Michael Lewis (Moneyball) on Basketball, Incentives & Shane Battier

jeckll · Feb 16, 2009

For anyone who hasn't read Michael Lewis' cover article in the NYT Magazine from yesterday, check it out. Great read.

There is a tension, peculiar to basketball, between the interests of the team and the interests of the individual. The game continually tempts the people who play it to do things that are not in the interest of the group. On the baseball field, it would be hard for a player to sacrifice his team's interest for his own. Baseball is an individual sport masquerading as a team one: by doing what's best for himself, the player nearly always also does what is best for his team. "There is no way to selfishly get across home plate," as Morey puts it. "If instead of there being a lineup, I could muscle my way to the plate and hit every single time and damage the efficiency of the team -- that would be the analogy. Manny Ramirez can't take at-bats away from David Ortiz. We had a point guard in Boston who refused to pass the ball to a certain guy."

The No-Stats All-Star

Cusipz · Feb 16, 2009

Great read.

Lewis is one of the best, from Liar's Poker to The Blind Side....Great books.

Biggamer3 · Feb 16, 2009

awesome writer, SI should scoop him up

Biggamer3 · Feb 16, 2009

Love this part of the article, such balls on Shane

Wetzel watched this kid, inundated with offers of every kind, take charge of an unprincipled process. Battier narrowed his choices to six schools — Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina, Duke, Michigan and Michigan State — and told everyone else, politely, to leave him be. He then set out to minimize the degree to which the chosen schools could interfere with his studies; he had a 3.96 G.P.A. and was poised to claim Detroit Country Day School’s headmaster’s cup for best all-around student. He granted each head coach a weekly 15-minute window in which to phone him. These men happened to be among the most famous basketball coaches in the world and the most persistent recruiters, but Battier granted no exceptions. When the Kentucky coach Rick Pitino, who had just won a national championship, tried to call Battier outside his assigned time, Battier simply removed Kentucky from his list. “What 17-year-old has the stones to do that?” Wetzel asks. “To just cut off Rick Pitino because he calls outside his window?” Wetzel answers his own question: “It wasn’t like, ‘This is a really interesting 17-year-old.’ It was like, ‘This isn’t real.’ ”

jeckll · Feb 16, 2009

Biggamer3 said:
awesome writer, SI should scoop him up

The guy writes for the NYT, Vanity Fair, Portfolio and Slate. You think he's interested in an SI gig? :laugh:

Biggamer3 · Feb 16, 2009

cklennon said:
The guy writes for the NYT, Vanity Fair, Portfolio and Slate. You think he's interested in an SI gig?

^^

He wrote one time for the NY Times MAGAZINE, dont think he writes for the NYT weekly articles.

SI has been pining for a last page guy since Reilly left, he would fit like a glove.

TomGshotput · Feb 16, 2009

I am sure there were some exaggerations and liberties taken with Battier's effectiveness, but Lewis is such a great writer I don't care at all. Very good read

scrubs · Feb 16, 2009

no exaggerations...they use hard and fast stats to analyze which they have developed themselves...as the article points out "not stuff usually gleaned from the box scores"

scrubs · Feb 16, 2009

Great article...thanks for pointing it out.

Cusipz · Feb 16, 2009

Biggamer3 said:
^^^^^^^^

He wrote one time for the NY Times MAGAZINE, dont think he writes for the NYT weekly articles.

SI has been pining for a last page guy since Reilly left, he would fit like a glove.

He also writes regularly for Bloomberg. This guy is NOT hurting for work.

LogansRun · Feb 16, 2009

Just finished this excellent article. :toast:

TomGshotput · Feb 16, 2009

scrubs said:
no exaggerations...they use hard and fast stats to analyze which they have developed themselves...as the article points out "not stuff usually gleaned from the box scores"

By "they" do you mean the Rockets or Lewis (or both)?

jeckll · Feb 17, 2009

TomGshotput said:
By "they" do you mean the Rockets or Lewis (or both)?

Both. And more background here: http://dberri.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/

RobFunk · Feb 17, 2009

LogansRun said:
Just finished this excellent article. :toast:

For sure. Was a great read. Thanks for posting. The stuff about pre game scouting was pretty interesting too.

TomGshotput · Feb 17, 2009

cklennon said:
Both. And more background here: http://dberri.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/

Really need to check out that site more often. Still, as we should expect based on where it comes from, that link really only discusses the statistics (or lack of statistics)

Nothing about the human interest side of the article

TomGshotput · Feb 17, 2009

Also, painting the Rockets analysis as unique is definitely an exaggeration. Just because they have some good examples doesn't mean everyone else in the NBA is foolish and clueless and not doing similar things. Just because Battier is an almost perfect example, doesn/t mean there aren/t other players who do some of those things well

Not a knock on Lewis, that is actually a plus. He is able to take things so few people find interesting and make them interesting to large audiences. After Moneyball, Blindside and now this article, perhaps my favortie writer ever. Back page of SI every other week and have him doing features would be absolutely awesome

Michael Lewis (Moneyball) on Basketball, Incentives & Shane Battier

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