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I know this is pedantic, but the article starts off with a poor example. The reason full-court presses aren't used in basketball is because they are easily bea
by jdrock 17y ago
I know this is pedantic, but the article starts off with a poor example. The reason full-court presses aren't used in basketball is because they are easily beaten, especially when the team using them is smaller and slower than the other team.
But aside from that point.. I find this article to be too light on hard statistical evidence of the points being made. There's like one % thrown out near the beginning, but the rest is anecdotes, historical one-shots, etc. Very similar to the hand-wavy strategies used by Gladwell et al.
- johnnybgoode 17y agoDid you see the name of the author? :)
- donaldc 17y agoOne of the points of the article was that, due to its incessant running practice, the full-court press team was in better cardiovascular shape than the other team, able to pull off the constant movement required for a full-court press. Whereas the other team generally wasn't in that kind of running shape. They might have been faster in some sense, but simply weren't up to the constant movement required. Clearly, the other team could easily have beaten the full-court press team, had it put a similar amount of preparatory effort into running. But generally, the other team did not. In this way effort trumped skill. I realize the article was largely anecdotal, except for the study of wars fought over the last 200 years. This makes its conclusions suspect, but not necessarily invalid. Perhaps a full-court press only works when the weaker team has put in a huge amount of endurance practice in preparation, and the stronger team has not.
- dugmartin 17y agoWhile I think conditioning plays a role the real value is taking the other team out of their rhythm. If you practice a game a certain way for years and then someone changes the rules on you all your experience is moot.