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Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Basketball: What Do We Know?

"What do we know? What do we think we know? What do we need to know?" - Murder Investigation Team

Learn from paying attention to British crime drama. 

What do we know?

1. "Be curious not judgmental," falsely attributed to Walt Whitman. We can learn a lot from kids. 

  • Invest in yourself. 
  • "Look for the helpers." - Fred Rogers
  • "I wonder, what if, let's try." - Sesame Street
2. "Every day is player development day." - Dave Smart
  • Some coaches aggregate talent. Some coaches develop talent. Some do both. 
  • Don't blame the talent when you don't develop it. 
  • "Technique beats tactics." - Gregg Popovich  
Some NBA teams had concerns about Indiana players coached by Coach Knight. The concern was that their coaching was so good that they might not improve. 

In The Undoing Project, Michael Lewis explained that the three factors best predicting NBA success were: college attended, college hoop performance, and age at drafting (younger was better). Example: Jason Tatum. 

What do we think we know? Almost everyone trusts their experience. What if our experience is limited or not representative of the broader experience? 

Seeking outside experience or consultation isn't a sign of weakness. Saying "this time is different" instead of "I don't know" burns people. 
  • If our 'Circle of Competence' is small, there's a great chance that we end up on thin ice or in the deep end of the pool without a life preserver.
  • If we rely heavily on small sample size, then we don't see 'tail' risk. If nothing bad happens in a given amount of events, the statistical reliability is about 3/n where n = attempts. With few observations, overconfidence is likely. 
  • Loss aversion is powerful. People feel the pain of loss about twice as intensely as the pleasure of winning. That also leads us to avoid leaving our comfort zone.
What do we need to know?
  • What works and what doesn't? That allows us to do more of what works and less of what doesn't. Similarly, knowing an opponent's strength helps us know what to defend. When we identify our weakness, e.g. transition defense or pick-and-roll defense, invest more time and training in those areas. 
  • What's the 'structure' of success? Stay focused on the four legs of the stool - skill, strategy, physicality, and psychology. Weakness in any area tips the stool over.
  • What's the structure of possessions? Spacing, player and ball movement, and the 'scoring moment'. Restated it's initial positioning, creating advantage, and executing advantage? 
It's easy to say, "everyone knows that." Then watch games or film and see that they clearly do not. 

Lagniappe. The first thing I noticed at the UCONN women's practice was that nobody cut a corner on their initial two laps. Champions don't cut corners. 

Lagniappe 2. Beautiful action, urgent cutting. You could look at this as a deceptive way to get on corner cross-screening for the other. 

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