Man Bites Blog

Instead of the full-court press, the real strategy an insurgent team should pursue is three-point shooting.

What three-point shooting does is increase the variance in outcomes for an offensive possession, and, therefore, increase the probablility that the otherwise inferior team will win, especially when coupled with lowering the sample size.  The explected point value of a 50% 2-point shooter and a 33% three-point shooter is the same, but the three-point shooter has a much higher upside on a hot shooting night. 

Think about it this way — your best chance of coming out ahead in a casino is to place a small number of large long-odds bets.  As the number of bets gets larger, the chances of overcoming the house edge become smaller.  You’re more likely to come out ahead betting on a single number a handfule of times than on betting red or black over and over.

And thus we have the Orlando Magic, who usually play four three-point shooters and Dwight Howard. 

Does this make for an exciting game?  I’m inclined to think not.  If the Magic are hitting their shots, as they did in the Cleveland series, they win.  If they aren’t then, they won’t.  There’s not much strategy to it; it’s basically a gamble on whether it’s a good shooting night or a bad shooting night. 

Yes, they need to play defense on their end, and there are things the other team can do to thwart this strategy, but the result of the game pretty much comes down to whether the threes are falling.  It seems odd to complain about a basketball game being determined by whether a team can make baskets, but it’s not that interesting.

• Donaghy: “Games tainted by fraternizing“
• JohnMcG:  Probably not as much as by officials who have money in the game.  But what do I know?
• I look at the tournament theory of extracting the maximum value from all workers in my lastest in Quiblit Magaizine.
• As I mentioned before, officiating bias in NBA games quickly snowballs.  It’s a positive feedback cycle.  Visitors perceive bias in officiating -> visitors play less aggressively -> visitors don’t get to the line as often -> visitors perceive bias in officiating.
• The Lakers were successful in getting to the line tonight; they apparently forgot the second part of that strategy, which is to sink your free throws once you get there.
• The difference between Kobe Bryant and players like Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett is what represent an “off game” for them.  Garnett and Pierce combined for 19 points.  Don’t think you’ll see Bryant go below that number in this game.

In a Slate titled “Zero Effect” (when “Zero Defect would have been a much better title), Josh Levin examines to seeming paradox of Gilbert Arenas being a better guy than LeBron James, but James being a less selfish player.

One of the interesting things about sports is our tendency to assign a weight of personal virtue to almost every skill.  Defense is almost always given a higher virtuous weight than offense.   Passing is better than scoring.  Rebounding and pick-setting are also virtuous activities.

But is there always a correlation?  The assumption seems to be that athletic ability, or the ability to score,  is innate, but defense requires hard work and discipline, and passing requires a team-first attitude.  But is that always the case?  Wouldn’t Ben Wallace be more of an asset to his team if  he wasn’t a complete liability on offense?  Isn’t a lot of defense based on reflexes and athleticism?

Even if one assumes that Arenas is a better guy than James (which may be dubious, since part of the eveidenced marshalled on Arenas’s behalf is that, “He brags openly about the joys of shooting a crying kid with paintballs.”  But could it be that James is simply more skilled at court vision and passing than Arenas is, and that this isn’t due to some moral defect on Arenas’s part but God-given ability?