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Basketball is not engineering. Style counts for a lot, including the size of contracts and endorsement deals. Convincing players to purposely shoot ugly free th

by wilfra 14y ago

Basketball is not engineering. Style counts for a lot, including the size of contracts and endorsement deals. Convincing players to purposely shoot ugly free throws that will bounce around a lot, but go in slightly more often, is going to be very difficult.

eropple 14y ago
I think that Steve Nash, Jeremy Lin, and about three-quarters of the starting fours and fives in the league would disagree with your style claim pretty strenuously. Winning games counts for way more than style does. Not that Lin has done a ton of that yet, but he's the most herky-jerky player I can remember in a decent while and he's going up for an insane contract. Nash in particular is known for the most utilitarian shooting moves in recent memory. I don't recall him hurting for money when new contracts rolled around. And one Shaquille O'Neal was legendary for both terrible free throw shooting and looking like a moron when trying--I seem to recall he did okay, too...
- majormajor 14y ago
  Shawn Marion has a wonderfully cringe-worthy jumper technique too.
demallien 14y ago
Johnny wilkinson is a good counter example, even if he plays rugby, not basketball. Style is nothing, effectiveness is everything in sport. In fact, effectiveness informs style - there are now a whole bunch of international rugby players that copy wilkinsons daggy way of taking a penalty.
nessus42 14y ago
Wasn't there an article posted here about this very same issue with penalty kicks in soccer? Well, I'm not sure that I read it here, but I did read it somewhere: Someone did a mathematical analysis and determined that goalies should stand in the center a lot more often than they do when defending against a penalty kick. The issue is that they have to make their decision which way they are going to move before they have enough information on which way is the right way. If they wait until they actually have enough information for the decision, then it is already too late. Their choices are to jump to the left, jump to the right, or stay put. Unless soccer penalty kickers are biased about which choice they make in kicking, you'd expect that the goalies would jump to the left 1/3 of the time, jump to the right 1/3 of the time, and stay put 1/3 of the time. Jumping to the left and to the right were significantly over-represented in the actual data. The conclusion was that for a goalie's reputation, it is much better to jump to one side or the other and look like he's trying, even if he fails, than to stand in the middle and look like he's being lazy. For an important game, if he does that, and the kicker makes the point, and his team loses, it can mean the end of the goalie's career, just based on people's perception. Or at least that's what the article claimed. Edit: Ah, it was on the Freakonomics podcast. The episode in question is here: http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/06/10/freakonomics-radio-world-cup-edition/?ref=soccer http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/06/10/freakonomics-radio-wo... I had some of the details not quite right above, but the idea is the same. The strategy being putatively underemployed is the kicker kicking it straight down the middle.
- philwelch 14y ago
  If you watched the recent European Championships, the technique of shooting down the middle--the so-called "Paneka" penalty--seems to be making a resurgence. The problem is that if you overdo it, the goalkeeper will compensate, and a Paneka is a lot easier to save than a well-driven shot to the corner. You might notice that fairly often, even if the goalkeeper chooses the right way to dive, he sometimes doesn't make the save.

by wilfra 14y ago

eropple 14y ago

I think that Steve Nash, Jeremy Lin, and about three-quarters of the starting fours and fives in the league would disagree with your style claim pretty strenuously. Winning games counts for way more than style does. Not that Lin has done a ton of that yet, but he's the most herky-jerky player I can remember in a decent while and he's going up for an insane contract. Nash in particular is known for the most utilitarian shooting moves in recent memory. I don't recall him hurting for money when new contracts rolled around. And one Shaquille O'Neal was legendary for both terrible free throw shooting and looking like a moron when trying--I seem to recall he did okay, too...

majormajor 14y ago
Shawn Marion has a wonderfully cringe-worthy jumper technique too.

demallien 14y ago

Johnny wilkinson is a good counter example, even if he plays rugby, not basketball. Style is nothing, effectiveness is everything in sport. In fact, effectiveness informs style - there are now a whole bunch of international rugby players that copy wilkinsons daggy way of taking a penalty.

nessus42 14y ago

Wasn't there an article posted here about this very same issue with penalty kicks in soccer? Well, I'm not sure that I read it here, but I did read it somewhere: Someone did a mathematical analysis and determined that goalies should stand in the center a lot more often than they do when defending against a penalty kick. The issue is that they have to make their decision which way they are going to move before they have enough information on which way is the right way. If they wait until they actually have enough information for the decision, then it is already too late. Their choices are to jump to the left, jump to the right, or stay put. Unless soccer penalty kickers are biased about which choice they make in kicking, you'd expect that the goalies would jump to the left 1/3 of the time, jump to the right 1/3 of the time, and stay put 1/3 of the time. Jumping to the left and to the right were significantly over-represented in the actual data. The conclusion was that for a goalie's reputation, it is much better to jump to one side or the other and look like he's trying, even if he fails, than to stand in the middle and look like he's being lazy. For an important game, if he does that, and the kicker makes the point, and his team loses, it can mean the end of the goalie's career, just based on people's perception. Or at least that's what the article claimed. Edit: Ah, it was on the Freakonomics podcast. The episode in question is here: http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/06/10/freakonomics-radio-world-cup-edition/?ref=soccer http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/06/10/freakonomics-radio-wo... I had some of the details not quite right above, but the idea is the same. The strategy being putatively underemployed is the kicker kicking it straight down the middle.

philwelch 14y ago
If you watched the recent European Championships, the technique of shooting down the middle--the so-called "Paneka" penalty--seems to be making a resurgence. The problem is that if you overdo it, the goalkeeper will compensate, and a Paneka is a lot easier to save than a well-driven shot to the corner. You might notice that fairly often, even if the goalkeeper chooses the right way to dive, he sometimes doesn't make the save.