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An example I like is in basketball. A lot of tall players aren't good shooters. People wonder why, like are they launching the ball too high and messing up the

An example I like is in basketball. A lot of tall players aren't good shooters. People wonder why, like are they launching the ball too high and messing up the angle? Are their hands too big to precisely control the ball? Are they lazy and not practicing? Seems more likely to be this same paradox - if you're short and can't shoot, you never make it to the NBA.

Galanwe 4y ago
I think your example is closer to a survivor bias, while the article describes more of a collider bias. Survivor bias arises when you study what you think is a full population, while in fact you're looking at a selected sample that did survive the very thing you're studying. A classical example in finance happens when you want to study, say, the performance of tech companies over the last 10 years. If you just pick current tech companies and look at their past performance, you will be biased towards companies that did make it. You have to include companies that don't exist anymore but would have been included were you to perform the study say 5 years ago.
- i_am_proteus 4y ago
  You are both correct. "Survivorship" is the collider being conditioned on.
smogcutter 4y ago
Eh that sounds reasonable but I’m not sure it holds for the NBA. Maybe the college game where the overall skill level and stakes are lower. The flaw in that reasoning is it assumes that players stop developing once they reach the league. Especially in the modern NBA, where players are pushed very hard to get out from the post and shoot. Being unable to shoot puts a limit on a players career, even at 7+ feet. There’s a reason why in the off-season every big in the league posts insta videos of themselves draining 3s in an empty gym. The level of competition in the NBA is fierce, as is the incentive to learn to shoot. If many bigs don’t, the only reasonable explanation is that it’s physically more challenging.
- myownpetard 4y ago
  17% of Americans that are over 7' are or have been in the NBA. They only need to be better than a few dozen or hundreds of others at the required skills. The average 7 footer in the NBA is a way better shooter than the average player in the general population and probably better than any average college player. But shooting skill is inversely proportional to height in the NBA for the exact reason the GP stated. To be something like 6'3'' or shorter in the NBA means you need to be an insane outlier in other skills, better than literally millions of others at your height and hundreds of thousands with your general athleticism.
  - xdavidliu 4y ago
    unless you are Rajon Rondo and your floor general skills are so good that you can get into the NBA while shooting 60% (considered very low) from the charity stripe.
amusedcyclist 4y ago
The NBA is at the top right of the graph (for basketball skills) so you shouldn't see any such weird anomaly there. Suspect its actually just a biological thing that your hand eye coordination worsens at the 'extreme' heights
- saghm 4y ago
  I've also heard that since it's necessary to arc the shot a reasonable amount for the ball to go in (or else it will hit the rim and bounce away), being shorter than the hoop can actually be an advantage. If the hoop is above you, the ball already has to travel vertically to be able to get there in the first place, but if you're close to the same height, you have to throw it relatively higher to achieve a good arc. It tends to be harder to aim at something if you need to add extra height before hitting it; the angle and speed needed to accurately throw a ball at a target is easier to "calculate" with hand/eye coordination if you throw directly at it rather than trying to throw the ball up in the air and have it hit the target on the way down. That said, it still seems reasonable that if you're going to be paid millions of dollars a year to throw a ball in a hole, it wouldn't be crazy to be expected to practice and get good enough not to miss if literally no one is trying to block you (e.g. free throws). I guess that if you're good enough at the other skills, it still helps your team win enough to sign you even if you don't get good at that, but it still feels like fairly low hanging fruit...
  - matthewowen 4y ago
    And yet all those short good shooters jump. I know that sounds facetious, but like, there’s a reason no one jumps on a free throw. It’s easier if you don’t. But you have to jump to get your shot over a defender. If you are sufficiently tall, you could just… jump less, so that your release height is the same. I actually think the bigger reason is simply that there are more important skills for tall players to work on. If your main job is rebounding , it is better to work on rebounding than shooting. Of course, the changes to how NBA teams play over the last decade or so have changed this, which is presumably why you now see more players who are both tall _and_ good shooters.
retconn 4y ago
Because unless you're tall enough (and quick enough) to dunk like you're dropping it, lower angles give you more opportunity to underspin off the board getting the net more often.

Galanwe 4y ago

I think your example is closer to a survivor bias, while the article describes more of a collider bias. Survivor bias arises when you study what you think is a full population, while in fact you're looking at a selected sample that did survive the very thing you're studying. A classical example in finance happens when you want to study, say, the performance of tech companies over the last 10 years. If you just pick current tech companies and look at their past performance, you will be biased towards companies that did make it. You have to include companies that don't exist anymore but would have been included were you to perform the study say 5 years ago.

i_am_proteus 4y ago
You are both correct. "Survivorship" is the collider being conditioned on.

smogcutter 4y ago

Eh that sounds reasonable but I’m not sure it holds for the NBA. Maybe the college game where the overall skill level and stakes are lower. The flaw in that reasoning is it assumes that players stop developing once they reach the league. Especially in the modern NBA, where players are pushed very hard to get out from the post and shoot. Being unable to shoot puts a limit on a players career, even at 7+ feet. There’s a reason why in the off-season every big in the league posts insta videos of themselves draining 3s in an empty gym. The level of competition in the NBA is fierce, as is the incentive to learn to shoot. If many bigs don’t, the only reasonable explanation is that it’s physically more challenging.

myownpetard 4y ago
17% of Americans that are over 7' are or have been in the NBA. They only need to be better than a few dozen or hundreds of others at the required skills. The average 7 footer in the NBA is a way better shooter than the average player in the general population and probably better than any average college player. But shooting skill is inversely proportional to height in the NBA for the exact reason the GP stated. To be something like 6'3'' or shorter in the NBA means you need to be an insane outlier in other skills, better than literally millions of others at your height and hundreds of thousands with your general athleticism.
- xdavidliu 4y ago
  unless you are Rajon Rondo and your floor general skills are so good that you can get into the NBA while shooting 60% (considered very low) from the charity stripe.

amusedcyclist 4y ago

The NBA is at the top right of the graph (for basketball skills) so you shouldn't see any such weird anomaly there. Suspect its actually just a biological thing that your hand eye coordination worsens at the 'extreme' heights

saghm 4y ago
I've also heard that since it's necessary to arc the shot a reasonable amount for the ball to go in (or else it will hit the rim and bounce away), being shorter than the hoop can actually be an advantage. If the hoop is above you, the ball already has to travel vertically to be able to get there in the first place, but if you're close to the same height, you have to throw it relatively higher to achieve a good arc. It tends to be harder to aim at something if you need to add extra height before hitting it; the angle and speed needed to accurately throw a ball at a target is easier to "calculate" with hand/eye coordination if you throw directly at it rather than trying to throw the ball up in the air and have it hit the target on the way down. That said, it still seems reasonable that if you're going to be paid millions of dollars a year to throw a ball in a hole, it wouldn't be crazy to be expected to practice and get good enough not to miss if literally no one is trying to block you (e.g. free throws). I guess that if you're good enough at the other skills, it still helps your team win enough to sign you even if you don't get good at that, but it still feels like fairly low hanging fruit...
- matthewowen 4y ago
  And yet all those short good shooters jump. I know that sounds facetious, but like, there’s a reason no one jumps on a free throw. It’s easier if you don’t. But you have to jump to get your shot over a defender. If you are sufficiently tall, you could just… jump less, so that your release height is the same. I actually think the bigger reason is simply that there are more important skills for tall players to work on. If your main job is rebounding , it is better to work on rebounding than shooting. Of course, the changes to how NBA teams play over the last decade or so have changed this, which is presumably why you now see more players who are both tall _and_ good shooters.

retconn 4y ago

Because unless you're tall enough (and quick enough) to dunk like you're dropping it, lower angles give you more opportunity to underspin off the board getting the net more often.