#749 - Seth Stephens-Davidowitz - The Hidden Statistics That Control The NBA
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What's happening, people welcome back to the show at my yesterday is set Stephens. Dividual is a data scientist, economist and unoffered. Basketball is one of the most popular sports on the planet.

Seh has used advanced I to statistically analyze everything about the players that backgrounds, hand span, height, first names and more, to uncover some of the wildest trends in the expect to learn what percentage of american men of a seven feet tall are in the N. B. A.

Why there is a huge outlier in the most common name of all N B A players who the best hya justice play of all time is just how important genetics are in basketball, whether the draft is actually effective and much more, even if you're not a basketball fan. This is so fascinating. Someone that is used A I and ChatGPT in a bunch of other advanced tools to just do the money bowl of basketball is really, really cool.

Sapp on the show bunch of times before. And this is a bunch of stats I actually dropped on rogan show last week. So if you enjoy that, you going to enjoy.

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ladies and gentleman, please welcome seh Stevens, dividual tes.

What's percentage of seven footage are in the NBA?

To the best of our knowledge, it's about one in seven, which is enormous popular tories. The first guy i've done a similar calculation and everyone seems to uh unite around this number around one in seven, which just insane. Is there any other pursuit, glamorous pursuit, where one trade gives you a one in seven chance of reaching the absolute pinna of that, uh, fields? I don't think so.

I think about all the six and seven people that could have been on A N, B, A players wage.

yeah, they must feel terrible. And I guess they can. A lot of them are probably playing abroad. There are ably our best cual players regardless and and having fun and you know make a living playing a game. But they're not getting the NBA wage for sure.

How rare is seven foot height being?

Seven footer above is one in six hundred fifty thousand height.

Wow, that is such a genetic lossy.

Yeah yeah you're basically yes. I don't think there's any other gene that gives you such a chance of being a famous multi millionaire.

Ah that's a good point. What else you learn about high .

h so one of the thing is interesting about height is uh and basketball is each inch roughly doubles your chances of making the MBA like throughout the height distribution. So if you're six foot tall, you have faced twice the chances of becoming an NBA player. Then if you're five, four, eight, eleven, if you're six one, twice the chance, then if you're sixty and all the way out to fifth, you're seven two, you have twice the chance and you're seven one like throughout the high distribution.

What that means is just there's this enormous difference in probability of reaching the iba, he said, one in seven chance, if you're a seven footer, if you are under five ten, which is the average high of an american mall, you have a one in three point eight million chance of reaching the MBA. Like it's basic, impossible. I mean, there are exceptions.

You know, I talk about the book about one of my favorite players, moxie box foot three, and played fourteen seasons in the n. va. So it's not impossible, but it's pretty close to impossible. Probably ly not worth putting much energy if you try.

What are the disadvantages of being told from a play .

of perspective? Well, I think there are there is a if you look at the toilets, humans in history, uh, many of them are over eight feet tall, and just about all of them is due to a thyroid disease. Uh, you literally there's a growth formal and that just overproduced growth hormone is overproduce.

There have been there has been at least one N B A player who got to his height through a thyroid disease. That's George mirror on some people might remember at me, is he? He also was an actor for a little bit uh and he was literally IT was a disease that gave him that hidest parents for average.

I and if you're ah that are all just from a disease, you're going to have all kinds upon a lot that tolls people in history, very few that tell us people in history even make IT past the age of forty ah but I think one of the other things that's interesting is that a seven footers are just taller. N B. A players in general are just way worse athletes.

Any way we can measure IT. They job much, lies high. They are much slower.

They were shooters. They are this kind of a surprise metal. They get by, show this before they are worse in the club. They can't handle pressure to the same degree, shorter NBA can.

And I think the reason for this is just because the select of advantage of being tall is so enormous and you don't have to be as good at anything else. So you know, you're six feet tall and you're competing against millions of other people for that. But that point guard, you will Better be in, in saint athlete, the six point MBA players, they run as fast as a sprinter.

They jump as high as a high jumper. Uh, they shoot as well as anybody in the world can shoot. Uh, they can handle pressure incredibly. They're just so good to beat out millions of other people to that.

Spt, if you're seven feet tall and you're repeating with dozens of other men for your spot, you know that good? You just have to one in seven, good. So you know the average seven footer, his vertical leap is only a little bit higher than the average person could could achieve with enormous practice.

He's slower than most than an average runner on a high school track team. He shoots worse than an average high school basketball a player. He handles pressure worse than an average high school basketball player. He just not that great, but he is really, really tall.

IT begs the question, why are told place so prioritized? If if the less good, psychologically, cardiovascular YSL ally, whatever, why? Why do they keep getting selected?

Well, because they are IT is an advantage. They grab more rebels. They blocked more shots. I mean, the basket is up there or maybe, yeah, basket is up there. Uh, the basket is not in the ground. The basket in the sky ah you know ten feet above the ground that I think when that's the case, it's a huge advantage to be really tall, to be able to reach her a, to be able to get higher, to block shots, to grab bounds, to do all these things, to be able to get your shot off without being like without of being blocked.

I wondered whether you were going to have some sort of an insight, money ball style insight, where you were going to say all of the N. B. A. Teams need to start drafting more six foot two people because, you know, the trade off that you get for athleticism from a wider pool of potential people is greater than the advantage you get from being seven, one or whatever.

No, I don't think that's true. I mean, IT is legitimately true that seven, you know chako on deal dominate the M B. A for many seasons, even though you know oma Better free throw shooter than you kill a neel with the one that that's one, the core skills of basketball and I, who am not objective, good and never play, can hit a higher percent of my free throws than chickle a milk.

But he legitimately, I won't say, you know, to the lakes, hey, have you thought of picking up seh he shoot free throws Better than shack like I legally think jack dominated basketball but IT is kind of a weird, unfair advantage that does IT doesn't almost like a little, I don't know. As a fan of the game, IT feels like it's almost a bug in the game that hide is such an advantage like if they like the ideal sport IT you you shouldn't be able to reach the top of a sport the way George bearsted through a growth hormone disorder, uh, like that. Should I know that feels like off in in how you know an athletic, uh, pursuit? What what did you take to reach the top of that to let IT pursuit? But yeah, i'm about telling players you you quite jowell and bed because he can jump as high as a six White player like he still does help the team but he finites IT definitely is true that they are worse.

Athletes laughs in the disorder.

All right. So what about are you .

able to compare like for like different players of different heights and say, what if mug zy box had been six, seven? What how good would have he?

Yeah, I was able to mathematically figure this out, which was the most fun i've ever had on any study i've ever done. You know, as a shorter man, i'm about five nine, I think on a good day. So I think I kindly did this calculation.

I rank people I call IT moxie, uh, which stands for metric, for understanding game given sporting individuals effectiveness and size. And i've ragged every player. You know that the math is a pending x for those are really curious, uh, how good they would be if they were the same height, how many boxes es they have?

A number one is mugg's box who's just achievement is so ridiculously insane to be an NBA player for fourteen seasons. Even if he wasn't the greatest dba player, he was a decent NBA player for fourteen season at five, four, three inches tall. It's insane. You know, other players are old boy kids and spot web rank really high. Michael Jordan, interestingly, still ranks number nine on a high.

adJusting by .

the greatest at his craft you've ever seen. But if mug zi and Michael were the same height, I mug zy. I think it's only ambiguous in the data, the way I would cut the data that mugg's would be the more dominant player.

Muggsy would be the one who would be making the documentaries about who you think is the quintus til at mastering his crafts at master's craft and determination at work as they could, all these other things that we now associated with Michael. Michael had enormous talent, enormous drive, enormous work that they enormous anything, and he also had enormous height. H, which, you know, some of these other guys didn't have.

What do? Why is IT that? Please come from the countries that they do, obviously basketball wildly over represented by the U. S. A. But if one in seven people over seven feet tall, why are scandinavian countries that I think you've got the toilets average height in the world. Why have we not seen loads of dance or norwegians or something?

Yeah so a big thing is uh popularity of basketball obviously obviously placed into how many basketball players a country produced and the really ah three regions of the words where basketball is extraordinary popular, united states, where was invented uh, the politics states, former yoga slavia. So if you're growing up playing basketball, you know the average person, i'm sure they're countless people around the world to if they started practicing when they were five, could shoot a ball like steff carrey or could do you know everything with a basketball like jim's harden but they never even think to do that their plane soccer or their planes of other sports. So that's really important.

There are some subtle things that go into how, uh, how many h basal players country produces a one that I found, which I found very, very interesting and actually say it's extremely obvious that predicts how many vesle players a country producers is volleyball popularity of, because there is only one other sport that uses hide the same way basketball t does. That's volya all. So the average volleyball player has basic the same body type as the average small forward in the MBA, about six forty eight on average.

Uh, you greely thin, uh, enormous sleepers. And I didn't know this of such a in american that i'm like, who the help that cares about volleyball? So I excuse by night of a table.

But in writing this book, I found that, uh, you know, in iran, volleyball is five times more popular than basketball. And there are numerous countries around the world where valley ball is more popular. Basketball is more popular. Baseball in brazil, in bulgaria and russia and italy, important reo.

And what you see is in these countries are valley ball more proper and basketball you see fewer uh N B A players that you'd otherwise expect, uh, and particular fewer forwards then you'd otherwise expect because a lot of these taller people, these six, four, eight, six four, nine people are playing volleyball instead. You know, in the united states, car mell wan Anthony, in the broad James, when they grew their enormous height, I don't think anybody was like, hey, have you thought of spiking a ball? You know, that's that's the dream.

A but the guys who grow to be six eight, six nine, six ten in bulgaria, the dream is to Spike a valuable, which is a horrible financial decision. Like I think I talk about this player from yoga who leaves higher than anybody has ever measured in the NBA. And he makes three hundred thousand euros a year, which is a great salary. That's not that's not terrible. But that is so .

far below we you uh.

I think you know, if any, if any, a enormous man in a bulgaria or brazil, iran are listing this podcast right now. I want to tell you, practice your free throws, not you're spiking. That's where the money is in in the world. That's the real when I would .

say just how genetically predisposed .

or predetermined .

is basketball all success enormously?

Basketball enormously genetic, more genetic than pretty much others, any others before we can measure. The way to see this is the prevalence of identical twins. In basketball.

There have been a normous number of pairs of identical twins who have reached the MBA. Eleven paris of twins have reached MBA. All eleven of them have been identical. And this is not true in other sports. More than ten percent of brother pairs of brothers in the MBA have been identical twins, way higher than other sports.

That's a dead giveaway that genetic ics are driving basketball here because identical twins, unlike a fernal twins or unlike other brothers, share one hundred percent genes, not fifty percent genes. So if one happens to get a really good drop genetics, the other is gone to get that same draw. And um I did a calculation that probably more than half of I if a if a player is in the M B A and he has an identical twin a, he has a more than fifty percent chance of also being in the MBA.

A like if you get that same job genetics, you're like test to be an amazing player as well. Now a huge reason for this, of course, is because hide is so important. Height is very genetic, about eighty percent genetic. But a lot of other skills that are a lot of other traits that are born in basketball, hand size, ARM, light wingspan of vertical leap spring inking speed, also really, really genetic best well, seems like the sport designed in a lab to rely on genetics ah like just IT heavily uses the skills that are seventy, eighty, ninety percent to dedicate and doesn't really use the skills that are that are twenty, thirty, forty percent genetic that some other sports do .

what what are the skills that are twenty, thirty, forty percent?

So reaction time, a handed ness, whether a left your Ariely, is much less genetic. A hand dye coordination, much less genetic. So something like shooting in the the olympic sport, which is really hand eye coordination.

that's not going to be. But how can you say that basketball isn't hand ordination?

There is definitely in handy. But just relative to the other sport, you know relative to baseball, for example, which is all had ee ordination to hit A B, you know all of baseball is being able to you know hit get the swing to hit the ball, which is hand equation or uh reaction time reflexes. That's that's not as genetic that baseball is just so dependent on that.

Um where's basketball? The skills that are more important in high winds? An uh you know.

vertical leap. Why is why is hand size so important?

Yeah, that actually I hadn't realized, uh, until I wrote this book. Uh, basically, the ability to pala ball is always got to get my hand in the screen, the of the pala ball. Now I reveal I do not have yona boy lanner hands. Another reason .

I could never have waving .

around the the and, uh but uh, I being able to pala ball hugely valuable to grab a rebound with one hand, to be able to driver Better with the really oppoa head palm ball, really, really valuable 啊。 Phil Jackson coached, famously coached both Michael Jordan and kobe bryan. And he was asked, if you could pick one player, who would you pick? And he said, Michael Jordan, because Jordan had enormous hands and kobe bryant did in.

And kobe bryant admitted the one thing he changed about his body as he wish he had bigger hands. H, so it's kind of known in the basketball world that hands are valuable. And a lot of all time grades had enormous hands, even for their high. You, whether it's yun st. Or wilt, or show.

how big do these hands get?

Twice twelve in chand with, you know, the average about agents are just very, very your vote. Yeah, like a, this is like a fault. long. Uh, yeah, that's insane. That's insane. yeah.

The hands, and you could look at pictures of quiet lander is another player with legendarily large chance, you know, look at pictures of his hands, their freakish h heads. And, uh, IT turns out that as N, B, A teams have known, that hand sizes is really important. But IT doesn't seem like they quite new.

Just how important t was that? If you look at the draft, you know at the NBA combine, they measure players hands, help the hand with the players. And players with wide hands historically have done Better by by advanced metrics.

Then you'd predict based on their based on their draft spot and players with you know tiny hands, the donal trump hands, they're just awful players. I think seventeen of nineteen players who add hands below aegis, below average perform below their draft spotts, and most of them just couldn't even be NBA players. So I think it's known that hand size are important.

Uh, I don't think it's been appreciated. Just how important is that? IT is up there with the height and the winged span, the skills, the traits that we know are really, really important of vertical leak.

Are there any other sports that you know of that are highly genetically influenced in the same way that volleyball and basketball.

how track and field seems to be very genetically influence, also dominated by identical twins? Uh, you know, if you look at h track and field, uh, the olympic track and field athletes, uh, the percent of same sex siblings, their identical twins is up there with basketball. Uh, and I think sprinting speed seem particularly seems also uh very genetic uh that you know you say bolt or whatever, I want to bet on his son to be a tremendous runner. So that is another sport that is highly, highly genetic. Uh.

how important are your parents beyond the genetics thing?

yeah. So the average american mall has a one in thirty six thousand chance of reaching the N. B.

A. The average sound of an MBA player has a one in forty three chance of reaching the MBA. So, one, three, six.

are you able to one in thirty six to one and .

forty one to one .

and forty three, are you able to um control for the physical inheritance? Ant like the light in .

all the right a little bit it's little hard to do, but IT clearly. So that's a seven hundred forty four times higher chance of recent M, B, A, then a sort of an M B A player. Now a lot of that is tics, but it's pretty clear it's not all genetics.

And if you have a father who was a professional player, was an NBA player, you're gonna get really good coaching from an early age. And one of the things I saw on the data is sons of MBA players are many dimensions. They look very similar.

Other N, B, A players, uh, they have similar heights. They have similar weights. Their stats are pretty similar, uh, mostly, but they shoot free throws extraordinary ily. Well, so are the average N, B, A player shoot free throws seventy five percent at a seventy five percent clip. Sons of NBA players shoot free closed in eighty percent clip.

And that's a five percent points, a very big difference in freehold oil and h eight percent of the top fifty three throw shooters of all time have been sons of MBA players where is only two percent of MBA players? More generally our sons of MBA players uh, the greatest free or shooter of all time staff, curry, sun of an N, B, A player, dell curry, uh, and and you see just new David booker, yes, a lot, many, many. B, A, play, I play thomson, many MBA players, extraordinary free throw shooters. One thing that's interesting and OK, so why is that well form is so important in shooting and if you have an N B A player for a father, they're going to be helping you on a form your form from from a very Young age um .

uh .

and and that's a huge advantage in working working your shot from a very Young age is just a huge village. What do you see among N, B, A players is very touching MBA players. Their sons, they tend end to be shorter than they were because there is question to the mean.

yes. So a you know clay tops' s father was a number one pic as a set there. He was six foot, and he was about a sixty percent free throw shooter, not extraordinary free throw shooter. Clay tob since only six foot six, but he's an eighty percent plus free throw shooter. So what you see is the physical traits they regressed to the mean, but the shooting, which requires that early training, the form, they're just much Better at that. So know there been many examples of N B A players who are powerful ward centers themselves and they have sons who are shooting guards, uh, so they don't get quite as much of the height ah you know if they had but they get that early training to improve the shooting yeah very interesting.

I feel like I missed a my shot because I also read that Chris is the most common name for black N B, A players. So if only I could fix the problem of not being black.

And that was your first mistake.

yeah. Well, I guess, I guess I was not black before I was called Chris. yeah. So, yeah.

maybe so. A crisis, the most common name among the A, B. A players.

Now, why is that? That seems just like a random piece of trivia. h.

IT gets to a bigger question of, what's the social economics of N. B. A. players. And for a long time, conventional wisdom was that so that m the MBA was disproportionate sampling from people from rough backgrounds, tough backgrounds, the geo improvers single parents.

And the idea behind that was, if you're, let's say, a black boy uh, in power in the get to and you're pretty good at basketball, that is your one chance of getting out, escaping your hardship, escaping your to become an m vi grade and you will do whatever IT takes, work as hard as IT as as is required to reach the top of basketball, whether if you are, you know the sign of a lawyer and a doctor in the suburbs and yeah, you're pretty good at basketball ah well, you have so many options that you're not gone to spend day and night, you know practicing basketball, devoting yourself to this pursuit uh, that has never been true. Uh, there is initially to a study by josh to grow and Jimmy Adams that showed that both among cao occasions and african americans, uh being from a upper middle class or above family is a huge advantage in reaching the MBA. And i've done my own city and.

MBA players, much less likely than the population at large. And the black, black MBA players much is like the black population at large to be born to a single mother, to be born to a teenage mother in any way. You can look at the data uh being from a you know two pair in home, uh upper middle class or middle class or above, huge advantage to reaching the M B A.

And the most maybe interesting data point for that is the names of NBA players. There is a paper by roll in freer and Steve levit that found that among the african american population, you can tell the demographics of someone pretty well just based on their name, and that a african americans from higher associated economic backgrounds are more likely to be given common names, names that are very popular. The population at large african americans, from lower social economics, from poverty, from the get, to more likely to be given rare, unique names named that nobody else is given that year.

An example that i'm pretty sure is lebron. Now lebron is probably a common named because, you know, everybody, he was a named their kid after the road vote in the brand was born and he was born to IT more difficult background, a single sixteen year old mother and act ohio. A lebron was a unique name that wasn't given to other people that year.

IT wasn't given to IT wasn't a name that other people had as well. And if you look at N, B, A players there, half is likely a black. B, A players are half is likely as the the black population, uh, writ large to have unique names.

They're much more likely to APP names, Chris, Michael market. So in the book of a whole word cloud of the names of NBA players and the most common name by pretty wide margin is Chris. Um you know yeah so you think of Chris pl, a Chris bosh, many other examples and a Chris polls a great example of a player from uh, two parent home, uh, middle class the family join tim on an episode of family feud.

Uh you that kind of where the amba is getting their players, uh, much more than conventual wisdom told us a Michael Jordan, another example, uh, grew up a middle class uh two period family in th in a board in bruin rays in north Caroline, a very stable upbringing. Uh that's that's where the mbas is is is getting their their talent by by in large. Now of course not always, which means we have to give that bush more credit to the lebron James of the world because they really did overcome a lie, uh, to if only .

he had been foot three as well yeah, had set in .

chance and then we'd really have to give him a lot of .

credit just how dominated is the N. B. A. By black players or african american heritage?

Yeah it's about a eighty percent of american borne players, our african american. Uh, which I didn't get into. You know some of that I I, I don't go into the reasons for that, which is probably beyond the scope of of my study.

And uh you know some of that is legitimate cultural uh, the black advantage, I didn't actually put this in the book, but the black advantage in basketball is smaller among americans and IT is is borger among americans and IT is among europeans or people from the cribber or uh so other regions the world there is in such a big advantage uh, for black people and I think part of the reason is that, uh, basketball is just so popular in the black computer in the united states that you know, if you surveys that, ask whether you are huge basketball fan. Uh, african americans are about twice likely as other americans to say they're huge basketball fans. Uh, so IT is, you know any again, being a big fan of the sport is a huge advantage to recent the top of sport.

That's why there are so many more players from the united states than there are from great britain, for example. Uh, I I don't think you know most people are you'd probably be more of an extra on this topic than I than I am. Boy, uh, I I don't think most people growing up in london are dreaming of being a basketball player or they're dreaming of being no, they're not dreaming of chicago, but they are dream to be an arsenal player. And I think you know any time, any community, whether it's a country or a race or anything else that wear baseball is really popular, is going to produce more than their fair share of NBA talents.

What determines who chokes under pressure?

yeah. So this is so one of these very edge thing is people choke in basketball. I think more than a lot of other sports. So you look at the average N, B, A player, you compare free throws, kind of how they shoot free throws Normally.

If free throws is a great test of choking because it's the exact same situation throughout the game, you're shooting from the same no defenders and the average N, B, A player shoots free throws more than one percentage point lower in clutch moments, uh, five minutes or less on the clock game within five points than in other times. So the average gba player is a choker. This kind of surprising because in a lot of sports, we found that players don't choke.

And the reason for that is to reach the top of a sport, you have to be so mentally tough, know. The average person, of course, is going to choke under a pressure moment, but there just can be knocked out out way before they reached the top of their sport, right? So you if you can handle a pressure penalty cake, your problems are going to reveal themselves in high school, uh, log before you know you're playing in the world cup, you know or whatever and simply, you know, studies have showed that baseball players had not to choke.

So why do basic all players so consistently choke? And I think his cats still point again. I don't love hammering the seven footers in large part because I feel like when a five, nine person is attacking people taller than him, he seems like he has a horrible al on Apollo complex.

I hesitate to use my book is just seven photos, secretly all sock, and told people sock, because there is a dangerous pattern of of shorter men doing things like this out of their own and insecurity and resentments uh, but I can't lie in the data. The only thing I could find that predict choking was height, that taller players just choke more. And I think the reason for that is there's just not budge selective pressure on taller N, B, A.

players. If you have to, only have to be, if one in seven, seven footers reach the MBA, you only have to be, have one in seven basketball ability. V, C, MBA. You don't have me that graded everything. You don't have to be the world's most mentally tough first in, because there just aren't enough seven footers to choose from. And so the average six footer in the MBA shoot free throws exactly the same in the non clutch moments and clutch moments, but the average seven footer shoot free throws more than six percent tage points worse in clutch moment. So just an enormous tendency to choke among the tallest NBA players.

What didn't you say that you wanted the NBA to have a height cut off because you thought IT would make the game more exciting?

That was another one. Run like god. If I say this first, while people are going to call me high test or something later.

but also I don't know you can be a high test around the people that have got IT, they got like the .

advantage yeah uh, I just I know I made clear in the book that I don't think that there actually should be a high advantage. I think if there were a, uh, I cut off, if there were a cut off, cut off, I think it's only ambiguous that there will be more talent in the game that the shooting would be Better, the club shooting would be Better, the athleticism would be Better. All these factors would be Better if there were a high court off. But no, i'm not a high desk and anti high desk for first nights.

A one t is a shortage .

and you I have a huge best of all, fat in my favor player growing up with patric viewing, who was seven, a seven feet tall. I do, they do in rick s the game. And tall supporting .

bone fides out from east center in case anyone is gonna try and say something mean about you wasn't so the very end of the the end of the book but IT seems related to this about .

childhood difficulty oh yeah uh so one thinks I was interested in was whether child difficulty a predicts your tendency to choke. Uh, it's existing theory. I've heard a lot, you know, Jimmy Butler is a classic great club shooter, uh, is completely unaffected by pressure.

Boomers, just so good in the. And Jimmy Butler r had such a rough childhood. His father abandon the family. His mother kicked him out of the house because SHE didn't like the look of him.

I was just a horrible childhood and there is a theory that Jimmy Butler r is so good and clutch moments because he's so tough, because he's been through so much and compare his background see, you know, someone who grew up in the suburbs, uh, you know a soccer mom and soccer know A D something, you know, they they can handle what Jimmy Butler can handle. So actually tested this in the data, a fun way, in in the book, in a fun way. Uh, there isn't a measure, an objective measure, of how difficult was your background.

So one of the things we might get into about this book is I heavily relied on ChatGPT in the creation this book. And I thought ChatGPT would do a great job of giving me an objective measure of how difficult someone's childhood was. Because IT has, in its data, set all this information about all the NBA players, what they went through in childhood.

So I asked chat V, T to rag the background of N, B, A players. And IT gave such sensible answers, uh, you know, Jimmy Butler was ranked to nine code enter group in a tough neighborhood in competing was rank similar, and nine a lual dying rank very high because he grew up in a civil war in sudan. Like all these different measures, i'll be hard to objectively, you know, rag ChatGPT gue gives a very sensible ranking and then some players, White Howard, A A state, his dad was a state trooper.

He rags very low. Uh, the sons of NBA players ranked very low. Steve nash, uh, suburban family and canada ranks very low at in difficulty of brain.

So I had this great measure of difficult to eve upbringing. And then I tested, does this predict once? Tendency to choke and IT doesn't IT not. And I was able to let out, because I would have been a cool theory if you saw in the data. Ah, the other thing is that in may be realized how dangerous city is to use ChatGPT for research.

Because I really wanted to cheat, I couldn't just kept on asp ChatGPT to give me a new ranking until I A ranking that did predict, uh, choking. So there is A A A definite uh, chat V T. As amazing as IT is as A A objective coder of information, a does allow for a great deal of Cherry picking.

If if you don't .

feel warn buffet .

and poll millsap.

what do they have in common? Yeah, so one of my chapters called what warn buffer in pol milsey having common paul milsey, uh, great N B A player metic multimodal time all star and warm buffet as everyone knows when the greatest investors of all time um what they having common well besides being graded their craft a was they both turned down the opportunity, go to a lead college to go to a college that was less a lead but they felt more capable in so a warned buffett started his uh, colleague career at ward in, you know, one of the great business schools in the world.

And you think someone who dreamed of being a business man since he was the age of five with relish, the opportunity to h go award in to learn from the greatest business professor is to have the all the the great business peers. And buffy t left word in and went to university because you want to be closer to his family. And he thought the libraries were just as good anyway.

And and paul millsap was a top ranter. Rude, got offers from arizona, uh, luiz L L S U. But he decides go to the ousia attack because he felt comfort there was close to his family. And the chapter basically looks at the data on whether IT matter is whether you go to a good college.

So so doesn't matter both in for a career, the great, the great college is that tend to that people go there are some colleges in which people go to to them have way higher, uh, earning. So however, stanford ward in, you know, is that a big advantage? Uh, does IT cause you to do Better, to go to buy these schools.

And then in basketball, there are certain called universities are different universities. But door Caroline that can talk y do U C L A, where, uh, players who go there are way more likely to become N, B, A. players.

So is IT really important to go to want these colleges? And I think the evidence is my really evidence on both the real world and, 呃， the N, B. A. Is that going? These elite colleges gives you an early edge.

So if you go to harvard undergrad, stanford undergrad, I believe another I ve undergrad, you're more likely to get into an a league graduate school, more likely to get that first job at mckinsey or a prestigious firm of google. And in basketball, if you go to do, if you go to north Caroline, if you go to can tucky and more likely be drafted. But if you look at the long term outcome, how good you are as an NBA player, eventually, how much you earn over your career, they don't seem to do that much.

Eventually things kind of even out. And if you know so, they kind of trick people early on. They give a shine to you. If you have that gold plated resume that you went to, this, a leed school, uh, you can trick the world early in your fear, but eventually everything is onna even out.

And that kind of happen to both buffet and no sap where warn buffett got rejected from harvard business school because probably because they're looking at this guy from the braska and like, know, well, we don't want someone from nebraska. We can get someone from ward in or one these other these schools. But I think it's pretty clear in the long run.

H, he wasn't hurt by his nebraska education, you know, became one of the wealthiest men in human history. And similarly, paul and bills sap, uh, fell to the second rounds perhaps because teams are like what we don't trust the guide from the visions attack. But in the long run, he became you know a great N, B, A player and all start N, B, A player. So it's testing that the real world and the M, B, A seem to colleges seem to surface similar function. They give you that early shine, but then they don't seem too much beyond that.

How important is going to college at all?

Well, one thing is very interesting in the data is historically NBA players who didn't go to college, you know, who went straight out of high school massively over performed their drafts by, uh, no, IT was a great bet. Now you have to go to college for a years. You can take advantage of this I inefficiency anymore.

But for many years, IT was an extraordinary idea to draft a player straight out of high school. So kobe, brian, Kevin, guard, dead, uh, recharge, Lewis, numerous players, a mari stata ier just massively outperforms. They are draft. But I think one of the reasons for this, my hypothesis there are many opposite, is for this. But my hypothesis is, if you skipped college and go and straight to the draft, IT was such a bold move.

IT was saying something about yourself, and you do yourself so well, and your capabilities that you do something about yourself that the rest of the world missed, uh, that, uh, what is a huge advantage in being a basic al player? And I think I compare that to the great entrepreneurs. Uh, you know, if you look at the very greatest entrepreneurs, a Steve jobs, bill gates, mark sucker berg, one of many of them having common, they dropped at a school very quickly.

And I think if you looked at these great entrepreneurs on paper, if you looked at soccer, burger and gates, you you say, okay, they went to a good school. They maybe had high test scores, they were interested in computers, but so are lots of people. But the fact that they drop out of school to follow their entrepreneurial spirit, I think IT was another clue that they had something else about themselves that was so remarkable that the another person who had a similar background wanted to stay in school didn't have.

And I think the same in in, among MBA players, that kobe briant do something about himself, a mere jobs in Richards, Lewis. They all do something about themselves, themselves. A, in making that decision to go straight. The N, B, A, uh, that the rest the world didn't know and they there there was just subordinate inefficiency where australia of high school players massively of over perform their dress fut.

Yeah, it's so interesting the, I guess, kind of selection effect of what's going on here, like how much of this is just there's a smaller pool that we're moving from or somebody has A A particular outline which is IT a commonality between all of these different people, right? There's a common thread that goes between them all. And yeah, just ridiculous. Self belief, I suppose, probably correlates with the turn of others. If honestly, self belief might correlates with vio two max, that you, I would totally be open to hearing that, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, zone to threshold and lacked management ability, strongly correlated with self belief.

like I, I told you believe. I think one of the fresh rain things is of writing a book about MBA basketball. When you're an MBA baseball fan as I am, an enormous N B A basketball fan as I am, is IT almost impossible for the book to be finished because of there are a hundred more questions I want to look at.

Based on these these findings like that, I would be fascinating to look at. You know, I don't know there's a way to vega ate, but I i've love to see to look at that and to really understand, uh, why hand size has been undervalued and you know why high school players have over performed at all. These questions are just like you answer one question and if you're a fan of the game, you have ten more questions you want to answer a based on that question. Uh, so I had to remind myself many times in the process around this book that perfect is the enemy of the of the good, and that I had to finish the project at some point.

He mentioned there about the N. B. A draft. And coming from me anglicized colonial british imperial alist background, the idea of a draft for us, we don't have IT in rugby, we don't have IT in cricket, we don't have IT in football. And yet it's so common in american sports.

You know what? How effective is that? Is that? Is that good? Is that a good idea for basketball, at least?

I mean, I think IT evens the playing field for sure. You know there there are some sports where the best teams are just the richest teams. You know the know the whatever team can h spend the most money on, the best players is going to be, the best team, is going to be the best team.

And h that's not really true in basketball. He does sand. And tony was a great team for many decades even though they're in one of the smallest markets.

And i'm a huge nick fan. Uh, we're in the biggest market. You know we should be able to h spend the most on players. We have the biggest you know TV deal and uh and we can't. We've been a finally good again this year, but we were terrible for so long.

And I think the draft does uh you know serve as as as an equalizer, uh, where you know if you do get that number one pic and you are able to uh you know draft a tim duncan a more, you know uh you are gonna potentially have a great team for ten, fifteen years. So IT definitely does serve the purpose of equalizing things. I I would say that IT also is fine.

H, to try to you predict who's going to be a good player. Now the MBA is one of the best leagues at predicting who's gonna be a great player. You know, if you look at uh the top ten N B A players of all time, uh, sixty percent of them, I think we're number one picks. Uh, the number one overall, it's very predictive .

then it's very predictive .

of it's not true in baseball. It's not true in football. The numbers are much lower in those sports. Now of course, there are outliers. So the color joke itch on denver was a sec around pic and he's you know one of the best, if not the best N B A player.

Uh so there are exceptions, but uh you know and there are these inefficiencies as like scores from the book, you know hand sizes and properly take into account. And ah you know another one I talk about is standing leaf versus vertical leap h which is very interesting if you look at when MBA players are participate, the combine where they measured on all these traits, how tall are their wings spend their hand with? Uh, they have, they have to the uh the teams want to see how high they can jump and they give them two test.

Ah the first one is H A standing leap. You stand in place and just, you know without and he head start, see how high you can job and then the second one is a vertical leave. You get a running head start.

It's not a full on you know, the whole court running head start. You get some head start and then see how are you can shop. And of course, with a running head start, everybody can jump higher. And one thing they're very interesting is if you see what predicts block shots or rebounds among basketball players, it's not the vertical leap, the running head start leap.

It's the standing leap because a lot of basketball, you don't get a running at start boxing out of player yeah your boxing out of player and the ball just comes and you jump or guys going through the lane and you just maybe get half a step and leap. So if you actually look at the draft, there's an inefficiency where players who have a great standing leap relative to their vertical leap on their valued and the players who have a great vertical leap relatives to the standing leap are overvalued. And I think the reason for that is, is such a sexy, shiny trade that running heads start if you, you know the people, if you can run the light to the cord, you leave from the freeze or line and dump ed. The ball like that is so such an up, impressive, athletic feet that I think people are blinded, are just like, oh my god, this person has to be amazing, a basketful. It's much sexy than someone who can leap not as high, but higher relative to what you'd expect without a running head starts that an inefficiency .

in the draft. The needs to be A I like coolness modifier for the exercises .

yeah I you again, once you write a book like this, just your minds and your sports fan. I'm just a fan of all sports. My mind just starts racing. He does this play out in other sports, know our cool traits to overvalued .

ed above bet pitch speed, like average pitch speed in baseball, is something that is very, very highly prioritized. You know, if you're regularly able to hit three figures throughout multiple innings, uh, it's just the whole crowd when they see that one zero zero zero zero like, oh like the whole crowd makes noise, right? So like, but is that is that the best? I mean, this I I believe .

IT and yeah I believe IT in in football, our our football, american football in the speed of a player relative of such a wide receiver, relative to running good routes, a player is just has an incredible 4r dash， you know four to five, four, three no, it's so impressive, so exciting. Um I think they tend to be drafted maybe higher than they should be relative to someone who runs a four, four five, four five. But you really precise on those routes like I just not that exciting uh but IT is more important yeah you could why I go through lots of sports, uh, where the sexy trades are overvalued .

does a really cool youtube video by total running productions about subchapter. So he is the fourteen fastest sprinter in the world, but he's the only he might be the only non black sprinter in the top. The top quite a lot, but he's the only the asian sprinter in the top two hundred or something. And the guys five.

eight.

I think private five, nine. And when he ran at the tokyo twenty one semi finals, his hundred meter time I think came in at like nine point eight, nine, eight won or something. But he broke the world record for the forty metre and the sixty meter in the hundred meter.

So this guy is like, it's the video that talking about you. I'll send you. You once were done. It's so good to and you see this this dude who can't get below ten seconds can't get up below ten second. Just is this the theoretical limit for asian sprinters? And he changes his starting foot and rebuilds his winning rythm from the ground up, you know, when he's been doing this for a two decades or something and it's just it's a taught is like my favorite is one of my favorite track and fill guys now is short chinese dude who's just the the acceleration of him is so insane, crazy.

I think I think one of things you seen in all sports of these these players that just are so good at making themselves Better throughout their career and talk about wide receivers. Jerry rice, the greatest wide receiver of all time. Um he didn't have the greatest natural gifts.

No, he wasn't the fastest. He's not the tallest, but he just would improve every year and just saw such dedication to his craft. Your tiny improvement in such a focus know the reality is running.

And you know if you think of basketball coli lander, I think it's that profile as well. Maybe not the most naturally gifted uh player but just year after year, improving paying attended to every subtle little thing. You know that how to rebound Better put play the angles of the of the rain Better. And I think IT is fun.

Uh, to watch these players, uh, even in anyway, is more fun than watching the natural gifted, you know the most naturally gifted players who may be don't have to put in quite the effort and there they can frustrate you on, uh, he was, he was interviewed and they said, phil jacks in your coach said that if you just practice hard, you could have been MVP ten years straight and you think should kill and deal would be outraged at this statement. You know, how could someone say that? And he basically admitted that this was true.

Uh, he's like, yeah, I didn't love practice ying. I'd like, uh, my cheeseburgers in the offsets in and but he was just so gifted. You combine that height with that, uh, you know that that foot speed and that letter ism IT just did matter.

But you know, a shack is a little frustrated. You know, if I were a lakers fan, I be so frustrate. Like, why can you just learn that a shoot free throws for get like where is you know some of these players, the real craft man who uh just cod sly are improving and upping their game year after year? Working at IT can be really.

really fun to watch. What have you come to believe? Or what are the insights about the role of hard work in achieving goals?

I think IT depends so much on the pursuit of everything .

that isn't basketball or .

volleyball yeah mean that you have five, nine and you have small hands and your slow and you can jump fly. There is nothing. You got no chance, uh, you know, you can work as hard as as you want.

It's not gonna help but I would say basketball because it's so dependent on so many traits that are so genetic such as high um I think hard work IT moves the needle little bit and I think you Michael, there's a Michael Jordan n is consider the greatest of all time and jack is in probably in large part because Michael Jordan outward shack and you know of shacked outward, Michael. I think shack would be the player that number one in everyone's mind as the quint essential baseball player. Uh but so I think hard work I can take you uh you know from checked M J, but it's not going to take you from seh to shake.

Or you know this is that there's you're moving in the need of a little bit but not that much in bacco. But there is other pursuits where, uh, hard work maybe matter is more uh and I always suggest if you're not genetically gifted, you know there are sub sports a question and riding or skin or you there are certain sports where I think you really can improve your craft. You can boot the needle a lot more for your hard work than you can in a sport like basketball. Is spring thing or something?

All right? So we kind of flood IT around IT. And some of the people who don't know or didn't listen to our previous episodes, realized that your next date of scientists from google, and then you've written all of these foments books, which I love, why you know so much about basketball, like why, who were you to write this book, and how do you it's happened to have this, like psychologic X A vision to be able to see what's going on inside of the world of basketball.

Ah so well, first all, i'm an enormous basketball fan. I have been since I was a little boy. I don't think I could have read in uh a book of, you know uh H A book like this of who becomes the best figure skater in the world, who becomes the best Opera figure because I definitely was relied pretty heavily on uh, knowledge I have from uh three decades as a uh A A passionate fandom of basketball.

But this book um I used a new tool um that I have become obsessed with uh IT was initially called code interpreter, is now called data analysis. It's from ChatGPT and is basically a way to do data analysis that is just completely revolutionized my workroom am I like IT? I say it's the most amazing product of everything I always need to offer the cavy at.

I have zero affiliation with with OpenAII f eel l ike w hat I s ay t his. I sounds like i'm a spokesman for their no pitchmen for their products. I am not associated with open a ee at all, but IT basic a data analysis code, what was raising called code interpreter IT writes all your data analysis, your data science code for you, and runs IT.

And IT is just such a game changer that things that used to take me four months now literally take me four hours, or sometimes less. That is just so scraping data sets, cleaning data sets, merging data sets, running regressions, making charts. IT is the most insane product i've ever seen. And so this book was just like riding in like an explosion of just data analysis, in like a shockingly short time or just all day running code interpreter analysis of basketball. And I was having the time, my life, and just like just so quickly producing these charts, produce these analysis. I think this book, uh, we've been a project of many, many years, uh, without code interpreter and with code interpreter, a project that took basically thirty days uh which I I initially I was really proud of but now people are like, well, do I want to read a book that only took you thirty days? I like but I really .

there's a really famous um the the lecture I guess this guy .

is a .

clip from of what looks like a marketing class or sales class perhaps or something and he says how much you pay me if you wanted me to design your new logo and the guy says I pay a thousand dollars goes, okay and how much would you pay me if I was able to design IT in thirty minutes so what I pay you you know like five hundred dollars. He's like having a second so you more quickly yeah but you want to pay less because you think that the amount of time is indicated of the amount of effort, which is indicated of the amount of quality?

Yes, IT was interesting. So initially, the first version of who makes the N B A I one of the marketing hooks? I like, look, I wrote this book and thirty days, and I also show at the end I this is how I did IT this, how I used, uh, ChatGPT to do all analysis, not to do the writing, the writing I did all myself.

But to do the analysis ought to make the art. All the art is AI generated from my journal, delhi. You know, here's what i've learned along the way in write this book.

And a few people were like, exactly like this guy said, like, well, we do. I don't want to read a book in your thirty day vanity project. So now i've told that down. I've said more that I also show you how to use A I I deemphasizing the actual time, uh, that I used.

But I think that's just unfair to just how revolutionary ChatGPT is that prior to the existence of code interpreter, if I said, uh, I wrote a book on N B A basketball in thirty days, I think people would correctly say this a piece of crap in a safe vanity project that I don't want anything to do with this. But I think because of code interpreter, because of my journey, because of daily, because of ChatGPT, you can write a book in thirty days that is a real treaties on basketball with new insights on the game, you know many answers to previously on answer questions. I think you will don't realize just how revolutionary AI is for the creative process that the rules of how long something should take uh, no, over the last year have completely changed.

It's very interesting. It's very interesting to think that you've got it's like arbitral ink between time spent and equality IT would be like if you said, um here's some button but I turned IT myself like with my feet or something oh, I very much appreciate the fact that you went through all of that effort to give me this button. You are okay.

And then that book that you see that in front of you IT was actually written by hand. It's it's a hunt written book and then the all of the pages a kind of stitch zone together. But you know like technological progress, people are very typically there's A A lot of inertia to people being dragged along. And yeah interest demand very, very interesting.

I suppose what was seeing here is just like leverage at such an insane level of matured that your ability to manipulate ChatGPT and data analyzer and to be able to spit out what you needed and then to be able to put IT together and then to be able to use ChatGPT to be able to prove with the word so that there wasn't any errors in IT like that is it's taking a skill set but leveraging IT so much way more than even something like wikipedia word process I could do um so yeah people are just not not ready for this level of exponential. Dude, I appreciate you. I think you've smash IT with the book and really impressed you say the beginning you make a joke. You're onna try and write a hundred books that is a joke, right? You're not going to to do a hundred.

I don't know. I might i'll see i'm trying to work on the motivation of this book like i'm trying to figure out I like yeah exactly how to if I get the modification right because I also self publish this book like all the publishers are just like we don't know what to do with your weird thirty day projects like that's not publishers move very, very a slowly. So no publisher would really touch this, some kind of figure out the about IT.

If I got the modernization right, I would right, I would just keep doing IT, because your thing is, this was the best month of my life, but nine and IT was so fun, in part because I was writing about, uh, you, the NBA. I'm a huge basketball fan, of course, that's gonna fun for someone like me, but in part because one thing I found is A, I just does so many other things I freak hate doing. So, you know, I want of a data scientist.

Da, analysts, like a lot of data scientist at analysis, is not particularly fine. Uh, you know, uh, for me, writing code, clean debugging code. H, you know, looking up code, uh, you figure out exactly how to add something to a chart in this way is just, you know, mind damming a lot of IT.

And in this project that was all gone, like all I did was come up with ideas. And i'm just like, here, da analysts do IT for me and I was just awesome. IT was so fun. So it's just like, IT was the most fun one I had of my life. So, you know, if I can get the minions ation right on the put on the on this, then i'm just, yeah, i'm going bring .

those together about a decade of the most fun months of your life, back to back to back.

Yeah no, I said, I have a baseball book out by opening day. Then I have an a olympics book for the by the summer that I have an fl back for for the started at season. I just keep on go. And I would just be the most found, yeah, the most fun months of my life. So yeah.

yeah, I appreciate you. I look forward to seeing what you do next to bring you back on this, to have this chap one more time.

great. Thanks much for me. Congrats on the success of this podcast. It's been you. I remember when you first reached out to me to talk about my first book, everybody lies.

And I I think I looked you up and you're like a tupid podcast like but i'm like, yeah I seems like a nice guy. I'll do this this little podcast. And to see you go into the strategy sphere has been a true joy and very well deserved because you have worked really hard for IT.

Thank you, mom. I really appreciate that. I really, really do, until next time, make a catulle on.

Thanks, circus.