I get so many requests for more sports coverage here at R World. I try to be responsive to my reader, so here goes.
Business idea: little green hat labeled, "NBA Salary Cap." The optional t-shirt could read, "Doing my bit to support the home team: I kept my salary under $20 million this year."
I'm shopping a book on this topic now, but few people realize how close Obama came to making a package deal of the Russian - American spy for spy swap and simply trading LeBron James and Chris Bosh to Brazil for soccer players Kaka and Fabiano to raise our world standing.
LeBron James will get about $240,000 per game (or more than $8,000 per point at the rate he scores.) If he played just one game per year, his income would put him in the top 2% of Americans.
It's a pity that James did not sign with the Houston Rockets. He missed a major marketing opportunity there. It's hard to believe that anyone could have a cooler nickname than VonBron James.
Shaq is still active? I find this sort of amazing and mostly heartening. He must be in his 50s by now and the thought of him still playing at that age inspires me. It's amazing that a guy over 300 pounds who runs and jumps could have a career last longer than 98% of the rappers from his era.
I just love the fact that a guy whose nickname is King James took one hour to announce that he was playing for the Heat. He must use really old English to take that long to express something so simple. I could understand it taking an hour to tell his grandmother, for instance, but not to tell basketball fans.
"Grandma, I'm going to play for the Heat."
"What?"
"I've decided to play for the Heat."
"You've decided to play in the heat?"
"The team. The team is the heat."
"Why is it that every generation thinks they gotta make up new slang? Your grandpa would say, 'The team is so cool.' You say 'heat.' Well at least you are not as crude as your daddy and his friends. They'd have said, 'the team is the s**t.' There is no excuse for that."
"No. Grandma. I'm going to play for the Miami Heat."
"When you get to be my age, son, the Miami heat is reason enough NOT to play. A boy from Cleveland, like you, is likely to melt down there."
And on goes the conversation ...
Demetri Martin: “I used to like to watch sports a lot, but not as much anymore, ‘cause I’m always disappointed. I’d always rather see the actual animals fighting than the teams with those names. Colts vs Bears — yeah! Wizards vs Heat — freaking awesome! Magic vs Jazz — that’s a little too gay for me, I’m gonna pass on that one.”
Stay tuned for when LeBron takes on Harry Potter. Maybe Demetri Martin will do the color commentary.
R World (Ron Davison muses aloud)
Showing posts with label NBA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NBA. Show all posts
08 July 2010
13 May 2008
Why Sports Matter So Much
I suspect that we obsess about sports for at least two reasons. One, during a game is one time where a guy can pull up a chair and ask "What is the score," and anyone can tell him. In love, relationships, politics, careers, parenting ... in all these arenas the score is always, at best, murky, and one hears only conflicting reports. Not so in sports. No one doubts that Cleveland beat Boston last night.
We focus on the sports heroes for a number of reasons but I wonder if that doesn't trace back to some evolutionary hijacking. Battle and the warriors who represent us have mattered for millennia. We've probably evolved to be acutely interested in how our warriors are doing and feeling. Sports have, of course, become the outlet for the impulse for war. We still pay close attention to the athletes because we're still interested in how the battle will turn out. Of course, what was vital to survival of the tribe or state in one period has become of no consequence in the next. If the Boston Celtics beat Cleveland, the Celtics don't get to take Cleveland's factories and women. There is no longer any consequence, but we still pay attention.
We focus on the sports heroes for a number of reasons but I wonder if that doesn't trace back to some evolutionary hijacking. Battle and the warriors who represent us have mattered for millennia. We've probably evolved to be acutely interested in how our warriors are doing and feeling. Sports have, of course, become the outlet for the impulse for war. We still pay close attention to the athletes because we're still interested in how the battle will turn out. Of course, what was vital to survival of the tribe or state in one period has become of no consequence in the next. If the Boston Celtics beat Cleveland, the Celtics don't get to take Cleveland's factories and women. There is no longer any consequence, but we still pay attention.
05 March 2008
Rockets Win Again with Rookie GM
The Houston Rockets just set a new team record tonight, winning their 16th game in a row. They've won 4 in a row without Yao, a remarkable feat even if it was not tacked onto such a streak. (No one in the NBA has had a longer winning streak this year.)
The New York Times wrote this about the Rockets' General Manager,
Although all this is probably true, it misses what I think is the more important point about Daryl's success.
I met Daryl about 12 years ago. At the time, he was a recent college grad fascinated by oddly obscure ideas like self adaptive complexity. We clicked (there are not too many people who share interests in systems dynamics or find the ideas behind them stimulating) and since then I've followed his career with an odd mix of pride and amazement. The reporters frequently comment on his great mind, but Daryl is simply a likeable and delightful person.
Before sitting in Fenway Park watching the Red Sox with Daryl, I fancied myself a baseball fan. Listening to Daryl casually debunk various "myths" of baseball and support his claims with data, I realized that I was not really a baseball fan: I had odd bits of knowledge and interest in the San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants. I realized that Daryl's most off-handed comment carried more weight than anything I had thought about for years.
Daryl is not just adept at analyzing data and determining what it means. He lets the data take him where it will - whether that is to the most obvious or most counter-intuitive conclusion. He does not just do this with sports data. He has done this with his life. I don't think that I've ever met a person who seems less concerned with tradition - that of others or even his own. Daryl accepts what the data says and is willing to test plausible theories - in any domain. Years ago, he put me on his "board of advisors," a move that amused and flattered me and has come to mean even more as his career continues to thrive. (That he would name me to such a position is proof that he's not just comfortable with data but is comfortable with odd ideas.)
Daryl did not play basketball in college, much less the NBA. His father does not own a team nor work as a famous sports analyst. Daryl’s career has not just risen with amazing celerity - he has done it on his own merit. I rather doubt that his high school friends would have pegged him as "most likely to be an NBA GM by 35."
There is a great deal I admire about Daryl. Perhaps what makes him most unique is not his ability with numbers and statistics but his willingness to accept the reality those numbers represent. Analysis can be taught. I’m not sure that Daryl’s willingness to change in response to the analysis can be taught and it is that – more than the actual analysis – that seems to me the truly extraordinary thing about his life, his career and his performance.
And Daryl – congratulations on the winning streak. You may just want to tell reporters that you’ve tried winning and tried losing and you just can’t see any advantage to losing or even one good reason to lose again.
The New York Times wrote this about the Rockets' General Manager,
Morey, the rookie general manager of the Houston Rockets, is a wizard in the field of quantitative analysis, a friend of Billy Beane’s and a “Moneyball” true believer. He is the N.B.A.’s highest-ranking stat savant, the first mathematical magician to run a team.
Although all this is probably true, it misses what I think is the more important point about Daryl's success.
I met Daryl about 12 years ago. At the time, he was a recent college grad fascinated by oddly obscure ideas like self adaptive complexity. We clicked (there are not too many people who share interests in systems dynamics or find the ideas behind them stimulating) and since then I've followed his career with an odd mix of pride and amazement. The reporters frequently comment on his great mind, but Daryl is simply a likeable and delightful person.
Before sitting in Fenway Park watching the Red Sox with Daryl, I fancied myself a baseball fan. Listening to Daryl casually debunk various "myths" of baseball and support his claims with data, I realized that I was not really a baseball fan: I had odd bits of knowledge and interest in the San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants. I realized that Daryl's most off-handed comment carried more weight than anything I had thought about for years.
Daryl is not just adept at analyzing data and determining what it means. He lets the data take him where it will - whether that is to the most obvious or most counter-intuitive conclusion. He does not just do this with sports data. He has done this with his life. I don't think that I've ever met a person who seems less concerned with tradition - that of others or even his own. Daryl accepts what the data says and is willing to test plausible theories - in any domain. Years ago, he put me on his "board of advisors," a move that amused and flattered me and has come to mean even more as his career continues to thrive. (That he would name me to such a position is proof that he's not just comfortable with data but is comfortable with odd ideas.)
Daryl did not play basketball in college, much less the NBA. His father does not own a team nor work as a famous sports analyst. Daryl’s career has not just risen with amazing celerity - he has done it on his own merit. I rather doubt that his high school friends would have pegged him as "most likely to be an NBA GM by 35."
There is a great deal I admire about Daryl. Perhaps what makes him most unique is not his ability with numbers and statistics but his willingness to accept the reality those numbers represent. Analysis can be taught. I’m not sure that Daryl’s willingness to change in response to the analysis can be taught and it is that – more than the actual analysis – that seems to me the truly extraordinary thing about his life, his career and his performance.
And Daryl – congratulations on the winning streak. You may just want to tell reporters that you’ve tried winning and tried losing and you just can’t see any advantage to losing or even one good reason to lose again.
22 September 2007
Globalization and Tribal Nation
Since 1989, the NFL's revenues have grown by more than 6X, to over $6 billion a year. Major League Baseball and the NBA have also steadily grown, fueling in turn a sports reporting and analysis industry that has benefited companies like ESPN, Fox Sports, and the major networks.
What has driven demand for sports? I think it's obvious that we're wired to want "us vs. them" situations - to take a side in a conflict. We want something visceral, something engaging, something that smacks of violence and tribal warfare. The problem is, in a world increasingly global where former enemies (or at least those we didn't care about) are now trading partners, there is a dwindling opportunity for such situations to arise in the natural world. Gone are the days before the birth of agriculture when 15% of the population could expect to die in physical conflict. Such situations are gone, but the genes that helped us to survive this period are not.
Into this void of the modern age stepped professional sports, offering us a fix for our tribal impulse. We have an us vs. them. We have conflict. We have clear winners and clear losers. And, thanks to stadiums and broadcasting, the experience of a few can be shared by many, the vicarious thrill and frustration packaged for easy consumption by those of us whose daily lives are not the sites of any great drama or such clear rules and score keeping.
In an age when abstract, global dynamics define our lives, and vague goals define success or failure, professional sports gives us a means to feed those parts of our psyche that felt most at home in kilts or loin clothes, a time of tribal chiefs and the ability to see one's community around a single camp fire. 15 to 40 men on the field or bench, success clearly defined and important, outcomes decided in the space of hours rather than decades. It's a chance to feed one's inner warrior without the risk of blood shed. It's modern sports.
Professional sports - making the world safer for primal impulses.
What has driven demand for sports? I think it's obvious that we're wired to want "us vs. them" situations - to take a side in a conflict. We want something visceral, something engaging, something that smacks of violence and tribal warfare. The problem is, in a world increasingly global where former enemies (or at least those we didn't care about) are now trading partners, there is a dwindling opportunity for such situations to arise in the natural world. Gone are the days before the birth of agriculture when 15% of the population could expect to die in physical conflict. Such situations are gone, but the genes that helped us to survive this period are not.
Into this void of the modern age stepped professional sports, offering us a fix for our tribal impulse. We have an us vs. them. We have conflict. We have clear winners and clear losers. And, thanks to stadiums and broadcasting, the experience of a few can be shared by many, the vicarious thrill and frustration packaged for easy consumption by those of us whose daily lives are not the sites of any great drama or such clear rules and score keeping.
In an age when abstract, global dynamics define our lives, and vague goals define success or failure, professional sports gives us a means to feed those parts of our psyche that felt most at home in kilts or loin clothes, a time of tribal chiefs and the ability to see one's community around a single camp fire. 15 to 40 men on the field or bench, success clearly defined and important, outcomes decided in the space of hours rather than decades. It's a chance to feed one's inner warrior without the risk of blood shed. It's modern sports.
Professional sports - making the world safer for primal impulses.
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