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This was a pretty interesting read, and something I've often wondered about. I remember when LeBron James joined the NBA. It just baffled me at the time how som

This was a pretty interesting read, and something I've often wondered about. I remember when LeBron James joined the NBA. It just baffled me at the time how some 18 year old high schooler could be so much better than professional players, players who've played day in and day out for _years_. Hours of deliberate practice didn't seem to be an adequate explanation.

ams6110 8y ago
I only read the abstract, but it seems to support my anecdotal observations that natural talent is a big factor in most elite performers, regardless of field.
wallflower 8y ago
LeBron James' greatest gift is his brain that has a phenomenal photographic memory. > In the jovial postgame locker room, it's pointed out to James by a reporter that almost exactly five years earlier, he'd won a game with a jumper at Oracle Arena at the buzzer from virtually the same exact spot at the same basket. "Not really," James says in response. "That one was probably about six feet closer to the baseline and inside the 3-point arc. It was over Ronny Turiaf, I stepped back on him but I crossed him over first and got him on his heels. I'm sure of it. It was down the sideline a few feet. It was a side out-of-bounds play; this one we brought up." http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/11067098/lebron-james-greatest-weapon-brain http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/11067098/lebron-james-gre...
- ams6110 8y ago
  He may have a photographic memory, but I don't think that anecdote supports the claim. I do not have a photographic memory, but I clearly remember select events that are very meaningful. Game-winning shots at the buzzer would be that sort of thing. There aren't very many of them, and they would be easily remembered in detail.
  - wallflower 8y ago
    I am not going to quite the entire article, and it makes a strong case that his mind is an incredible asset. One more excerpt. It is not just game winning plays... > So what does it mean? What it seems to suggest -- at least the part of it that James will discuss -- is that if you give up the baseline to James on a drive in November 2011 and he's playing against you in March 2013, the Heat small forward will remember it. It means that if you tried to change your pick-and-roll coverage in the middle of the fourth quarter of the 2008 playoffs, he'll be ready for you to try it again in 2014, even if you're coaching a different team. It also means that if you had a good game the last time you played against Milwaukee because James got you a few good looks in the first quarter, the next time you play the Bucks you can count on James looking for you early in the game. Because, you know, the memory never forgets. "I can usually remember plays in situations a couple of years back -- quite a few years back sometimes," James says. "I'm able to calibrate them throughout a game to the situation I'm in, to know who has it going on our team, what position to put him in.
- pitt1980 8y ago
  no his greatest gift is that he's 6'8 https://investing.calsci.com/statistics.html https://investing.calsci.com/statistics.html he has a collection of many traits that make him a unique talent of all those traits, the one with the largest standard deviation from the norm is almost certainly his height
  - wallflower 8y ago
    Did you read the article? Please do so before rebutting the assertion. http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/11067098/lebron-james-greatest-weapon-brain http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/11067098/lebron-james-gre...
    - pitt1980 8y ago
      yes, its not totally clear what percentile memory LeBron has its not totally clear if there actually is such a thing as photographic memory " There are so many unlikely circumstances surrounding the Elizabeth case—the marriage between subject and scientist, the lack of further testing, the inability to find anyone else with her abilities—that some psychologists have concluded that there's something fishy about Stromeyer's findings. He denies it. "We don't have any doubt about our data," he told me recently. Still, his one-woman study, he says, "is not strong evidence for other people having photographic memory." That's not to say there aren't people with extraordinarily good memories—there are. They just can't take mental snapshots and recall them with perfect fidelity. Kim Peek *, the 53-year-old savant who was the basis for Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man, is said to have memorized every page of the 9,000-plus books he has read at 8 to 12 seconds per page (each eye reads its own page independently), though that claim has never been rigorously tested. Another savant, Stephen Wiltshire, has been called the "human camera" for his ability to create sketches of a scene after looking at it for just a few seconds. But even he doesn't have a truly photographic memory. His mind doesn't work like a Xerox. He takes liberties. Photographic memory is often confused with another bizarre—but real—perceptual phenomenon called eidetic memory, which occurs in between 2 and 15 percent of children and very rarely in adults. An eidetic image is essentially a vivid afterimage that lingers in the mind's eye for up to a few minutes before fading away. Children with eidetic memory never have anything close to perfect recall, and they typically aren't able to visualize anything as detailed as a body of text. " http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2006/04/kaavya_syndrome.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/200... ------ lets ballpark it and say his memory is in the top 1% being 6'8 puts him in roughly the top 0.135% of adult males I stand by my rebuttal

ams6110 8y ago

I only read the abstract, but it seems to support my anecdotal observations that natural talent is a big factor in most elite performers, regardless of field.

wallflower 8y ago

LeBron James' greatest gift is his brain that has a phenomenal photographic memory. > In the jovial postgame locker room, it's pointed out to James by a reporter that almost exactly five years earlier, he'd won a game with a jumper at Oracle Arena at the buzzer from virtually the same exact spot at the same basket. "Not really," James says in response. "That one was probably about six feet closer to the baseline and inside the 3-point arc. It was over Ronny Turiaf, I stepped back on him but I crossed him over first and got him on his heels. I'm sure of it. It was down the sideline a few feet. It was a side out-of-bounds play; this one we brought up." http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/11067098/lebron-james-greatest-weapon-brain http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/11067098/lebron-james-gre...

ams6110 8y ago
He may have a photographic memory, but I don't think that anecdote supports the claim. I do not have a photographic memory, but I clearly remember select events that are very meaningful. Game-winning shots at the buzzer would be that sort of thing. There aren't very many of them, and they would be easily remembered in detail.
- wallflower 8y ago
  I am not going to quite the entire article, and it makes a strong case that his mind is an incredible asset. One more excerpt. It is not just game winning plays... > So what does it mean? What it seems to suggest -- at least the part of it that James will discuss -- is that if you give up the baseline to James on a drive in November 2011 and he's playing against you in March 2013, the Heat small forward will remember it. It means that if you tried to change your pick-and-roll coverage in the middle of the fourth quarter of the 2008 playoffs, he'll be ready for you to try it again in 2014, even if you're coaching a different team. It also means that if you had a good game the last time you played against Milwaukee because James got you a few good looks in the first quarter, the next time you play the Bucks you can count on James looking for you early in the game. Because, you know, the memory never forgets. "I can usually remember plays in situations a couple of years back -- quite a few years back sometimes," James says. "I'm able to calibrate them throughout a game to the situation I'm in, to know who has it going on our team, what position to put him in.
pitt1980 8y ago
no his greatest gift is that he's 6'8 https://investing.calsci.com/statistics.html https://investing.calsci.com/statistics.html he has a collection of many traits that make him a unique talent of all those traits, the one with the largest standard deviation from the norm is almost certainly his height
- wallflower 8y ago
  Did you read the article? Please do so before rebutting the assertion. http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/11067098/lebron-james-greatest-weapon-brain http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/11067098/lebron-james-gre...
  - pitt1980 8y ago
    yes, its not totally clear what percentile memory LeBron has its not totally clear if there actually is such a thing as photographic memory " There are so many unlikely circumstances surrounding the Elizabeth case—the marriage between subject and scientist, the lack of further testing, the inability to find anyone else with her abilities—that some psychologists have concluded that there's something fishy about Stromeyer's findings. He denies it. "We don't have any doubt about our data," he told me recently. Still, his one-woman study, he says, "is not strong evidence for other people having photographic memory." That's not to say there aren't people with extraordinarily good memories—there are. They just can't take mental snapshots and recall them with perfect fidelity. Kim Peek *, the 53-year-old savant who was the basis for Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man, is said to have memorized every page of the 9,000-plus books he has read at 8 to 12 seconds per page (each eye reads its own page independently), though that claim has never been rigorously tested. Another savant, Stephen Wiltshire, has been called the "human camera" for his ability to create sketches of a scene after looking at it for just a few seconds. But even he doesn't have a truly photographic memory. His mind doesn't work like a Xerox. He takes liberties. Photographic memory is often confused with another bizarre—but real—perceptual phenomenon called eidetic memory, which occurs in between 2 and 15 percent of children and very rarely in adults. An eidetic image is essentially a vivid afterimage that lingers in the mind's eye for up to a few minutes before fading away. Children with eidetic memory never have anything close to perfect recall, and they typically aren't able to visualize anything as detailed as a body of text. " http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2006/04/kaavya_syndrome.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/200... ------ lets ballpark it and say his memory is in the top 1% being 6'8 puts him in roughly the top 0.135% of adult males I stand by my rebuttal