Basketball is Like Biology

Note: This was originally posted on my old blog on Thursday, July 23, 2009.

I love basketball and I hate biology. Those are just two constants of my life. I’m always in the mood to play basketball. I have vivid memories of the one time in my life that I turned down that opportunity. But biology, I run from it like the plague. I didn’t even try to take the AP Biology exam even after taking (or rather, being forced to take) regular and AP Biology in high school. If you asked me what my favorite hobby was, I would say basketball without any hesitation. And if you asked me what my least favorite subject in school was, the first word out of my mouth would be biology. These two things could not be any more different. Basketball is my passion and biology is my nemesis. I mean I love basketball and I hate biology.

Or at least that’s what I thought. 
But of course I had to go and think about it and what do you know I come up with this serendipitously alliterated analogy: “Basketball is like biology.” Basketball is like biology. Yeah, not “Basketball is the opposite of biology.” Or “Basketball is way better than biology.” But rather “Basketball is like biology.”

I think I’ve got some explaining to do.

So here goes.

I don't pretend to know much about biology, but if I remember correctly from my high school biology class, all living things are classified into kingdoms, phylums, classes, orders, families, genuses, and species (OK, so I didn't actually remember all that from high school--Wikipedia may have been involved) based on the various characteristics they possess. Some things have this and not that; others have that and not this. You get the idea.

Basketball players are the same way. At the kingdom level of basketball, we classify players based on really basic things. For example, we might classify them by height or position. So there might be the point guard kingdom, the shooting guard kingdom, etc. Then as we move down to phylums, classes, and orders we might start classifying them by more specific things like can they shoot 3's or can they play good defense. And as we move even farther down into families and genuses we might classify players on very specific things like whether they can guard quick players at their position, or whether they can shoot well from a particular spot. Eventually we get to the most specific level, the species, where we hopefully can get a very specific description of a certain player's characteristics.

Basketball is like biology in other ways too. While many think living things evolve over the course of thousands or millions of years, basketball players (especially young players) can evolve over the course of a few weeks or months. They can develop new skills with some good coaching and lots of practice. Also like living things, basketball players are affected by their surroundings. A simple example of this is the player who may be a good scorer but is on a team with a bunch of great scorers. In order to survive (help the team win, get playing time) this player may have to change his focus from scoring to distributing. As a result, he becomes (at least for this team) a better passer and a worse scorer. Sure sounds like survival of the fittest and evolution to me.

Besides just being another attempt to make sense of an aspect of the great game of basketball, this analogy should also help to shed some light on the difference between the casual fan and an NBA scout or GM. Casual fans see basketball at the class or order level. They might see a player as being good at shooting, but bad at defense. Or maybe even more specific, like good at distributing the ball, but bad at rebounding. An NBA scout, on the other hand, sees basketball at the genus and species levels. Their job is to know everything about certain players. They don't think as much about really general things like whether a certain player can shoot or not, but rather whether that player can shoot from the corner off the catch, or drive and finish at the rim with their left hand, etc. The ability to distinguish Toxicodendron radicans from Toxicodendron diversilobum is what separates a good biologist from a weekend hiker. Similarly, the ability to recognize that a player is a much better shooter coming off of pin-down screens than he is spotting up in the corner is what separates NBA coaches and scouts from casual fans.

This analogy can also be helpful in explaining the roles of different people who are involved in basketball. In the NBA, it is the scout's job to know players at the species level. They should know what players can and can't do (or as is often the case, what a player will hopefully be able to do one day, and what a player will probably never be able to do). The coaches of the team are the ones who put the players in positions to succeed based on their characteristics. The coaches also know how these individual characteristics translate into team characteristics. This sounds kind of like the role of a gardener to me. They have to know which plants can grow where and how those plants interact with each other. The GM should then be the one who studies his players' and team's characteristics (with help from the coaches), and the characteristics of all of the players who aren't on his team (with help from the scouts) with the intent of finding the best possible combination of players. This may be analogous to some sort of ecologist who studies how ecosystems function.

Anyway, when you think of a GM as being like someone who plans ecosystems that will function well (sounds like God to me) you begin to understand how difficult being a GM is, or would seem to be. I've never been a part of an NBA front office, so I can't say this for sure, but looking in from the outside it's hard to imagine that all or even most front offices look at players at this almost theoretical species level. Although I obviously think that front offices know more about basketball and basketball players than you or I, I don't think they have yet reached the ceiling of what they can know about players. I don’t think they look at basketball and its players at the species level. And this, I think, is where the statistical revolution comes in. GM's like Daryl Morey are daring to study players at the species level and then make decisions based on these observations. What's unfortunate (or maybe wonderful) about basketball is that you can never know for sure whether you are absolutely right or not. There are so many millions of variables that being able to know about and control a few dozen is relatively unimportant. Maybe GM's up to this point have just been getting lucky when they produce a good team (I mean somebody has to win). They didn't really know what they were doing. Ironically, this unsurety is what always frustrated me about biology. There were always exceptions and inconsistencies, and areas where science was still unsure. Now apparently basketball is the same way. So I guess I’m a hypocrite. I actually love basketball and biology. (Or do I hate them both?).