Heat
Yesterday, I posted this site’s first YouTube video, examining the issue of misaligned incentives through the lens of Kyrie Irving’s “hero ball” shots at the end of the Nets/Clippers game from Sunday.
Today I posted a second video, a deep dive into the first quarter of last night’s Toronto/Miami game.
In the video I go into how it is a cold-blooded league. Several times, Miami did all the right things on offense but didn’t get a good shot to fall.
And several times Miami did all the right things on defense and Toronto’s guards hit tough shots as the shot clock was winding down.
Over the course of a game, however, these things start to even out. Miami ended up winning by eight.
Also, check out the halftime reporter’s flamingo suit at the end of the video. It’s… something else.
As I wrote a few days ago, Miami is starting a long home stand and are now fully healthy (Dragic played tonight).
Look for them to go on a winning streak.
They play Utah at home on Saturday and then it’s cupcake city until March 18th.
I think they can easily go 6 and 2 until their matchup with the Grizz on the 18th.
On to today’s analysis, which is also about misaligned incentives, this time involving another player…
The Ballad of Kelly Oubre Jr.
Picture this:
Kelly Oubre Jr. comes down on a 3 on 2 fast break.
He’s in the middle, with the ball, driving on two defenders who are furiously backpedaling.
To Oubre's left is Draymond Green, standing outside the three-point line. To Green’s left, in the left corner, is Steph Curry spotting up.
The “correct” basketball play, from a coaching standpoint, and from a team winning standpoint, is to kick the ball to Green who then swings it to a wide-open Curry in the short corner.
In fact, while this play is unfolding, Curry is pointing towards Green, indicating that Oubre should make this first pass to Green to initiate Curry getting the open three.
But Oubre doesn’t make the pass to Green.
Instead, he powers up against the double team and misses a difficult, contested shot.
It’s one forgotten play in a 48 minute game.
By the way, there is a great basketball book by Bob Ryan and Terry Pluto, Forty-Eight Minutes: A Night in the Life of the NBA. Long out of print (published in 1987), it follows all the intricacies (the game behind the game) of one NBA contest between the Celtics and the Cavs. You can pick up a used copy here on Amazon.
But Oubre’s failure to pass the ball to Green, this forgotten play, reveals something to us about incentives.
Let me ask you a question: Why didn’t Oubre make the right basketball play?
Ninety-nine percent of people will say it’s because Oubre doesn’t have a high basketball IQ or he didn’t see the play.
Which is kind of insulting to Kelly Oubre. Oubre plays the game better than 99.999% of anyone who has ever played the game of basketball.
In the entire seventy-four year history of the NBA, only 4,509 people have played in the league. And Oubre is one of them.
The pass that Oubre is being asked to see and make is not a complicated one. It is a staple of any 3 on 2 drill ever run by any coach since junior high (“Three on two down, two on one back…”).
Coaching in Mississippi, this was literally the first drill we ran most practices (after warm-up).
Draw the double, kick to the open player.
So why didn’t Oubre make this pass?
Incentives.
The incentives are misaligned.
When, at the end of a close game, Kyrie Irving shoots a terrible shot against a double or triple team, it is a story of misaligned incentives.
Oubre’s play tells a similar story, just one with a different incentive.
In the video, Kyrie Irving’s incentive is glory.
In Oubre’s play, the incentive is money.
In the NBA, stats are what gets you paid.
In particular, points per game is what gets you paid.
You know what doesn’t get you paid? Passing to a teammate who passes to a teammate.
There are no hockey assists in the NBA.
“Everybody needs money. That’s why they call it money,” is the quote from the David Mamet film Heist, one of the great non sequiturs of all-time.
If Oubre makes the pass to Green who then makes the pass to an open Curry, in the box score there is no statistical record of Oubre’s play.
However, if Oubre attacks the double team and scores he gets a) two points and b) a potential YouTube highlight.
Last week the internet lost their minds over an Anthony Edwards dunk, but didn’t seem to care that Edwards also went 3 for 14 in that game.
Now… when Oubre powers up over the defenders and takes a bad shot, is he thinking about all of this, about going for the more beneficial stat rather than the correct basketball play?
No, he’s not (I think). The play happens in under two seconds.
But the incentive is there. And whether Oubre is consciously thinking of the incentives, subconsciously he knows, points are better than no points.
Stats are better than no stats.
So he takes a bad shot.
Because he is incentivized to do so.
A miss is a miss and they go back to playing. An unremarkable play in a .500 season for the Warriors.
But, if you look closer, you see deeper, conflicting, incentives at work.
The game behind the game…
Have a great day out there in the sim…
Benbo