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The sport has a height bias towards height given the goal location. But if you just assess skills... Dribbling, shooting, etc I think that there are a lot more

The sport has a height bias towards height given the goal location. But if you just assess skills... Dribbling, shooting, etc I think that there are a lot more sub 5'9"master players.

PM_Tech 12y ago
Exactly this. Basketball sits in a quasi-unique category because it rewards height immediately with very few ways to neutralise that. The point that Syed is making is not Play A of X height and Player B of Y height are equal. He reports (cited academic studies) that given the same height Player A and Player B have no intrinsic native advantages over each other - all advantages are cultural and luck. Player A may have a great coach, a great basketballing school etc or Player B may just simply work harder. There are a legion of examples to back up his claims including the Williams sisters. Two prodigies who came from a family that had not even heard of Tennis until their father decided they would be tennis champions. There is also Syed himself who played in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games at table tennis. Curiously enough 50% of the national team for table tennis also came from his street... ...lucky enough to be born next to a world class club.
- Marazan 12y ago
  And then you have someone like Rupeni Caucau who by everyone's accounts (including himself) is one of the laziest professional rugby players ever to get a contract, repeatedly missing training, unexplained absences, incredibly poor diet and conditioning and yet can do stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3f0BggE__4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3f0BggE__4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0svVz4kSWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0svVz4kSWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6qdM6O26CY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6qdM6O26CY If you want to tell me how many hours training it would take to score that first try I am all ears.
  - PM_Tech 12y ago
    I am not disagreeing - in every sport there is going to be an outlier. We are referring to the majority. Although to be fair, the stories of Rupeni Caucau are anecdotal. Contrast with the weightlifter and actor Carl Weathers who maintained he was just naturally muscled and athletic when he was in fact getting up at 3am to train and returning to bed at 430am so his co-stars never suspected his regime. It infuriated Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarznegger to the point of on-set arguments. Weathers would just flex and claim "genetics does not need to lift weights."
Someone 12y ago
I don't see what that explains. The 100m has a bias towards fast people, but if you just assess skills... Weightlifting has a bias towards strong people, but if you ignore the fact that you have to lift heavy weights to win... The OP's claim was that with enough effort and some luck, anybody could play at any level (including top level) at any sport, not "at any sport, after changing the definition of winning".
- PM_Tech 12y ago
  That is a silly example to the point that it is hard to relate to my original comment. 100metres has a bias towards fast people? What does that mean? I wager if two males born on the same day on opposite ends of the earth trained 8 hours per day to run the 100 metres eating exactly the same diet and following the same training regime to the same intensity they would post almost identical 100 metres results. The difference comes from the application of focussed practice. It is the mental intensity through which you train. Jack Nicklaus famously said he has never just "hit a ball" in his life. Every single stroke of every single session was a genuine attempt to accomplish a defined goal. Every shot analysed. That is why he is arguably the greatest (or second greatest golfer) of all time. 99% of golfers just hit the ball. Schwarzenegger pioneered the idea that you can literally will your muscles to grow larger by thinking about them tearing and rebuilding. Subsequently proven almost three decades after he was laughed at. [1] Natural talent is the witch doctor name we give to those who practise harder, longer and better than we do. Syed also subsequently disproves the idea of Kenyan runners as champion long distance athletes. Another cognitive dissonance. [1] http://docsfitnesstips.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/can-thinking-about-your-muscles-makes.html http://docsfitnesstips.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/can-thinking-a... (Ignore the web address, it is the academic study he discusses and links to).
  - Someone 12y ago
    "That is a silly example to the point that it is hard to relate to my original comment." It is a comment on a comment to your comment, so it need not relate strongly to it. "100metres has a bias towards fast people? What does that mean?" It is analogous to the remark that basketball has a bias towards height, and IMO apt, because your claim was about any sport. "I wager if two males born on the same day on opposite ends of the earth trained 8 hours per day to run the 100 metres eating exactly the same diet and following the same training regime to the same intensity they would post almost identical 100 metres results." In the "nature vs nurture" debate, that is extremist towards nurture, to such an extent that I haven't heard it before, and find it hard to believe that anybody would hold that a view that extremist. One of those men might have been born without legs, with cystic fibrosis, or just with genes that predispose him towards long distance running rather than sprinting. And yes, those Kenyan runners may not have a genetic advantage in long distance running over other lightly built athletes (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22634972 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22634972), but they surely have one over, say, Samoan men or pygmies. In a highly competitive sport, you need both talent, hard work and a good environment for training (food, trainers, gym, etc) to become exceptional. You can compensate talent with hard work or a good training environment, and some do, but even for those, having more talent would (all other things being equal) make them even better.

The sport has a height bias towards height given the goal location. But if you just assess skills... Dribbling, shooting, etc I think that there are a lot more sub 5'9"master players.

PM_Tech 12y ago

Exactly this. Basketball sits in a quasi-unique category because it rewards height immediately with very few ways to neutralise that. The point that Syed is making is not Play A of X height and Player B of Y height are equal. He reports (cited academic studies) that given the same height Player A and Player B have no intrinsic native advantages over each other - all advantages are cultural and luck. Player A may have a great coach, a great basketballing school etc or Player B may just simply work harder. There are a legion of examples to back up his claims including the Williams sisters. Two prodigies who came from a family that had not even heard of Tennis until their father decided they would be tennis champions. There is also Syed himself who played in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games at table tennis. Curiously enough 50% of the national team for table tennis also came from his street... ...lucky enough to be born next to a world class club.

Marazan 12y ago
And then you have someone like Rupeni Caucau who by everyone's accounts (including himself) is one of the laziest professional rugby players ever to get a contract, repeatedly missing training, unexplained absences, incredibly poor diet and conditioning and yet can do stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3f0BggE__4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3f0BggE__4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0svVz4kSWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0svVz4kSWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6qdM6O26CY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6qdM6O26CY If you want to tell me how many hours training it would take to score that first try I am all ears.
- PM_Tech 12y ago
  I am not disagreeing - in every sport there is going to be an outlier. We are referring to the majority. Although to be fair, the stories of Rupeni Caucau are anecdotal. Contrast with the weightlifter and actor Carl Weathers who maintained he was just naturally muscled and athletic when he was in fact getting up at 3am to train and returning to bed at 430am so his co-stars never suspected his regime. It infuriated Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarznegger to the point of on-set arguments. Weathers would just flex and claim "genetics does not need to lift weights."

Someone 12y ago

I don't see what that explains. The 100m has a bias towards fast people, but if you just assess skills... Weightlifting has a bias towards strong people, but if you ignore the fact that you have to lift heavy weights to win... The OP's claim was that with enough effort and some luck, anybody could play at any level (including top level) at any sport, not "at any sport, after changing the definition of winning".

PM_Tech 12y ago
That is a silly example to the point that it is hard to relate to my original comment. 100metres has a bias towards fast people? What does that mean? I wager if two males born on the same day on opposite ends of the earth trained 8 hours per day to run the 100 metres eating exactly the same diet and following the same training regime to the same intensity they would post almost identical 100 metres results. The difference comes from the application of focussed practice. It is the mental intensity through which you train. Jack Nicklaus famously said he has never just "hit a ball" in his life. Every single stroke of every single session was a genuine attempt to accomplish a defined goal. Every shot analysed. That is why he is arguably the greatest (or second greatest golfer) of all time. 99% of golfers just hit the ball. Schwarzenegger pioneered the idea that you can literally will your muscles to grow larger by thinking about them tearing and rebuilding. Subsequently proven almost three decades after he was laughed at. [1] Natural talent is the witch doctor name we give to those who practise harder, longer and better than we do. Syed also subsequently disproves the idea of Kenyan runners as champion long distance athletes. Another cognitive dissonance. [1] http://docsfitnesstips.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/can-thinking-about-your-muscles-makes.html http://docsfitnesstips.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/can-thinking-a... (Ignore the web address, it is the academic study he discusses and links to).
- Someone 12y ago
  "That is a silly example to the point that it is hard to relate to my original comment." It is a comment on a comment to your comment, so it need not relate strongly to it. "100metres has a bias towards fast people? What does that mean?" It is analogous to the remark that basketball has a bias towards height, and IMO apt, because your claim was about any sport. "I wager if two males born on the same day on opposite ends of the earth trained 8 hours per day to run the 100 metres eating exactly the same diet and following the same training regime to the same intensity they would post almost identical 100 metres results." In the "nature vs nurture" debate, that is extremist towards nurture, to such an extent that I haven't heard it before, and find it hard to believe that anybody would hold that a view that extremist. One of those men might have been born without legs, with cystic fibrosis, or just with genes that predispose him towards long distance running rather than sprinting. And yes, those Kenyan runners may not have a genetic advantage in long distance running over other lightly built athletes (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22634972 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22634972), but they surely have one over, say, Samoan men or pygmies. In a highly competitive sport, you need both talent, hard work and a good environment for training (food, trainers, gym, etc) to become exceptional. You can compensate talent with hard work or a good training environment, and some do, but even for those, having more talent would (all other things being equal) make them even better.