Comments on: The Peculiar Economy of the NBA: How Would We Act If Money Were Emptied Of Value?

By: Mr. Right-Click

Mr. Right-Click — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:51:27 +0000

First off, Karl Marx could not go to his left. Or shoot free throws, literally, because he believed such “charity” was de classe. I loved this post and thought it was right on. This hear the salary cap is going to go down for the first time and we’ll see many of the things you wrote about come to pass with more frequency and ferocity. Now if the Lakers can just resign Trevor and Lamar…

By: Kerry

Kerry — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:58:20 +0000

Okay, most of that went over my head, because HELLO IT’S FREAKIN’ BASEBALL SEASON and BASKETBALL IS OVER. When you are ready to talk about the Twins, I’ll be right here.

Towards the end I perked up, though, because it’s interesting to consider this from an HR perspective. When you’re recruiting high-level people (i.e. people whose salaries already more than cover basic needs and quite a few luxuries), a lot of these issues come into play. For some, it’s still all about the salary (and those tend to be the worst candidates, interestingly…it’s better to want different things than more and more of the same, in my experience). For others, it’s quality of life, going home at 6pm, etc. For some, it’s the corporate equivalents of championship rings (like, “We’re looking to acquire” or “We’re looking to drive AirTran out of Milwaukee” or whatever). You have to figure out what the thing of value is for that candidate, and then find a way to deliver it. The fun of recruiting is the first part, because “value” is so different for different people.

By: anna

anna — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:59:05 +0000

@QB, I did read that article–AKD, one of my friends from HS, sent it to me. It was a really good article and very interesting to read in light of what real sports people think about it. The thing with sports commentary is that there’s a divide between people who played the sport and people who just watch it/analyze it. The players are less likely to put stock in theories like the ones they talked about with Battier, and they tend to be overall pretty dismissive of that kind of analysis.

But the interesting thing about it was that when the Lakers played Houston this year in the Playoffs, that was by far the hardest series for them to win, even when Yao Ming had to sit out the last few games. And I think it’s really hard to deny that Battier was a factor in those games. He didn’t totally shut Kobe down, but he for sure guarded him the best out of anyone in the entire post season.

By: QB

QB — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:36:29 +0000

Did you read the article in the NYT Magazine several months ago about Shane Battier? Basically, Shane Battier is a player that doesn’t have the stats that people care about- points, free throws, but when number-crunchers analyze the states, other players (including Kobe) get noticably worse when Battier is on the court, and it turns out that he is a crucial element in preventing the other team from scoring. The folks who study Battier’s stats are part of a movement to try to bring Moneyball-esque stats analysis to basketball. (if you haven’t read Moneyball, I highly recommend it, btw., you don’t have to know anything about baseball or even like it to appreciate the book)