Momentum

Momentum

Good brief discussion on the fallacy of momentum in sports. I’m somewhat surprised that his research (granted it wasn’t very comprehensive) found no evidence of momentum in a free flowing sport like hockey…what does that mean about using time outs in basketball when your opponent is on a hot streak? Or taking out your pitcher in baseball only after he’s given up a couple consecutive hits? I can understand why a stop and go sport like football wouldn’t have momentum but now I’m curious if it might be fictional all the way across the board.

Game Theory

Another post inspired by the misguided comments of a sports announcer. There’s ten seconds left in the fourth and Lebron controls the ball at the top of the key ready to run a play. He breaks to his left and, barely ahead of his defender, spots help defense rolling over in the paint to block his layup attempt. Five seconds now and his options are to drive in and risk getting blocked or fouled, or feed a pass behind him to the wide open Haslem standing at the foul line for a high percentage shot. He goes for the second option and Haslem misses the shot. Game over, Heat lose. “Lebron has to take that shot if he wants to shut up the haters. Take the game into your own hands, don’t pass the ball to Haslem, who has two points tonight. Kobe Bryant would’ve never passed that ball.”

There’s two major things I can take away from those comments. First, the announcer thinks that Haslem scoring two points tonight is a reflection of his ability to make an open jumper from sixteen feet. It couldn’t be less important, really. Wouldn’t it be great if the announcer said “Lebron, you can’t pass the ball to Haslem there. He’s only expected to make that shot 45-55% of the time in these conditions and if you get fouled driving in you have two free throws that are 90% each, plus a reasonable chance of winning the game with a three point play when you finish the layup. You won’t get called for an offensive foul this close to the basket, just take the tough shot and improve your team’s chance of winning.” I guess viewers would get bored by something so relevant and accurate, so they ignore it. Sometimes it looks to me like coaches do too.

The second thing is that Kobe Bryant and other heroic shot takers are glorified for their ability to win games on isolation plays. What’s not mentioned is that Kobe’s reputation to have “never passed that ball” sticks with him, and defenses can easily adjust to it. How many times in the past few years have we seen Kobe with the ball on the final possession, double or triple teamed, forcing up a hideous shot? There’s nothing impressive about it, it simply means Kobe Bryant is a much worse basketball player than he could be. It’s hard to question him when he’s a top player in the NBA, putting up high points per game stats and winning multiple finals MVPs in his career. Regardless, it’s completely true. If Kobe was to use a more balanced strategy that involved passing the ball, or taking a shot that isn’t a fade away jumper, he’d be more efficient.

Game theory is a common economic concept that determines decision making in a strategy game. Your goal is to make decisions that can’t be exploited by your opponents strategy, or in some cases, ones that can exploit your opponent’s strategy. Everyone who’s trying to win a game of any kind uses it whether they’re thinking about it or not, but it’s helpful to lay it out this way for the sake of discussing the NBA.

Now you’re the coach drawing up a defense against the Lakers on the final possession, up one. Because Kobe Bryant is unbalanced and strongly prefers shooting over passing, you focus a lot of your attention on him. This is an exploitative decision that the Lakers open themselves up to by letting Kobe shoot more often than he should. You can bring an extra defender off Fisher because they’re not going to shoot a three when down one, even though a wide open three pointer is no doubt a higher percentage shot than a double teamed fade away from Kobe. You can put a couple big guys in the paint to stop Gasol and Bynum from setting exceptional screens or getting wide open dunks, because an unguarded big man in the paint is one of the rare situations where Kobe might actually give up the rock. The 5th man is probably inbounding the ball, so his defender can stay between him and Kobe, who needs to be near him to receive the inbound pass. That puts 2.5 defenders on Kobe and 2.5 defenders on the rest of the court, yet he’s still looking to take the final shot? It sounds to me like the defense has the edge here.

In game theory we look for optimal solutions, where neither side of the game could improve their strategy by changing something while their opponent stays constant. In the case described above, we’re nowhere near an equilibrium. If Kobe’s defended by 2.5 players he can feed the ball damn near anywhere and lead to a higher percentage shot coming from his teammate’s hand. Does anybody really believe that his long term shooting percentage while double teamed is higher than the next best guy on the court in single coverage or maybe even wide open? All Kobe needs to do is make one or two passes in clutch situations, and the whole game changes. No longer can coaches design defenses to swarm him because there’s a chance he gives up the ball and lets someone else get a very easy bucket. He’d be changing his strategy to become less exploitable, because it shows that the Lakers are capable of scoring multiple ways at the end of games. Derrick Rose did a great job of this against a swarming 76ers defense late last Sunday and he’s certainly a less experienced basketball player than Bryant. Unfortunately, most players and coaches wouldn’t dare alter a strategy that’s “worked” in the past, and I wouldn’t expect Kobe to change his mind about what the best options in crunch time are anytime soon. All I know is I’d have a much harder time drawing up a defense against the other two superstars named in this post.

“Do not repeat the tactics that have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.” — Sun Tzu

I found this gem of a quote while reading an ESPN article on this very topic titled “Don’t Be a Hero” earlier today. It seems even the thinkers of 2500 years ago understood game theory more accurately than the Lakers.