are trying to come back from a 3-1 deficit to the Mavericks (3 of the games have been decided by 2 points or less and another went to overtime), and the Pistons, who by all accounts should have swept the Cavs in four, find themselves down 3-2 to a team with the best 21-year-old basketball player ever.
Despite the NBA's dogged insistence on promoting individual players as the primary reason to watch games, watching the team play has been the most compelling part of the playoffs. Detroit, Phoenix, San Antonio, the Clippers, and Dallas are great to watch on either end of the court: how a team's offense changes in response to their opponent's defense, how the defense changes to compensate for the tweaks made by the offense, and so on. I don't have a favorite team in the playoffs this year, but this is the most fun I've had watching the NBA since rooting for the Bulls in 1998. (I know, I know.)
Sam Anderson articulates his hatred for Kobe
Sam Anderson articulates his hatred for Kobe Bryant. "Since he's a Jordan-like talent, Kobe clearly thinks that he's entitled to the Jordan mythology, but he doesn't have any of Jordan's charisma or imagination."
Infrared photography of some NBA players. In
Infrared photography of some NBA players. In the photos, the uniforms are almost completely white and tattoos "pop" quite a bit, particularly on some of the more darker skinned players. (via th)
Video compilation of the best dunks from
Video compilation of the best dunks from the 2006 NBA dunk contest. Andre Iguodala's off-the-back-of-the-backboard and behind-the-back dunks were both very sick and wrong.
The history of the NBA logo...and
The history of the NBA logo...and yes, that's Jerry West. (via th)
Very unflattering (and excellent) article about Michael
Very unflattering (and excellent) article about Michael Jordan, written during his second (third?) comeback with the Washington Wizards. (via truehoop)
TrueHoop has a good roundup of Kobe's 81
TrueHoop has a good roundup of Kobe's 81-point performance the other night. Quoth Henry: "This is the first time I have put something that happened last night straight into the 'basketball history' category of TrueHoop."
The evolution of Allen Iverson from misunderstood
The evolution of Allen Iverson from misunderstood troublemaker to one of the NBA's "most transcendental stars". Says Iverson, "just trying to approach it in a John Stockton-type of way, to where you don't play so much with your physical ability all the time. You have to think the game out a lot more. That's where I'm a lot better"
In addition to the James Frey thing,
In addition to the James Frey thing, we've got people digging into the identity of the secretive writer JT LeRoy (a denial). And True Hoop's Henry Abbott is trying to figure out who William Wesley is...a powerful NBA figure who came out of nowhere and appears to not have a job or any direct influence on anyone or anything but goes to fights with Michael Jordan and has LeBron James on speed dial.
In an era when players are so
In an era when players are so much bigger, stronger, faster, and richer than the rest of us, it's getting harder for fans to really connect with pro sports teams.
Sports Illustrated's photo gallery of the top 10
Sports Illustrated's photo gallery of the top 10 point guards of all time.
Is it possible to use thin slicing (
Is it possible to use thin slicing (as detailed in Gladwell's Blink) to make better bets about the outcome of NBA basketball games? The most important factors would appear to be FG%, turnover rate, offensive rebounding rate, and free throw attempts. (via truehoop)
Quick overview of increased use of statistics
Quick overview of increased use of statistics in pro basketball, i.e. the moneyballing of the NBA. More NBA stats madness at 82games.com.
The T'Wolves are all about Wally Szczerbiak
The T'Wolves are all about Wally Szczerbiak this year. I'm not a Wally fan...I think he's selfish like Kobe and not nearly so good. The Wolves should be more concerned with Garnett...he was not in peak form last year.
A list of the NBA's most overrated
A list of the NBA's most overrated players, including Karl Malone, David Robinson, Charles Barkley, and Patrick Ewing. (via truehoop)
Larry Brown wanted Stephon Marbury off the
Larry Brown wanted Stephon Marbury off the Olympic team in Athens. Marbury is the most overrated player in the NBA...there ain't no "Marbury" in "team". I wouldn't have him on my team even if he played for free.
Charley Rosen's picks for all-time best NBA shooting guards
Charley Rosen's picks for all-time best NBA shooting guards. Not surprisingly, Jordan tops the list.
Taking one for the team
Over on TrueHoop, Henry Abbott notes something interesting about Ray Allen's just-signed contract with the Seattle Sonics:
Though the average yearly salary of the contract is $16 million, the starting salary for Allen has not yet been worked out. Allen's side has given the Sonics the freedom to structure the deal however they choose in order to allow the team to surround Allen with talent, possibly by re-signing some of their own free agents or entering the free-agent market and signing top quality players.
Although I'm sure it freaks out the agents and laywers, that concession gives Ray Allen and the Sonics a much better shot at success.
I've always wondered why so-called "franchise" players on pro teams in leagues with salary caps (particularly in the NBA, where the number of players per team is so small) don't do this type of thing more often. Well, besides the fact that their agents, who presumably work on commission, won't let them. You get a guy like Kevin Garnett, who wants to win multiple championships, give him $3-4 million less per year than he could get on the open market (so he's still making millions per year and much more in endorsements) on the condition that the #2-5 guys on the squad are also making below market level by a mil or two, and then spend that money on the bench or on a #3 guy who would be a #2 guy anywhere else in the league. Garnett wins championships, everyone on the team wins championships, everyone's endorsements go up, the team makes more money, and the profile of everyone involved is raised (higher profile = increased future earnings potential). Of course it would never work, but what if it did?
A basketball fan couldn't wait until next
A basketball fan couldn't wait until next year, so he's documenting 2005-6 Bulls season with NBA Live 2005. Looks like the Bulls lost their home opener.
The anti-white racism of the NBA
The anti-white racism of the NBA. "The NBA is not a league for black, white, red, blue, or green people. It is a league for winners."
Ben Wallace, superstardom, selling out, and race in sports
Ben Wallace, superstardom, selling out, and race in sports. "As racist as it really is, the fact that white people can walk around the Palace in fake black Afro wigs without black folks taking offense is a testament to the power of racial 'go beyond' that he has single-handedly generated."
Dr. J remembers Magic Johnson's star-making performance
Dr. J remembers Magic Johnson's star-making performance in the 1980 NBA Finals.
George Mikan, the first NBA basketball superstar, died aged 80
George Mikan, the first NBA basketball superstar, died aged 80.
Characterizing NBA players by their counterparts down
Characterizing NBA players by their counterparts down at the local gym or park. Damon Jones of the Miami Heat is "The Guy Who Has a Friend Who's Really Good".