Ideas I really like Gladwell #2
1. Dan Goldstein. He goes to a class of American college students and asks them which city they think is bigger -- San Antonio or San Diego. The students are divided. Then he goes to an equivalent class of German college students and asks the same question. This time the class votes overwhelmingly for San Diego. The right answer? San Diego. So the Germans are smarter, at least on this question, than the American kids. But that's not because they know more about American geography. It's because they know less. They've never heard of San Antonio. But they've heard of San Diego and using only that rule of thumb, they figure San Diego must be bigger. The American students know way more. They know all about San Antonio.
2. Is it just the coach? Or should we also think about the other players? The big insight in child psychology recently has been, for instance, that parents matter less in how we turn out than we think and peers matter more. That doesn't mean I don't think coaches are critical; they are. But I think we underestimate the role that teammates and peers can play.
3. That's why I think (much as I hate to admit it) that Darko is irredeemable. If he didn't try while he was on the Pistons, he's not going to try in Orlando. He's like the kid in Jamie Escalante's class who still manages to fail calculus.
4. Kwame Brown's problem is that the Wizards made a prediction about his basketball abilities when he was 18. When I asked an Ivy league admissions officer why the SAT is such a lousy predictor of how good a student is going to end up being, he said to me (memorably): "People take the SAT when they're 18. When you're 18, we can't even predict what you're going to be like three hours from now."
5. there are all kinds of combinations of strengths, weaknesses, eccentricities, shapes and sizes that can win our hearts. Bill Cowher is obviously a great coach. And so is Phil Jackson. And so is Bobby Knight. But Cowher, Jackson and Knight really couldn't be more different, and the kinds of feelings that they inspire in their players are probably quite different too.
6. Let's say I'm so dumb about basketball that all I know is that the best college programs in the country are Duke and UConn, and so as a GM my rule is only draft and/or trade for the first and second team players, in any given year, from those two schools. So I fire all my scouts. I disband my front office, and basically say that I cede my basketball judgment to Jim Calhoun and Mike K. What's my team? It's some combination of Elton Brand, Emeka Okafor, Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Shane Battier, Mike Dunleavy, Rip Hamilton, Corey Maggette, Jay Williams, Caron Butler, Donyell Marshall and Grant Hill -- which is a really wonderful team.
7. In the past three decades alone, guys like Ben Wallace, Dave Cowens, Paul Silas, Tim Hardaway, Dennis Rodman, Charles Barkley, Adrian Dantley, John Stockton, Isiah and others have proven that you should never, ever, ever, ever, EVER use somebody's height as a determining factor for whether you should draft someone. If you're good, you're good. And yet, three teams passed on Paul (four if you include Portland) when he was the most talented, NBA-ready product with the best chance to succeed.
8. That's why I'm such a fan of the "Moneyball" generation of baseball GMs: It's not so much that their analytical tools are brilliant ways of predicting baseball success (and I have my doubts, sometimes), it's simply that they have an analytical tool. And when it comes to personnel evaluation, any tool is better than no tool, especially if your last name is Thomas.
9. I think my favorite random sports theory of yours is the one about how NFL quarterbacks should be trained the same way Gavin DeBecker trains the bodyguards for his security agency -- by putting them through these terrifying exercises where he fires bullets at them or turns angry pit bulls on them, then continuing to do them until their heart rate drops. You made the point that, if you were running an NFL team, you would put your QBs through DeBecker's program and live-fire exercises at Quantico, and you would even have them work with a trauma team in South Central L.A. I loved this idea for two reasons: First, it makes total sense as a training tool, especially for someone like Peyton Manning, who practically craps himself during any big game.
10. Why do I care so much about a sport where some teams have $200 million to spend and some teams have $20 million to spend?
11. To me, the hard cap in football -- and, to a lesser extent, the soft cap in basketball -- are what makes those sports so interesting. It's what makes them sports. Contests where one player has significantly more resources than another are not sports. They are marketplaces. To root for the Yankees or the Red Sox is the functional equivalent of rooting for Microsoft or General Electric. No thanks.
2. Is it just the coach? Or should we also think about the other players? The big insight in child psychology recently has been, for instance, that parents matter less in how we turn out than we think and peers matter more. That doesn't mean I don't think coaches are critical; they are. But I think we underestimate the role that teammates and peers can play.
3. That's why I think (much as I hate to admit it) that Darko is irredeemable. If he didn't try while he was on the Pistons, he's not going to try in Orlando. He's like the kid in Jamie Escalante's class who still manages to fail calculus.
4. Kwame Brown's problem is that the Wizards made a prediction about his basketball abilities when he was 18. When I asked an Ivy league admissions officer why the SAT is such a lousy predictor of how good a student is going to end up being, he said to me (memorably): "People take the SAT when they're 18. When you're 18, we can't even predict what you're going to be like three hours from now."
5. there are all kinds of combinations of strengths, weaknesses, eccentricities, shapes and sizes that can win our hearts. Bill Cowher is obviously a great coach. And so is Phil Jackson. And so is Bobby Knight. But Cowher, Jackson and Knight really couldn't be more different, and the kinds of feelings that they inspire in their players are probably quite different too.
6. Let's say I'm so dumb about basketball that all I know is that the best college programs in the country are Duke and UConn, and so as a GM my rule is only draft and/or trade for the first and second team players, in any given year, from those two schools. So I fire all my scouts. I disband my front office, and basically say that I cede my basketball judgment to Jim Calhoun and Mike K. What's my team? It's some combination of Elton Brand, Emeka Okafor, Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Shane Battier, Mike Dunleavy, Rip Hamilton, Corey Maggette, Jay Williams, Caron Butler, Donyell Marshall and Grant Hill -- which is a really wonderful team.
7. In the past three decades alone, guys like Ben Wallace, Dave Cowens, Paul Silas, Tim Hardaway, Dennis Rodman, Charles Barkley, Adrian Dantley, John Stockton, Isiah and others have proven that you should never, ever, ever, ever, EVER use somebody's height as a determining factor for whether you should draft someone. If you're good, you're good. And yet, three teams passed on Paul (four if you include Portland) when he was the most talented, NBA-ready product with the best chance to succeed.
8. That's why I'm such a fan of the "Moneyball" generation of baseball GMs: It's not so much that their analytical tools are brilliant ways of predicting baseball success (and I have my doubts, sometimes), it's simply that they have an analytical tool. And when it comes to personnel evaluation, any tool is better than no tool, especially if your last name is Thomas.
9. I think my favorite random sports theory of yours is the one about how NFL quarterbacks should be trained the same way Gavin DeBecker trains the bodyguards for his security agency -- by putting them through these terrifying exercises where he fires bullets at them or turns angry pit bulls on them, then continuing to do them until their heart rate drops. You made the point that, if you were running an NFL team, you would put your QBs through DeBecker's program and live-fire exercises at Quantico, and you would even have them work with a trauma team in South Central L.A. I loved this idea for two reasons: First, it makes total sense as a training tool, especially for someone like Peyton Manning, who practically craps himself during any big game.
10. Why do I care so much about a sport where some teams have $200 million to spend and some teams have $20 million to spend?
11. To me, the hard cap in football -- and, to a lesser extent, the soft cap in basketball -- are what makes those sports so interesting. It's what makes them sports. Contests where one player has significantly more resources than another are not sports. They are marketplaces. To root for the Yankees or the Red Sox is the functional equivalent of rooting for Microsoft or General Electric. No thanks.
posted by Mike at 8:18 AM
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