Ideas, good and bad, change society, sport, and us. Collaboration and language separated Sapiens from the animals around us.
The power of ideas doesn't necessarily mirror their goodness or truth in society or sport. In medicine, anti-vaccine sentiment caught on because of a British physician, Andrew Wakefield, who published that vaccines caused autism. The problem was... they didn't. He manipulated the data and became famous as a charlatan. He lost his medical license.
Can an elite coach become ordinary? Steve Kerr is celebrated as both as coach and new age thinker. Kerr prepared for coaching for years before his opportunity came. But lose Durant to free agency and injury, Curry and Thompson to injury, and the penthouse becomes the outhouse. That's not to say that yesterday's news won't become tomorrow's once a top draft choice rejoins the healed Curry, Thompson, and Green.
What powers ideas in sport, specifically basketball?
- Recent results
- Great stories
- Emotional impact
- The power of "authority"
- Social proof (popularity)
Recency. We're wired toward biases - recency, endowment ("my dog's better than your dog."), attribution (I earned success, it wasn't luck), confirmation (read what we believe), and so on. "What have you done for me lately?" Giannis Antetokounmpo wins a consecutive NBA MVP but the Bucks bomb in the bubble. Recency? Is he really all that? If the Heat were to win another NBA championship, some will 'discover' Eric Spoelstra. He was never lost. The NBA trend likely to find adherents is expanded use of ZONE DEFENSE. It won't replace MAN, but more coaches and teams will experiment with zones, junk, and extended blitzes. Pro sports aren't about purity, just winning.
Great stories. Humans are storytelling animals. The Heat, 10-2 in the Bubble, are a great story. We'll hear about the Marquette guys, Butler and Crowder, free agent to be Goran Dragic, Bam Adebayo and The Flintstones, and wunderkind Tyler Herro. The connection between Hank Gathers and Spoelstra might reemerge as well as the legacy of Pat Riley. Hoop fans feast on stories.
Emotional impact. Teams connect with fans through the media. The absence of local venues and the spectacular salaries that players earn reduce those ties. Reach out through small acts of kindness and social responsibility. NBA Bubble Life caught on. Small gestures by players can leave big ripples.
The NFL stood silent when Colin Kaepernick protested for social justice. But when a consortium of NFL stars lent their voices after the murders of George Floyd and others, Roger Goodell quickly acknowledged that "we were wrong." Many people opposed the NFL's change of heart, conflating the anthem and the military, not the anthem and "liberty and justice for all."
The Star-Spangled Banner has four verses. Most Americans haven't heard the raw emotion of the third stanza,
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Authority figures. Industry leaders have greater reach than nobodies, the food chain principle. An individual author is literally, "vox clamantis in deserto," a voice crying in the wilderness. Coach K suggests an all-in NCAA Tournament. An idea derives some credibility from its source. Others have suggested this previously; but when the big dogs bark, people listen. Good ideas can come from anywhere; so can bad ones.
Social proof. Popularity begets popularity. Remember Loyola of Chicago becoming the NCAA darlings? Young stars like Doncic and Murray emerge on the big stage. Authors and actors seek favorable reviews because a five-star rating is about twenty times more likely to sell a book than a one-star. Do you check the Rotten Tomatoes rating before watching a film?
Quality is just one of many factors that attract eyeballs.
Lagniappe from Seth Godin: Most of the time, the phrase is, “it’s time to get back to work.”
Maybe we’d be better off saying, “I need to get back to making magic.”
Lagniappe 2 from Northeastern Professor Lisa Feldman Barrett (via Farnam Street), "When I affect your nervous system in a way and you’re not aware of it, your brain’s just going to try to make sense of it. My point is that when someone else gets worked up, you’re more likely to get worked up too. If you don’t want to be worked up, you don’t want that person to be worked up. A lot of times when people say don’t be sad, don’t be angry, really, what they’re saying is, I don’t want to deal with you being angry or sad, and I don’t want to feel that way so I want you to calm down."
Lagniappe 3: Why the Heat zone did and didn't work in ECF games one and two. Good zone offense...drive the gaps to pass, move the ball, penetrate and pass...theory and practice.
