NBA 2012

[Big Wheel]

This sort of thing -- the will to win, if you want, or imposing your will on your opponent -- has something to do with winning and losing, me thinks. You hear athletes and coaches talk about it all the time. It must mean something.

A dangerous line of thinking. I hear athletes and coaches talk all the time about how Jesus Christ must have intervened in the outcome of games as a result of their unwavering faith in him; does the fact that they talk about it all the time mean there must be something to their idea?

The "will to win" fallacy also runs rampant in bad scholarship around military issues. Here's IR scholar Robert Farley:

Will provides a simple, easy to understand, and utterly non-quantifiable explanation for outcomes. Lazy arguments will always be more popular than complex arguments. Second, the idea that Will is determinative of outcomes fits easily into a set of pop culture notions about success and victory. Finally, Will is compatible with a masculinist notions of conflict, combat, and victory that have roots in fascist thought.

It is common to hear the refrain, especially in wingnutty circles, that no war has ever been won by a country that lacked Will. Why did the French lose? Not because of insufficient doctrine or poor organization or poor intelligence, but because they lacked Will. Why did the Athenians lose? Because they lacked the Will to do what was necessary on Sicily. What must we do to win in Iraq? Demonstrate our Will. It’s fair to say that this is an explanation for victory and defeat that is wholly immune to any evidentiary evaluation. There is, simply put, no way to measure national Will. The explanation ends up being circular, as defeat demonstrates that a country lacks Will. It is simple, easy, unverifiable, and unfalsifiable.

Interesting, although whatever its motivations, this doesn't argue that Will doesn't exist (or, by extension, that it plays no role in outcomes). It simply questions whether A) Will can by itself determine or explain an outcome, and B) what is the moral/ethical basis of Will (in some instances), I suppose.

No, it's closer to arguing that will doesn't exist. Farley is saying that from an analytical perspective, Will is the same kind of thing as the beliefs that define religions. You can't sense it, measure it, or even clearly define it. We can't say for sure it doesn't exist, just like we can't say for sure that an omnipotent supreme being assumed to be capable of hiding himself anytime he wants doesn't exist. But we can say that attempting to base any serious causal discussion of real-world events on it is going to be a pointless exercise. If we can't agree on what it is, who has it, exactly what it does or how you get more of it and so on and so forth, then it's a useless descriptive concept regardless of whether it really exists or not.

[papsrus]

... Farley is saying that from an analytical perspective, Will is the same kind of thing as the beliefs that define religions. You can't sense it, measure it, or even clearly define it. ...

There are myriad human characteristics that cannot be scientifically measured. Doesn't mean they don't exist.

What Cuban said was that this murky thing called 'will,' or 'desire' or 'wanting it more than the other guy' plays no role at all in the outcome of a contest. In fact, his argument was not that 'will' was not present. His argument was that it was present but was not a factor because everyone on the court had it in the same degree. (Apparently he can measure it). And so, because everyone had the same degree of desire, the same will to win, the outcome of a contest boiled down to X's and O's and execution.

While X's and O's and the ability to execute are important, paramount even, dismissing the competitive spirit, the will of an athlete to overcome obstacles as a non-factor reduces athletic competition to a kind of robotic exercise. And it would lead you to believe that the so-called underdog could never defeat a superior opponent with a superior strategy. We know that's not the case.

[Noj]

I think you guys have done a great job chopping to the meat of this thing, but what I loved about this is Cuban confronted that TMZ-level chatterbox blowhard Bayless with actual X & O insight and he didn't have much of a comeback.

There's a balance between emotion and execution, and the guys who spend more time speculating about the emotional aspect really aren't all that interesting to listen to as far as I'm concerned. Bayless and others overanalyzed LeBron's psyche (Bayless has been extremely critical of James, as I understand it) and were extremely critical of James as a person. So as much as I wanted to see the Heat lose it's great that LeBron (who is the best basketball player in the world) gave Skippy a big shitburger to eat, and Cuban added insult to injury.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Noj

[Big Wheel]

... Farley is saying that from an analytical perspective, Will is the same kind of thing as the beliefs that define religions. You can't sense it, measure it, or even clearly define it. ...

There are myriad human characteristics that cannot be scientifically measured. Doesn't mean they don't exist.

I think what you're missing here is that there's a difference between things we haven't figured out how to measure yet and things that are definitionally circular and thus unfalsifiable, things that are by their posited nature impossible to measure. Will theorists roughly define will as "this thing people have, when they want to/need to win more than anyone else, which then causes them to win." How do we know when someone has more will? "Well, that's easy, though there's really only one surefire test. I just said that will causes people to win. So all you have to do is just look at who won!" Kind of like saying "hey look, I just wrote a book that says the world was created by the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man in 6 days (he rested on the 7th). Don't worry, skeptics - we know this account to be true because it's in the book I just wrote!"

What Cuban said was that this murky thing called 'will,' or 'desire' or 'wanting it more than the other guy' plays no role at all in the outcome of a contest. In fact, his argument was not that 'will' was not present. His argument was that it was present but was not a factor because everyone on the court had it in the same degree. (Apparently he can measure it). And so, because everyone had the same degree of desire, the same will to win, the outcome of a contest boiled down to X's and O's and execution.

You could rephrase Cuban's point this way: Assuming this whole will thing is real, then every single competition boils down to the following: Kevin Durant says he wants to win more than anyone else out there. LeBron James says...the same exact thing. As only one of them can win, one of the following must be the case:

a) one of them is lying and knows he doesn't REALLY REALLY want to win that badly;

b) neither of them is "lying", exactly, but one of them simply doesn't know that he actually wants to win less than the other guy does.

This framework has a certain seductive appeal to the human psyche. We've all been in situations where we felt some doubt about our own motivation or when we felt no doubt but were bested anyway at whatever we were trying to accomplish. We struggle to put our finger on whatever it was that we didn't do right, can't think of where we went wrong, which makes us feel doubt about our abilities, so....we turn on the doubts themselves. It's gotta be Will. Will allows us a cop-out, a way we can resolve the dissonance caused by the combination of 1) the doubt that comes from failure and 2) our original belief that our plan to succeed was pretty good. Clearly we must fix the part of our minds that leads to those nagging doubts and weaknesses... those lead to more failure! Or to quote Farley:

We win by being tougher. This is an emotionally satisfying, if empirically uncompelling, argument.

etc.

While X's and O's and the ability to execute are important, paramount even, dismissing the competitive spirit, the will of an athlete to overcome obstacles as a non-factor reduces athletic competition to a kind of robotic exercise. And it would lead you to believe that the so-called underdog could never defeat a superior opponent with a superior strategy. We know that's not the case.

I don't think this holds water. For one thing, playing sports comes with an acceptance of randomness. Luck happens. Sometimes that grounder hits a pebble in the infield and takes a bad hop, or the ball ricochets straight into Franco Harris's hands. Sometimes the other guy cramps while going up for a layup. And so on, down to even more mundane instances of randomness.

Each basketball team gets about 100 possessions in every game. Average field goal percentage is about 45%. 45 shots go into the basket every night. But there will be deviations from this from night to night that don't necessarily have anything to do with the quality of defense. Sometimes only 43 shots go in. Sometimes 50 go in. It would be really bizarre if 90 or 4 went in, but as long as the number stays within the typical standard deviation around 45%, it's pretty much expected. But of course, changing that 45 to 42 or 47 can decide a non-trivial percentage of games. The point of being a coach is to maximize the chance that your team will hit their 47 while also doing stuff to try and push the other team's number down. This is sound strategy, but it's not going to work 100.0% of the time. Some nights Norris Fucking Cole comes off the bench and starts drilling 26-footers with a hand in his face even though he only typically makes 15% of contested shots from that distance.

All this is to say that I think that saying this "will" thing is what ultimately decides games is actually more deterministic/fatalistic than focusing exclusively on skills, strategy, execution, and the like. If those who win invariably have more will, and will's something that we don't know how to understand or control, it just kinda happens to you, like maybe if you lost the year before or your grandpa died tragically right before the game or you just have midi-chlorians in your bloodstream or whatever... then that's pretty much akin to saying that your winning ability is a prisoner that's entirely controlled by your experiences. Not just the experiences that prevent you from working up enough will but also the experiences that juice you full of will. You only got the will in the first place because you didn't have enough will before! Or something. The San Antonio Spurs thus present an interesting case: oscillating will. In 2003, 2005, and 2007 it appears they had the will. Perhaps Tim Duncan's will disappears after each championship, only to return again the following offseason after being sent packing early.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Big Wheel

[Soulstation1]

I heard the Heat parade route is going up through Akron and Cleveland and back down to Miami

[papsrus]

It's a terrible, heavy, rainy Sunday, but I think I can muster the will to address a couple of the things you've brought up.

... How do we know when someone has more will? "Well, that's easy, though there's really only one surefire test. I just said that will causes people to win. So all you have to do is just look at who won!"

I don't think this is the argument anyone is making: that will alone is what determines the outcome of an athletic contest.

What I am saying is that I believe Cuban is incorrect to dismiss the human spirit -- the will to win -- as having no impact at all on the course of an athletic competition.

What if a guy goes back into a game with severe leg cramps and drains a pivotal 3-pointer? Is this person's desire to overcome the obvious pain and resulting physical limitation in order to try to play a key role in the outcome of a game a measurable event?

The outcome (a made 3-pointer) is not guaranteed, so the outcome isn't necessarily the measure at all. Nor is victory. The will to overcome the pain in order to play and try to affect the outcome of a game may be the better measure.

There are many examples of athletes who have exhibited great desire to overcome physical limitations but failed to win in the end. That they ultimately failed doesn't diminish the fact that they exhibited an extraordinary will to try to achieve something.

Kind of like saying "hey look, I just wrote a book that says the world was created by the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man in 6 days (he rested on the 7th). Don't worry, skeptics - we know this account to be true because it's in the book I just wrote!"

I don't get the parallel here at all.

... Or to quote Farley:

We win by being tougher. This is an emotionally satisfying, if empirically uncompelling, argument.

See the above example of playing with leg cramps -- a measurable (certainly observable) event. There are a ton of other examples of athletes overcoming physical obstacles that might defeat another person. What makes one person overcome these obstacles when others are defeated by it?

... All this is to say that I think that saying this "will" thing is what ultimately decides games is actually more deterministic/fatalistic than focusing exclusively on skills, strategy, execution, and the like. ...

I can only re-emphasize that I don't think anyone is saying 'will' alone is what ultimately decides a game. Only that it shouldn't be dismissed as having no impact at all, as Cuban did.

Edited June 24, 2012 by papsrus

[JSngry]

Will to overcome leg cramps will only work if the leg cramps are willing to yield.

Do leg cramps have a will of their own that can be broken, or is it just a matter of them not being as strong as their possessor might first think?

Maybe what we're describing as "will" is really just the willingness to raise the ceiling in the ongoing test of ability vs circumstance. In almost all such tests, there is a chance of success and a chance of failure. At some point, randomness of outcome becomes a factor, and "will" recedes to being nothing more - or less - that a willingness to engage in an "advanced" test. I don't see any way, though, that "will" itself can be seen as the actual cause of an outcome (unless we have the ability to send out Magic Mojo Hoodoo Waves from out gut that alter the laws of motion and some such). It's just what got you to the place to have a chance.

I'd not downplay the will-factor when it comes to "getting there" in terms of motivation, but actual outcome once there? I don't think so...

[papsrus]

I agree that will alone does not cause the outcome. But if will is, as you say, "raising the ceiling in the ongoing test of ability vs. circumstance," then it has to have some impact on an athlete's performance. In a sense, how far he or she is willing to go in that test defines the performance.

Like the boxer who gets back up and charges to the center of the ring in the 12th round after being knocked silly for the previous 11 rounds. He may not win, but he is demonstrating a will to compete despite being overwhelmed by a superior opponent.

The fighter who says "no mas," on the other hand, seems to me to be demonstrating a lack of will in the face of similar odds.

The outcomes are the same for each -- a loss. The will demonstrated in their performances are quite different.

[Soulstation1]

[Soulstation1]

Not sure what I like best on clip above

David Stern

Delonte West

Chris Bosh with cowboy hat

[Big Wheel]

I agree that will alone does not cause the outcome. But if will is, as you say, "raising the ceiling in the ongoing test of ability vs. circumstance," then it has to have some impact on an athlete's performance. In a sense, how far he or she is willing to go in that test defines the performance.

Like the boxer who gets back up and charges to the center of the ring in the 12th round after being knocked silly for the previous 11 rounds. He may not win, but he is demonstrating a will to compete despite being overwhelmed by a superior opponent.

The fighter who says "no mas," on the other hand, seems to me to be demonstrating a lack of will in the face of similar odds.

The outcomes are the same for each -- a loss. The will demonstrated in their performances are quite different.

I don't think that's really an accurate representation of Will theory. Nobody denies that there's such a thing as playing hard or stamina (both the physical and mental variety). I can tell the difference between a defense that's loafing and one that's playing hard. But Will Theorists have exalted mental stamina - an internal mental state that we have no way of measuring ex ante - into this thing that is declared to often be a tremendously influential factor on outcomes in contests. I'm pretty sure that Kevin Durant's and Russell Westbrook's stamina had virtually nothing to do with the Thunder's loss.

Likewise if you watch game 7 again of Heat-Celts 2012, a Will theorist would speculate that the Celtics ran out of mental Will in the 4th quarter and were thus no match for the Will of LeBron James. Whereas to anyone who followed the series it's pretty clear that the reason the Celtics eventually let the game slip away was that Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett were on the verge of physical collapse after playing 40+ minutes and no amount of bending their own minds would have made their legs obey them to do what was necessary to win the game. If you want to claim that Will might have made them train harder to prevent that collapse or that Will was what made Mario Chalmers concentrate better this year and not make so many maddening turnovers, so be it. But do that and Will becomes such a general concept as to be meaningless. If every decision and action can be reduced to the product of Will, then Will just becomes synonymous with doing the concrete stuff you need to do to improve your performance, like improving your physical condition, skills, strategy, or concentration.

Edited June 25, 2012 by Big Wheel

[ejp626]

I'm not entirely sure where I fall here. No question that talent and good coaching will typically overcome "will" alone. Yet strong enough will power will cause a good player to work hard and become an elite one (probably). However, I do wonder how evenly mental toughness is spread through the elite teams. I would imagine on the top teams, there are one or two players with intense will-power/heart/what have you and the rest of the team are along for the ride. Mediocre teams don't have anyone with that drive.

Anyone looking at the Bulls for instance senses that Boozer, in particular, is just along for the ride. And he is far from the worst if you look across the NBA.

Anyway, by the time you get to the Finals, then there should be several players on each side that want it just as badly, and thus Cuban's conditions apply.

[JSngry]

The big problem I have with "will" is simple - what if one has all the will in the world but not all the means? Can somebody just will their body into having faster reflexes, etc? At some point you hit a wall, and unless we are all physical specimens of our own making, that wall is going to be further on up the road for some than it is for others. So, although I certainly believe in strength of will/character/etc/whatever (and am a big fan thereof), to frame human endeavor primarily in terms of "who wants it more" is just some kinda teenagey emo crap afaic, more suitable for stimulating Pavlovian anti-thought than it is serious consideration of everything that makes us who/what we are.

I've known Skip's work since the early 1980s and once upon a time, he used to know where the line was. But that was a long time ago, and he's long since turned into a ignunt ass manbitch. So really, fuck skip Bayless, and Mark Cuban, we might yet be able to do business again. Not right away, but some day.

Maybe.

[Bright Moments]

miami will win tonight!

and tonight!!

and tonight!!!!!

:excited:

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok, you were right!

See you at the parade!!!!!

:excited:

[Noj]

Boooo.

[Quincy]

Anyway, by the time you get to the Finals, then there should be several players on each side that want it just as badly, and thus Cuban's conditions apply.

And that's what was missed earlier. Cuban said "by the time you get to this point (the finals)..." early on in the exchange with Bayless. He had to cut Lamar Odom this year, so he's very much aware that the emotional and mental makeup of a player is important too.

[papsrus]

ESPN: Ray Allen interested in joining the Heat?

[Soulstation1]

When you have won the championship vets will play cheap for a shot at a ring

Watch the Heat get a solid bench for next season

[Bright Moments]

Boooo.

aw jon - don't be a hater!!!!!!!!!!

ESPN: Ray Allen interested in joining the Heat?

a welcome addition particularly when considering that miller is having (career ending?) back surgery in the off-season.

[BruceW]

Boooo.

aw jon - don't be a hater!!!!!!!!!!

ESPN: Ray Allen interested in joining the Heat?

a welcome addition particularly when considering that miller is having (career ending?) back surgery in the off-season.

Wouldn't Heat be looking for a bigger body to replace Miller, not a guard?

[Soulstation1]

Larry Bird leaving the Pacers

[Bright Moments]

Boooo.

aw jon - don't be a hater!!!!!!!!!!

ESPN: Ray Allen interested in joining the Heat?

a welcome addition particularly when considering that miller is having (career ending?) back surgery in the off-season.

Wouldn't Heat be looking for a bigger body to replace Miller, not a guard?

this is a good point - but i think if Ray is available the heat won't pass him up!

[papsrus]

Larry Bird leaving the Pacers

Making a comeback with the Heat?

[BruceW]

Boooo.

aw jon - don't be a hater!!!!!!!!!!

ESPN: Ray Allen interested in joining the Heat?

a welcome addition particularly when considering that miller is having (career ending?) back surgery in the off-season.

Wouldn't Heat be looking for a bigger body to replace Miller, not a guard?

this is a good point - but i think if Ray is available the heat won't pass him up!

The only thing is, is that they don't need Ray (Heat has Lebron, Wade, Charlmers and Battiea to hit 3's) and if Ray still has that much left in the tank, the Celtics will keep him. If Ray is a free agent, then who is going to pay the money he would require for an aging guard?? Not the Heat, they are winning now. They don't need an aging veteran, they have young talent on the way up to groom with their present winning team.

[Soulstation1]

Steve Nash might be heading to Miami