The Cap brings the economic history of professional basketball to life by going behind the scenes to tell the story of the deal between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association that ...created the salary cap in 1983, the first in all of sports.
In the 1966 NCAA basketball championship game, an all-white University of Kentucky team was beaten by a team from Texas Western College (now UTEP) that fielded only black players. The game, played in ...the middle of the racially turbulent 1960s-part David and Goliath in short pants, part emancipation proclamation of college basketball-helped destroy stereotypes about black athletes. Filled with revealing anecdotes, The Baron and the Bear is the story of two intensely passionate coaches and the teams they led through the ups and downs of a college basketball season. In the twilight of his legendary career, Kentucky's Adolph Rupp ("The Baron of the Bluegrass") was seeking his fifth NCAA championship. Texas Western's Don Haskins ("The Bear" to his players) had been coaching at a small West Texas high school just five years before the championship. After this history-making game, conventional wisdom that black players lacked the discipline to win without a white player to lead began to dissolve. Northern schools began to abandon unwritten quotas limiting the number of blacks on the court at one time. Southern schools, where athletics had always been a whites-only activity, began a gradual move toward integration. David Kingsley Snell brings the season to life, offering fresh insights on the teams, the coaches, and the impact of the game on race relations in America.
A question of Polzien, Andrea; Weigelt, Matthias; Güldenpenning, Iris
PloS one,
05/2021, Volume:
16, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
In many kinds of sports, deceptive actions are frequently used to hamper the anticipation of an opponent. The head fake in basketball is often applied to deceive an observer regarding the direction ...of a pass. To perform a head fake, a basketball player turns the head in one direction, but passes the ball to the opposite direction. Several studies showed that reactions to passes with head fakes are slower and more error-prone than to passes without head fakes (head-fake effect). The aim of a basketball player is to produce a head-fake effect for as large as possible in the opponent. The question if the timing of the deceptive action influences the size of the head-fake effect has not yet been examined systematically. The present study investigated if the head-fake effect depends on the temporal lag between the head turn and the passing movement. To this end, the stimulus onset asynchrony between head turn, and pass was varied between 0 and 800 ms. The results showed the largest effect when the head turn precedes the pass by 300 ms. This result can be explained better by facilitating the processing of passes without head fake than by making it more difficult to process passes with a head fake. This result is discussed regarding practical implications and conclusions about the underlying mechanism of the head-fake effect in basketball are drawn.
In 1939, a team of short, scrappy kids from a vocational school established specifically for Mexican Americans became the high school basketball champions of San Antonio, Texas. Their win, and the ...ensuing riot it caused, took place against a backdrop of shifting and conflicted attitudes toward Mexican Americans and American nationalism in the WWII era. "Only when the Mexicans went from perennial runners-up to champs," García writes, "did the emotions boil over."
The first sports book to look at Mexican American basketball specifically,When Mexicans Could Play Ballis also a revealing study of racism and cultural identity formation in Texas. Using personal interviews, newspaper articles, and game statistics to create a compelling narrative, as well as drawing on his experience as a sports writer, García takes us into the world of San Antonio's Sidney Lanier High School basketball team, the Voks, which became a two-time state championship team under head coach William Carson "Nemo" Herrera. An alumnus of the school himself, García investigates the school administrators' project to Americanize the students, Herrera's skillful coaching, and the team's rise to victory despite discrimination and violence from other teams and the world outside of the school. Ultimately, García argues, through their participation and success in basketball at Lanier, the Voks players not only learned how to be American but also taught their white counterparts to question long-held assumptions about Mexican Americans.
Abstract
Introduction
Travel fatigue and circadian disruptions are known factors that can hinder performance in professional athletes. The present exploratory study focused on investigating the ...impact of travel distance and direction on back-to-back games over the 2013–2020 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Methods
Data from away and home games of back-to-back sequences, in two different cities, from the 2013 to 2020 seasons in the National Basketball Association were included in this study. Information from every selected game was retrieved from the official website of the NBA (www.nba.com). The outcomes were based on winning percentage with additional covariates including the direction of travel (eastward or westward) and the distance travelled (0-500km – 501-1000km – 1001-1500km – 1501km and more). If a team played both games of a back-to-back sequence on the road, they were considered Away-Away; if a team played the first game of a back-to-back sequence at home they were considered Home-Away; if a team played the first game of a back-to-back sequence on the road they were considered Away-Home.
Results
The sequence Away-Home significantly increases the likelihood of winning compared to the Away-Away and Home-Away sequences 54.4% (95%CI: 54.4,54.5); 39.2% (95%CI: 37.2,41.2), and 36.8%, (95%CI: 36.7,36.8), respectively. Following a road game, when teams travel back home, every additional 500km reduces the likelihood of winning by approximately 4% (p = 0.038). Finally, after withdrawing the Away-Home sequence, travelling eastward significantly increases the chance of winning (p = 0.024) compared to westward travel but has no significant impact on the probability of winning compared to neutral time zone travel (p = 0.091).
Conclusion
The accumulation of travel fatigue and the chronic circadian desynchronization that occurs over the NBA season can acutely disturb sleep and recovery. It appears that tailored sleep and recovery strategies need to be dynamically developed throughout the season to overcome the different challenges of the NBA schedule.
Support (if any):
Tradicionalmente, las agencias de deportistas profesionales y las de baloncesto en particular, toman decisiones sobre sus representados basándose en informes, estadísticas, e incluso corazonadas. Los ...potenciales ingresos futuros que se obtienen de los jugadores son más un deseo que una variable para tomar decisiones. Presentamos en este articulo una metodología para valorar y segmentar jugadores de una agencia de jugadores de baloncesto profesionales. Concretamente, tratamos de responder a las preguntas de cuándo, cuánto y cómo invertir en la cartera de jugadores profesionales atendiendo a su valor económico actual y a sus potenciales ingresos económicos futuros. Los datos fueron obtenidos de una de las más importantes agencia de jugadores de baloncesto a nivel internacional. Esta empresa representa principalmente a jugadores y entrenadores de todo el mundo, fundamentalmente de ligas profesionales europeas y norteamericanas.
In this work, the full leading order results of the form factors for Formula omitted and Formula omitted are obtained in QCD sum rules. Contributions from up to dimension-5 have been considered. For ...completeness, we also study the two-point correlation function to obtain the pole residues of Formula omitted and Formula omitted, and higher accuracy is achieved. For the three-point correlation function, since stable Borel regions cannot be found, about Formula omitted uncertainties are introduced for the form factors of Formula omitted and Formula omitted. Our results for the form factors are consistent with those of the lattice QCD within errors.
Background:
Numerous studies have reported the incidence and outcomes of injuries in the men’s and women’s National Basketball Association (NBA and WNBA, respectively).
Purpose:
To synthesize ...published data regarding the incidence and outcomes of all injuries in the NBA and WNBA in a comprehensive review.
Study Design:
Systematic review; Level of evidence, 4.
Methods:
Following PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines, we searched 3 electronic databases (PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase) for studies of all levels of evidence since 1990 pertaining to injuries sustained by active players in the NBA and WNBA. Studies were excluded if the cohort of interest included ≤3 active players.
Results:
The initial search of the 3 databases yielded 1253 unique studies, of which 49 met final inclusion criteria for this review. Only 4 studies included athletes in the WNBA. Based on the mean annual incidence, the 5 most common orthopaedic sports injuries sustained in the NBA were concussions (9.5-14.9 per year), fractures of the hand (3.5-5.5 per year), lower extremity stress fractures (4.8 per year), meniscal tears (2.3-3.3 per year), and anterior cruciate ligament tears (1.5-2.6 per year). Cartilage defects treated using microfracture, Achilles tendon ruptures, and anterior cruciate ligament injuries were 3 injuries that led to significant reductions in performance measurements after injury.
Conclusion:
With advances in sports technology and statistical analysis, there is rapidly growing interest in injuries among professional basketball athletes. High-quality prospective studies are needed to understand the prevalence and effect of injuries on player performance and career length. This information can inform preventative and treatment measures taken by health care providers to protect players and guide safe return to play at a high level.
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