Basketball: Fragility, Antifragility, Toughness, and Tennyson

Wait!!!!

She forgot to call the players she recruited dummies.

She forgot to describe the team she assembled “not very gifted”

She forgot to go on a participation trophy, “kids these days” and cell phone usage rantpic.twitter.com/24fZK041yi

— Radius Athletics (@RadiusAthletics) January 13, 2020

"Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better. This property is behind everything that has changed with time: evolution, culture, ideas, revolutions, political systems, technological innovation, cultural and economic success, corporate survival, good recipes (say, chicken soup or steak tartare with a drop of cognac), the rise of cities, cultures, legal systems, equatorial forests, bacterial resistance … even our own existence as a species on this planet." - Nassim Taleb, Antifragility

So close and yet so far from antifragility...increased robustness under pressure. The Hulk is antifragile. Popeye is antifragile. Evolution is antifragile. Immunization is antifragile. 

Antifragility is survival. Coaches seek techniques and tactics to expose opponents' fragility while practicing to become more robust if not antifragile. 

Muffet McGraw (video above) is anything but a loser. I'd go to war with her any day. 

Is everyone on the same page? If my high school coach had asked our primary offensive and defensive concepts were, I'd say:

1) Pressure the basketball (requires both physical and mental toughness). 
2) Attack the basket (gets layups, free throws, and opponent foul trouble).

Work on both, but know the lethality of turnovers. Only the most spectacular shooting teams can survive an abundance of mistakes. You might find one you can name but not many. Defenders that foul are fragile. Poor free throw shooting is fragile. 

Do more of what works and less of what doesn't. Stick with what's working until it doesn't. Taleb says, "Robust, strong decisions require just one single reason." Successful writers say, "kill your darlings." Chuck anything that doesn't advance the story. 
  Invert. Mathematician Carl Jacobi said, "Invert, always invert." If our record is good, does that mean we are playing well? If our record is poor, should we throw out everything, including the "baby with the bathwater?" 

Working from End State. Choose three elements of quality basketball. It's YOUR choice.

• Getting quality shots. "The quality of the shot relates to the quality of the pass (Pete Carril)"
• Taking care of the ball. The quantity of shots suffers with carelessness.
• Opponents get "one bad shot." If they're volume scoring layups, putbacks, transition, or free throws, we have no chance. 

Mistake-prone teams are fragile. Toughness is antifragile. Choose to believe Tennyson, "that which we are, we are, and if we are to be any better, now is the time to begin."

Lagniappe: Hemingway on "Antifragility"

Lagniappe 2: Gordon Chiesa

Nolan Richardson's teams were awesome. Here's another phrase: Mother in Law defense. Rick Pitinos asst at Providence Gordon Chiesa called it that "constant pressure" .

— Brad Browne (@nyrugbyref) March 30, 2019