Month: February 2024

Five Versus Two Basketball Match … With a Twist

If you read my past passion blog, you would know that my friends and I love hypotheticals. Lately, me and my friends, who we will call Bob, Braxton, and Emmerson, have been enjoying playing basketball. One day, we walked into the glorious White building to hoop, when we saw guys taking up both courts. We asked if we could play with them, but as it turns out, they were Penn State’s Men’s club basketball team. Lucky for us, they told us they only had twenty more minutes. We all decided to stay and watch until they finished up. Watching them play, it was clear that club basketball was no joke. Most of these guys would likely be starting at a D3 school. This is likely due to how large our school is, increasing the talent pool. As the guys were finishing up, I asked my friends an interesting hypothetical: could the best five guys on the club team beat the best two NBA players?

Having been the one who came up with this question, I took the side of the five club players. To my surprise, all three of my friends took the opposite side. They all quickly came to the conclusion that the two NBA players would win. Here was my argument:

  1. The club players showed great talent and awareness. They certainly are nothing compared to an NBA player, but they can make most open shots and execute the fundamentals very well.
  2. There are five of them, compared to only two NBA players. This means that three players should always be open. With basic ball movement, they should always get an open shot attempt.
  3. Each NBA player will be double or triple teamed. Even though the defense will be subpar compared to what they are used to, every shot they put up will be at least partially contested.

My friends gave the following counter points:

  1. NBA players can make contested shots at a higher rate than the club players can make wide open.
  2. NBA players have an extreme height advantage on the club players. This makes double and triple teaming effectively useless.
  3. The NBA players can stand in a formation (1-1) that will not allow the club players to ever take a solid midrange. This means they will need to shoot mostly three-pointers, which are shots that have a low rate of success.

 

This debate went back and forth for the entire two hours we played basketball. After all, there was no real evidence to back either of our claims. It was a purely emotional argument, and unless either side could give some solid evidence, no one would emerge victorious. I would only admit defeat once going back to my room, where Braxton would show me a video that completely changed my mind.

You see, a clear flaw in my argument was stating that the best two NBA players would lose to the best five club players. This video shows the 2016 USA Olympic team (comprised of all the best players) running drills on each other. They make some shots that seem beyond human in this video. Perhaps the most lethal thing I saw was their ability to shoot from the post, making the defender practically useless. At this moment, I conceded.

After this, I decided to revise my argument. Could the best five club players in the nation beat the two worst NBA players in a match? What do you think?

 

Could an Average Person Coach an NFL Team?

This debate took place a few days ago with my friend, let’s call him Bob. For a little bit of context, Bob is an Eagles fan, and I am a Jets fan. In week 6 this year, these two teams faced off. It was a crazy game, the Eagles led for nearly all four quarters until the jets swooped in and won the game. Side note, getting to watch my team win in front of my smug friend was one of the best feelings ever. Anyways, this created some fun arguments at the time, but the real debate did not emerge until this week when we were rewatching the highlights from the game. In the fourth quarter there is a point where the Eagles are on 3rd down, with 14 yards to go to get a first down. The game was winding down and the Eagles just needed to stay on offense to win the game. The Eagles quarterback passes the ball and throws an interception (meaning the Jets now have the ball). To sum up, the dialogue went a little something like this:

Me: Man, we are so much better than you guys (sarcastically)

Bob: Why would we ever throw that? If I was the coach, I would be running the ball.

Me: Well, you’re not the coach. I guarantee that they know more than you and this is how it turned out.

Bob: Yeah well, I think I actually could do a better job as the coach.

This statement shocked me, and instantly launched us into a back and forth around this claim. Just to clarify, we are talking about Bob being coach just for this one game. Let’s dig in.

Bob claimed that if he had some time to study NFL plays, that even without background experience of playing football, he could coach a team. He explained that he understands the stats and would have run the ball against the Jets way more than the Eagles did. To back this up, he added the fact that teams this season have run the ball far better against the Jets than passed. He explained that even if they did not get the first down, that punting the ball across the field to a weak Jets offense would be fine since they are pretty bad and likely wouldn’t score. This decision shows a lack of faith in his team’s offense but a lot of faith in the team’s defense.  It definitely is a strategy, but let’s dig into my arguments.

My counterargument was that an NFL coach most certainly knows more than him. These guys get paid to eat, sleep, and breathe football. Not to mention, they have full teams of trained coaches in a booth watching the game to help the head coach make his calls. This means that Bob is not just claiming to know more than the coach, but to know more than the entire offensive coaching staff. I said that at best, the decision to pass the ball instead of running it was 50/50. This means that the coach went with whatever decision he felt like but could not really go wrong. However, Bob still claimed that not just was his decision the correct one, but that it was clear as day. This thought process baffled me, and sort of ended our dispute as it was clear no winner would arise.

So, what do you think? Is it reasonable to feel as though you, the viewer, could coach certain plays better than the actual coach?