The Hidden Statistics That Control The NBA - Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

1. 0:00 – 4:34

   The Percentage of 7ft+ NBA Players

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      What percentage of seven-footers are in the NBA?

   2. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz0:04

      Uh, to the best of our knowledge, it's about one in seven, which is enormous. Uh, Pablo Torres, the first guy who calculated this. I've done a similar calculation. And everyone seems to, uh, unite around this number, around one in seven, which just insane. Is there any other pursuit, glamorous pursuit, where one trait gives you a one in seven chance of reaching the absolute pinnacle of that, uh, field? I don't think so.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:28

      Think about all of the- the six and seven people that could have been on an NBA player's wage.

   4. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz0:33

      Yeah, they must feel terrible. (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson0:35

      Dude, you blew it.

   6. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz0:37

      I mean, I guess they can... A lot of them are probably playing abroad. Uh, you know, they're- they're probably our basketball players regardless, and make... And having fun, and, you know, make a living playing a game, but they're not getting the NBA wage for sure.

   7. CWChris Williamson0:48

      How rare is seven-foot height?

   8. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz0:51

      Being seven foot or above is one in 650,000 height.

   9. CWChris Williamson0:57

      (laughs) Wow, that is such a genetic lottery.

   10. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz1:03

       Yeah, I mean, it's... Yeah, you're basically... I, yeah, I don't think there's any other gene that gives you such a chance of being a famous multimillionaire. (laughs) Uh-

   11. CWChris Williamson1:12

       Yeah, that's a good point. What else do you learn about height?

   12. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz1:15

       Uh, so one of the things interesting about height is, uh... A- and basketball, is each inch roughly doubles your chances of making the NBA, like throughout the height distribution. So, if you're six foot tall, you have basically twice the chances of becoming an NBA player than if you're 5'11". If you're 6'1", twice the chances than if you're six feet, all the way out to if you're 7'2", you have twice the chance than you're 7'1", like throughout the height distribution. What that means is just there's this enormous difference in probability of reaching the NBA. We said one in seven chance if you're a seven-footer. If you're under 5'10", which is the average height of an American male, you have a one in 3.8 million chance of reaching the NBA.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:54

       (laughs)

   14. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz1:54

       Like, it's basically impossible. I mean, there are exceptions. Uh, you know, I talk a lot in the book about, uh, one of my favorite players, Muggsy Bogues, 5'3" and played 14 seasons in the NBA. Uh, so it's not impossible, but it's pretty close to impossible and probably not worth putting much energy even trying.

   15. CWChris Williamson2:12

       What are the disadvantages of being tall from a player perspective?

   16. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz2:17

       There is a... If you look at the tallest humans in history, uh, many of them are over eight feet tall, and just about all of them, it's due to a thyroid disease. Uh, you literally, there's a growth hormone that just overproduces... Uh, the growth ho- hormone is overproduced. There have been, there has been at least one NBA player who got to his height through a thyroid disease. That's George Muresan. Some people might remember him. He was- he also was an actor for a little bit. Uh, and he was... Literally, it was a disease that gave him that height. His parents were average height. And if you're, uh, that, uh, tall just from a disease, you're gonna have all kinds of problems. A lot of the tallest people in history, very few of the tallest people in history even make it past the age of 40. Uh, but I think one of the other things that's interesting is that se- uh, seven-footers or just taller NBA players, in general, are just way worse athletes any way we can measure it. They jump much less high. They're much slower. They're worse shooters. They are... Th- this kind of surprised me. I don't think anybody's shown this before. They're worse in the clutch. They can't handle pressure to the same degree shorter NBA players can. And I think the reason for this is just because the select- the advantage of being tall is so enormous-

   17. CWChris Williamson3:31

       Hmm.

   18. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz3:31

       ... that you kind of don't have to be as good at anything else.

   19. CWChris Williamson3:34

       Yeah.

   20. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz3:34

       So, you know, if you're six feet tall and you're competing against millions of other people for that- for that point guard spot, you better be an insane athlete. You know, the- the six-foot NBA players, they run as fast as a sprinter. They jump as high as a high jumper. Uh, they shoot as well as anybody in the world can shoot. Uh, they can handle pressure incredibly. They're just so good to- to beat out millions of other people for that spot. If you're seven feet tall and you're competing with dozens of other men for your spot, (laughs) you don't have to be that good. (laughs) You just have to be one in seven good. So, you know, the average seven-footer his vertical leap is only a little bit higher than the average person could a- could achieve with enormous practice. Uh, he's slower than most- than an average runner on a high school track team. Uh, he shoots worse than an average high school basketball, uh, player. He handles pressure worse than an average high school basketball player. He's just not that great, but he is really, really tall.

   21. CWChris Williamson4:33

       Well, it- it begs

2. 4:34 – 8:53

   Is Being Tall Really a Basketball Advantage?

   1. CWChris Williamson4:34

      the question, why are tall players so prioritized? If- if they're less good psychologically, cardiovascularly, m- m- physically, whatever, why- why do they keep getting selected?

   2. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz4:48

      Well, because they are... (laughs) It is an advantage. Uh, they grab more rebounds. They block more shots. I mean, the- the basket is up there, (laughs) or maybe I'm... Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson4:57

      Yeah.

   4. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz4:57

      The basket is up there. (laughs) Uh, the basket's not on the ground. The basket's in the sky, uh, you know, 10 feet abo- above the ground. And I think when that's the case, it's a huge advantage to be really tall, to be able to reach higher, uh, to be able to get higher, to block shots, to grab rebounds, to do all these things, to be able to get your shot off without being blocked, without it being blocked.

   5. CWChris Williamson5:17

      I wondered whether you were gonna have some sort of an insight, Moneyball-style insight, where you were gonna say, "All of the NBA teams need to start drafting more 6'2" people," because, you know, the trade-off that you get for athleticism from a wider pool of potential people is greater than the advantage you get from being 7'1" or whatever.

   6. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz5:39

      No, I don't think that's true. I mean, it is legitimately true that seven... You know, Shaquille O'Neal dominated the NBA for many seasons, even though, you know, I'm a better s- free throw shooter than Shaquille O'Neal. Well, one of the... That's one of the core skills of basketball. And I, who am not particularly good and never play, can hit a higher percent of my free throws than Shaquille O'Neal can. But he legitimately... I wouldn't say, you know, to the Lakers, "Hey, have you thought of picking up Seth?"... uh, he shoots free throws better than Shaq. Like, I legitimately think Shaq dominated basketball, but it is kind of a weird, unfair advantage. It does, it does feel almost like a little... I don't know, as a fan of the game, it feels like it's almost a- a bug in the game, (laughs) that height is such an advantage. Like, if they... Like, the ideal sport, you know, y- you shouldn't be able to reach the top of a sport the way George Muresan did through a growth hormone (laughs) disorder, uh, like, that shouldn't... You know, it feels, like, off in- in how, uh, you know, an athletic, uh, pursuit, yeah, w- what, what, what it should take to reach the top of that athletic pursuit. But yeah, I'm not telling players, you know, "Don't, uh," you know, uh, "cut Joel Embiid because he can't jump as high as, uh," you know, uh, uh, "a six-foot player." Like, he still does help the team, but, uh, he definitely, it definitely is true that they are worse athletes.

   7. CWChris Williamson6:57

      Yes. Laughs in thyroid disorder, like, the... (laughs) All right, so what about, um... Uh, h- are you able to compare like-for-like different players of different heights and say, "What if Muggsy Bogues had been 6'7", what, how good would have h- he been?

   8. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz7:16

      Yeah, I was able to mathematically figure this out, which was the most fun I've ever had on any study I've ever done. You know, as a shorter man, I'm about 5'9", I think, on a good day. So I think, I kinda did this calculation, uh, I ranked people, I called it MUGSIES, uh, which stands for Metric for Understanding Game, given Sporting Individuals' Effectiveness and Size. And I ranked every player, you know, the- the math is in an appendix for those who are really curious, uh, how good they would be if they were the same height, how many MUGSIES they'd have. And number one is Muggsy Bogues, whose just achievement is so ridiculously insane to be an NBA player for 14 seasons, even if he wasn't the greatest NBA player. He was a decent NBA player for 14 seasons at five foot three inches tall. It's insane. You know, other players, Earl Boykins and Spud Webb rank really high. Michael Jordan, interestingly, still ranks number nine on a height-adjusted metric.

   9. CWChris Williamson8:12

      Despite being, like, 6'6" or something.

   10. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz8:13

       Yeah, 'cause he was so, so good. So he is legitimately one of the greatest at his craft we've ever seen. But if Muggsy and Michael were the same height, I think Muggsy... I think it's unambiguous in the data, the way I've looked, cut the data, that Muggsy would be the more dominant player. Muggsy would be the one who would be ma- be making the documentaries about we think is the quintessential at mastering his crafts, at- at- uh, mastering his craft, at determination, at work ethic, and all these other things that we now associate with Michael. Michael had enormous talent, enormous drive, enormous work ethic, enormous anything, and he also had enormous height-

   11. CWChris Williamson8:51

       (laughs)

   12. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz8:51

       ... uh, which, you know, some of these other guys didn't

3. 8:53 – 12:21

   Why Americans Are Over-Represented in Basketball

   1. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz8:53

      have.

   2. CWChris Williamson8:54

      What do... Like, why is it that players come from the countries that they do? Obviously, basketball, wildly overrepresented by the USA, but if one in seven people over seven feet tall, w- why are Scandinavian countries, that I think have got the tallest average height in the world, why have we not seen loads of Danes or Norwegians or something?

   3. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz9:21

      Yeah, so a- a big thing is, uh, popularity of basketball obviously, uh, uh, obviously plays into how many basketball players a country produces. And there are really only, uh, three regions of the world where basketball is extraordinarily popular. Uh, United States, where it was invented, uh, the Baltic states, former Yugoslavia. So if you're growing up playing basketball, you know, the average person, I'm sure there are countless people around the world who, if they started practicing when they were five, could shoot a ball like Steph Curry or could do, you know, everything with a basketball like James Harden, but they never even think to do that. They're playing soccer or they're playing some other sport. So that's really important. Uh, there are some subtle things that go into how, uh, how many, uh, basketball players a country produces. Uh, one that I found, which I found very, very interesting, and after you say it, it's extremely obvious, that predicts how many basketball players a country produces is volleyball popularity. Uh, because there's only one other sport that uses height the same way basketball does, and that's volleyball. So the average volleyball player has basically the same body type as the average small forward in the NBA, about six foot eight on average, uh, you know, reasonably thin, uh, a enormous leaper. And I didn't know this, I'm such a, you know, an American, that I'm like, "Who the hell, like, cares about volleyball?" So I- I... Uh, excuse my naivete, but in writing this book, I found that, uh, you know, in Iran, volleyball is five times more popular than basketball. And there are numerous countries around the world where volleyball is more popular than basketball. Uh, it's p- more popular than basketball in Brazil, in Bulgaria, in Russia, in Italy, in Puerto Rico. And what you see is these countries where volleyball is more popular than basketball, you see fewer, uh, NBA players than you'd otherwise expect, uh, and particularly fewer forwards than you'd otherwise expect, because a lot of these taller people, these six foot eight, six foot nine people, are playing volleyball instead. You know, in the United States, Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James, when they grew their enormous height, I don't think anybody was like, "Hey, have you thought of spiking a ball?" Uh, you know, that's- that's the dream. Uh, but the guys who grow to be 6'8", 6'9", 6'10" in Bulgaria, the dream is to spike a volleyball, which is a horrible financial decision.

   4. CWChris Williamson11:40

      (laughs)

   5. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz11:40

      Uh, you know, like, the... I- I think I talk about this player from Bulgaria who leaps higher than anybody has ever measured in the NBA, and he makes €300,000 a year, which is a great salary. That's not th- that's not terrible, but that is so far below the NBA minimum salary, like there's-

   6. CWChris Williamson11:58

      That's someone's shoe allowance for one week-

   7. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz12:00

      Yeah. (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson12:00

      ... in the NBA.

   9. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz12:01

      Yeah, you, uh, I th- I, you know, I- I... If any, if any, uh, enormous men...... in Bulgaria or Brazil or Iran are listening to this podcast right now, I wanna tell you, practice your free throws, not your spiking. That's where the money is in, hehe, in the world. That- that's- that's the- the real, uh, win, I would say.

4. 12:21 – 21:44

   How Genetic is Basketball Ability?

   1. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz12:21

   2. CWChris Williamson12:22

      Just how genetically predisposed or predetermined is basketball success?

   3. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz12:29

      Enormously. Basketball's enormously genetic, more genetic than pretty much others, any other sport we can measure. The way to see this is the prevalence of identical twins in basketball. There've been enormous number of ide- pa- pairs of identical twins who have reached the NBA. 11 pairs of twins have reached the NBA. All 11 of them have been identical. And this is not true in other sports. Uh, uh, uh, uh, more than 10% of brother, pairs of brothers in the NBA have been identical twins, way higher than other sports. That's a dead giveaway that genetics are driving basketball ability because identical twins, unlike fraternal twins or unlike other brothers, share 100% of their genes, not 50% of their genes. So, if one happens to get a really good draw of genetics, the other is gonna get that same draw. And, uh, I did a calculation that probably more than half of i- i- i- if a- if a player is in the NBA and he has an identical twin, m- he has a more than 50% chance of also being in the NBA. Uh, like, j- if you get that same draw of genetics, you're, like, destined to be an amazing player as well. Now, a huge reason for this, of course, is because height is so important, and height is very genetic, about 80% genetic. But a lot of other skills that are important, a lot of other traits that are important in basketball, hand size, arm, uh, length, wingspan, uh, vertical leap, sprinting speed, also really, really genetic. Basketball seems like the sport designed in a lab to rely on genetics. Uh, like, just r- it heavily uses the skills that are 70, 80, 90% genetics and doesn't really use the skills that are, that are 20, 30, 40% genetic that some other sports do, uh, that really-

   4. CWChris Williamson14:16

      What- what are the skills that are 20, 30, 40%?

   5. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz14:19

      So, reaction time, uh, handedness, whether you're lefty or righty is much less genetic. Uh, hand-eye coordination much less genetic. So, something like shooting in the ol- the Olympic sport, which is really hand-eye coordination, that's not gonna be super genetic.

   6. CWChris Williamson14:35

      But how can you say that basketball isn't hand-eye coordination?

   7. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz14:38

      Yeah, no, it, there is definitely importance, importance of h- hand-eye coordination, but just relative to the other sport. You know, relative to baseball, for example, which is all hand-eye coordination, to hit a ba- you know, all of baseball is being able to, you know, hit, get the swing to hit the ball, which is hand-eye coordination, or, uh, reaction time, reflexes, that's r- that's not as genetic. That, baseball is just so dependent on that.

   8. CWChris Williamson15:03

      Mm.

   9. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz15:03

      Uh, whereas basketball, the skills that are more important, height, wingspan, uh, you know, vertical leap, uh, speed-

   10. CWChris Williamson15:10

       Why is, why is hand size so important?

   11. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz15:14

       Yeah, that actually I hadn't realized, uh, until I wrote this book. Uh, basically, the ability to palm a ball is... I always gotta get my hand in- in the screen (laughs) .

   12. CWChris Williamson15:24

       Yeah, yeah.

   13. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz15:24

       The ability to, to palm a ball, uh, now I reveal I do not have-

   14. CWChris Williamson15:29

       (laughs)

   15. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz15:29

       ... Yanic or Kawhi Leonard hands. Uh, another reason I could never be an NBA player.

   16. CWChris Williamson15:34

       Those tiny girl hands that you're waving around there.

   17. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz15:36

       The Donald Trump hands.

   18. CWChris Williamson15:39

       (laughs)

   19. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz15:39

       Uh, but, uh, I, uh, uh, being able to palm a ball, hugely valuable, to grab a rebound with one hand, uh, to be able to dribble better with the ability to palm a hand, uh, palm a ball, really, really valuable. Uh, Phil Jackson coached, famously coached both Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, and he was asked, "If you could pick one player, who would you pick?" And he said, "Michael Jordan because Jordan had enormous hands and Kobe Bryant didn't." And Kobe Bryant admitted the one thing he'd change about his body is he wished he had bigger hands. Uh, so it's kinda known in the basketball world that hands are valuable, and a lot of the all-time greats had enormous hands, even for their height, you know, whether it's Giannis or Wilt or Shaq.

   20. CWChris Williamson16:25

       How- how- how big do these hands get?

   21. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz16:27

       12-inch, 12-inch hand width, where, you know, the average is about eight inches, so just very, very, you know, a foot, yeah, like a, this is like a foot long (laughs) , uh, yeah.

   22. CWChris Williamson16:37

       That's insane.

   23. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz16:38

       That's insane, yeah. The hands, and you could look at pictures of, you know, Kawhi Leonard is another player with legendarily large hands. You know, look at pictures of his hands. They're freakish, uh, hands. And, uh, it turns out that as NBA teams have known that hand size is really important, but it doesn't seem like they quite knew just how important it was, that if you look at the draft, uh, you know, at the NBA Combine, they measure players' hands, how- the hand width of players. And players with wide hands historically have done better, you know, by-by advanced metrics than you'd predict based on their h- uh, based on their draft spot. And players with, you know, tiny hands, the Donald Trump hands, uh, they're just awful players. You know, I think 17 of 19 players who had hands below eight inches, below average, uh, performed below their draft spot. And most of them just couldn't even be NBA players. So, I think it's known that hand size is important. Uh, I don't think it's been appreciated just how important it is, that it is up there with the height and the wingspan, the skills, the traits that we know are really, really important, or the vertical leap.

   24. CWChris Williamson17:46

       Are there any other sports that you know of that are highly genetically influenced in the same way that volleyball and basketball are?

   25. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz17:54

       Uh, track and field seems to be very genetically influenced, also dominated by identical twins. Uh, you know, if you look at, uh, track and field, uh, the Olympic track and field athletes, uh, the percent of same-sex siblings that are identical twins is up there with basketball.Uh, and I think sprinting speed seem- particularly seems also, uh, very genetic, uh, that, you know, a S- Usain Bolt or whatever. Uh, you know, I- I- I'd want to bet on his son, uh, to be a- a tremendous, uh, runner. So, that is another, uh, sport that is, uh, highly, highly genetic. Uh.

   26. CWChris Williamson18:31

       How important are your parents beyond the genetics thing?

   27. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz18:36

       Yeah. So, the average American male has a one in 36,000 chance of reaching the NBA. Uh, the average son of an NBA player has a one in 43 chance of reaching the NBA. So, one in 36-

   28. CWChris Williamson18:49

       Ar- ar- are you able to... One in 36 to one in 40... One in 36,000-

   29. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz18:53

       One in 36,000.

   30. CWChris Williamson18:53

       ... to one in 43. Are you able to, um, control for the physical inheritance, like the height-
5. 21:44 – 28:13

   Chris is the Most Common Name of Black NBA Players

   1. CWChris Williamson21:44

      like I missed, uh, my shot because I also read that Chris is the most common name for Black NBA players.

   2. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz21:53

      (laughs) Well-

   3. CWChris Williamson21:53

      So, if only I could have fixed the problem of not being Black.

   4. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz21:55

      Yeah. Yeah. (laughs) That was your first mistake.

   5. CWChris Williamson21:58

      Yeah. Well, uh, I guess, I guess I was not Black before I was called Chris.

   6. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz22:02

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson22:02

      So yeah, maybe.

   8. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz22:04

      So, uh, Chris is the most common name among, uh, NBA players. Now, why is that? That seems just like a random piece of trivia. Uh, it gets to a bigger question of what's the socioeconomics of NBA players? And for a long time, conventional wisdom was that soc- that N- the NBA was disproportionately sampling from people from rough backgrounds, tough backgrounds, the ghetto, you know, impoverished, single parents. And the idea behind that was if you're, let's say, a Black boy, uh, I- I- I- impoverished in the ghetto and you're pretty good at basketball, that is your one chance of getting out, escaping your hardship, escaping your circumstance, you know, to become an NBA great, and you will do whatever it takes, work as hard as it- it- it... as- as is required, uh, to reach the top of basketball. Whereas if you're, you know, the son of a lawyer and a doctor in the suburbs, and yeah, you're pretty good at basketball, uh, well, you have so many options that you're not gonna spend day and night, you know, practicing basketball, devoting yourself to this pursuit. Uh, that has never been true. Uh, there was initially a study by Josh Dubrow and Jimmy Adams that showed that, uh, both among Caucasians and African-Americans, uh, being from a upper middle class or above family is a huge advantage in reaching the NBA. And I've done my own study at- at... NBA players, much less likely than the population at large than the Black pop- Black NBA players, much less likely than Black population at large to be born to a single mother, to be born to a teenage mother. On any way you can look at the data, uh, being from a, you know, two-parent home, uh, upper middle class or middle class or above, huge advantage to reaching the NBA. And the most maybe interesting, uh, data point for that is the names of NBA players. Uh, there was a paper by Roland Fryer and Steve Levitt that found that among the African-American population, uh, you can tell the demographics of someone pretty well just based on their name, and that, uh-... uh, African Americans from higher socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to be given common names, uh, names that are very popular in the population at large. African Americans from lower socioeconomics, from poverty, from the ghetto more likely to be given rare, unique names, names that nobody else is given that year. So, an example of that I'm pretty sure is LeBron. Uh, now LeBron is probably a common name because, you know, everybody wants to name their kid after LeBron. But when LeBron was born, and he was born to a more difficult background, a single 16-year-old mother in Akron, Ohio, uh, LeBron was a unique name. It wasn't given to other people, uh, that year. Uh, uh, it wasn't given to... It wasn't a name that other people had as well. And if you look at NBA players, they're half as likely, uh, Black NBA players are half as likely as the po- the Black population, uh, writ large, to have unique names. They're much more likely to have names Chris, Michael, Marcus. So, in the book, I have a whole word cloud of the names of NBA players, and the most common name, uh, by a pretty wide margin is Chris (laughs) . Uh, you know, yeah. So, you think of Chris Paul or Chris Bosh, many other examples. And, uh, Chris Paul's a great example of a player from, uh, two-parent home, uh, middle class. The family joined him on an episode of Family Feud. Uh, you know, that's kind of where the NBA is getting their players, uh, mu- much more than conventional wisdom told us. Uh, Michael Jordan, another example, uh, uh, grew up a middle class, uh, two-parent family in North... In, uh... Born in Brooklyn, raised in North Carolina, very stable upbringing. Uh, that's, uh, that, that, that's where the NBA is, is, is, is getting their, their talent, b- by and large, b- by and large. Now, of course, not always, which means we have to give that much more credit to the LeBron James of the world, 'cause they really did overcome a lot, uh, to-

   9. CWChris Williamson26:13

      If only he'd been five foot three as well-

   10. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz26:16

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson26:16

       ... with seven-inch hands.

   12. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz26:17

       (laughs) Yeah. Then he, then we'd really have to give him a lot of credit. Exactly.

   13. CWChris Williamson26:21

       Yeah. Just how dominated is the NBA by Black players or African American heritage?

   14. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz26:28

       Yeah, it's about, uh, 80% of American, uh, uh, born players are African American, uh, which I didn't get into. You know, some of that, I, I, I don't go into the reasons for that, which is probably beyond the scope of, of my study. And, uh, you know, some of it is legitimately cultural. Uh, the Black advantage, I didn't actually put this in the book, but the Black advantage in basketball is smaller among Americans than it is... Is larger among Americans than it is among Europeans or people from the Caribbean or... Uh, so other regions of the world, there isn't such a big advantage, uh, for Black people. And I think part of the reason is that, uh, basketball is just so popular in the Black community in the United States, that, uh, you know, if you... Surveys that ask whether you're a huge basketball fan, uh, African Americans are about twice as likely as other Americans to say they're huge basketball fans. Uh, so it is... You know, and he... Uh, again, being a big fan of the sport, uh, is a huge advantage to reaching the top of the sport. That's why there are so many more players from the United States than there are from Great Britain, for example. Uh, you know, it, it... I, I don't think, you know, most people... Uh, you'd probably be more of an expert on this topic than I, than I am. But, uh, I, I don't think most people growing up in London are dreaming of being a basketball player. They're dreaming of being... You know, they're not dreaming of being a Chicago Bull, they're dreaming to be an Arsenal player.

   15. CWChris Williamson27:55

       Yeah.

   16. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz27:55

       Uh, and I think, you know, uh, a- a- anytime, any community, whether it's a country or a race, or, you know, a- a- anything else, uh, that, uh... Where, where basketball is really popular is gonna produce more than their, uh, fair share of NBA talent.

6. 28:13 – 35:04

   What Determines Who Chokes Under Pressure?

   1. CWChris Williamson28:13

      What determines who chokes under pressure?

   2. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz28:16

      Yeah, so this is, uh... So, one thing that's very interesting is people choke in basketball, I think more than a lot of other sports. So, you look at the average NBA player, you compare free throws kind of nor-... How they shoot free throws normally. And free throws is a great test of choking, because it's the exact same situation throughout the game. You're shooting from the same spot, no defenders. And the average NBA player shoots, uh, free throws more than one percentage point lower in clutch moments, uh, five minutes or less on the clock, game within five points, than in other times. So, the average NBA player is a choker. This is kind of surprising, 'cause in a lot of sports, we found that players don't choke. And the reason for that is to reach the top of a sport, you have to be so mentally tough. You know, the average person, of course, is gonna choke under a pressure moment, but they're just gonna be knocked out way before they reach the top of their sport, right? So, you know, if you can't handle a pressure penalty kick, uh, your problems are gonna reveal themselves in high school (laughs) , uh, long before, you know, you're playing in the World Cup or, uh, you know, uh, or whatever. And similarly, you know, studies have shown that baseball players tend not to choke. So, why do basketball players so consistently choke? And I think (laughs) this gets to the point. Again, I don't love hammering the seven-footers, in large part because I feel like when a 5'9" person is attacking people taller than him, he seems like he has a horrible Napoleon complex (laughs) . So, I, you know, I s- I hesitate to use my book as just, you know, seven-footers s- secretly all suck and tall people suck. Uh, 'cause there's a dangerous pattern of, of shorter men doing things like this (laughs) a- out of their own insecurity and resentments. Uh, but I can't lie. In the data, the only thing I could find that predict choking was height, that taller players just choke more. And I think the reason for that is there's just not much selective pressure on taller NBA players. If you have to... Only have to be... Uh, if one in seven seven-footers reach the NBA-You only have to be... have one in seven basketball ability to reach the NBA. You don't have to be that great at everything, you don't have to be the world's most mentally tough person because there just aren't enough seven-footers to choose from. And, uh, so the average six-footer in the NBA shoots free throws exactly the same in the non-clutch moments and clutch moments. But the average seven-footer shoots free throws more than six percentage points worse in clutch moments. So, just an enormous tendency to choke among the tallest NBA players.

   3. CWChris Williamson30:55

      But didn't you say that you wanted the NBA to have a height cutoff 'cause you thought it would make the game more exciting?

   4. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz31:01

      That was another one where I'm like, "God, if I say this, first of all, people are gonna call me a heightist or something like that (laughs) or, but also because-"

   5. CWChris Williamson31:07

      I don't know whether you can be a heightist around the people that have got it, that got, like, the advantage.

   6. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz31:13

      Yeah. Uh, I just, uh, I, no, I, I make clear in the book that I don't think there actually should be a height advantage. I think if there were, uh, a, a height cutoff, if there were a k- h- height caught off, cutoff, I think it's unambiguous that there would be more talent in the game, that the shooting would be better, the clutch shooting would be better, the athleticism would be better. All these factors would be better if there were a height cutoff. But no, I'm not a heightist or an anti-heightist or a-

   7. CWChris Williamson31:41

      (laughs)

   8. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz31:41

      ... reverse heightist, right?

   9. CWChris Williamson31:42

      A tallist, whatever it is.

   10. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz31:43

       A tallish, tallist, shortest. And, you know, I am a huge basketball fan, and my favorite player growing up was Patrick Ewing, who was seven, uh, you know, seven feet tall. So I, I do... They do enrich the game, those enormous men.

   11. CWChris Williamson31:56

       Hey, put your tall-supporting bona fides out front and center-

   12. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz31:59

       Yeah. (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson31:59

       ... in case anyone's gonna try and say something mean about you.

   14. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz32:03

       (laughs) Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson32:03

       Wasn't the... So, it's at the very end of the, it's the very end of the book but it seems related to this, about childhood difficulty?

   16. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz32:11

       Oh, yeah, uh, so one of the things I was interested in was whether child difficulty, uh, predicts your tendency to choke. Uh, it's a, it's an interesting theory. I've heard a lot... You know, Jimmy Butler is a classic great clutch shooter. Uh, y- y- he's completely unaffected by pressure moments, just so good in the clutch. And Jimmy Butler had such a rough childhood. His father abandoned the family. His mother kicked him out of the house because she didn't like the look of him. Like, it was just a horrible childhood. And there is a theory that Jimmy Butler is so good in clutch moments because he's so tough, because he's been through so much. And compare his background to, you know, someone who grew up in the suburbs, you know, uh, you know, a soccer mom and soccer, you know, an MB- uh, uh, you know, an NBA da- dad or something. You know, they, they can't handle what Jimmy Butler can handle. So, I actually tested this in the data in a fun way, in, in the book in a fun way. Uh, I... There isn't a measure, an objective measure of how difficult was your background. So, one of the things we might get into about this book is I heavily relied on ChatGPT to... in the creation of this book. And I thought ChatGPT would do a great job of giving me an objective measure of how difficult someone's childhood was. 'Cause it has, in its dataset, all this information about all the NBA players, you know, what they went through in childhood. So, I asked ChatGPT to rank the background of NBA players, and it gave such sensible answers. Uh, you know, Jimmy Butler was ranked a nine. Kawhi Leonard grew up in a tough neighborhood in Compton, was ranked similarly a nine. Uh, Luol Deng ranked very high because he grew up in a civil war in Sudan. Like, all these different measures that would be hard to objectively, you know, rank, ChatGPT gives a very sensible ranking. And then some players, Dwight Howard, uh, a state... his dad was a state trooper, he ranks very low. Uh, the sons of NBA players rank very low. Steve Nash, uh, suburban family in Canada ranks very low e- in difficulty of upbringing. So, I had this great measure of difficulty of upbringing. And then I tested, does this predict one's tendency to choke? And it doesn't. It does not-

   17. CWChris Williamson34:26

       Goddamn it.

   18. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz34:26

       ... uh, at all, at all. So, it was a little bit of a letdown 'cause it would have been a cool theory if you saw it in the data. Uh, the other thing is that it made me realize how dangerous it is to use ChatGPT for research. 'Cause if I really wanted to cheat, I could have just kept on asking ChatGPT to give me a new ranking (laughs) until I had a ranking that did predict, uh, choking. So, there is a, uh, an, a definite, uh... Uh, ChatGPT, as amazing as it is, uh, as a coder, objective coder of information, uh, does allow for a great deal of cherry-picking if you're... if you don't feel like being too honest.

   19. CWChris Williamson35:00

       Fuckery, the fuckery can occur.

   20. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz35:01

       It does, yeah, for sure.

   21. CWChris Williamson35:02

       Um, Warren Buffett

7. 35:04 – 42:57

   What Warren Buffet & Paul Millsap Have in Common

   1. CWChris Williamson35:04

      and Paul Millsap, what do they have in common?

   2. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz35:06

      (laughs) Yeah. So, one of my chapters is called, What Do, uh, Warren Buffett and Paul Millsap Have in Common? Paul Millsap's a great NBA player, met many multi-all-, uh, multi-time All-Star. And Warren Buffett, as everyone knows, uh, one of the greatest investors of all time. Uh, what they have in common, uh, well, besides being great at their craft, uh, (laughs) was they both turned down the opportunity to go to an elite college to go to a college that was less elite but they felt more comfortable in. So, uh, Warren Buffett started his, uh, collegiate career at Wharton, you know, one of the great business schools in the world. And you'd think someone who dreamed of being a businessman since he was the age of five would, you know, relish the opportunity to, uh, go to Wharton to learn from the greatest business professors, to have the... uh, all the, the great business peers. And Buffett left, uh, Wharton and went to University of Nebraska 'cause he wanted to be closer to his family and he thought the libraries were just as good anyway. (laughs) Uh, and Paul Millsap was a top-ranked recruit, got offers from Arizona, uh, Louisville, LSU, but he decides to go to Louisiana Tech because he felt comfortable there, it was close to his family.And the chapter, uh, basically looks at the data on whether it matters whether you go to a good college. So what, so does it matter both in your- for, you know, for, for a career, the great co- the great colleges that, you know, t- tend to, that people go... Uh, s- there are some colleges in which people who go to, to them have way higher, uh, earnings. So, Harvard, Stanford, Wharton. You know, is it a big advantage? Uh, does it cause you to do better to go to one of these schools? And then in basketball, there are certain co- uh, universities, there are different universities, but North Carolina, Kentucky, Duke, UCLA, where, uh, players who go there are way more likely to become NBA players. So, d- is it really important to go to one of these colleges? And I think the evidence is... My read of the evidence on both the real world and, uh, the NBA is that going to one of these elite colleges gives you an early edge. So, if you go to Harvard undergrad, Stanford undergrad, an Ivy League under- uh, another Ivy League undergrad, you're more likely to get into an elite graduate school, more likely to get that first job at McKinsey or a prestigious firm, a Google. And in basketball, if you go to Duke, if you go to North Carolina, if you go to Kentucky, you're more likely to be drafted. But if you look at the long-term outcome, how good you are as an NBA player eventually, how much you earn over your career, they don't seem to do that much. Eventually, things kinda even out. And if you... You know, so they kinda trick people early on. They give a shine to you. If you have that gold-plated resume that you went to this elite school, uh, you know, you can trick the world early in your career, but eventually everything's gonna even out. And that kinda happened to both Buffett and Millsap, where, uh, Warren Buffett got rejected from Harvard Business School 'cause, probably because they're looking at this guy from Nebraska and, like, you know, "Well, we don't want someone from Nebraska. We can get someone from Wharton or one of these other elite schools." But I think it's pretty clear in the long run, uh, he wasn't hurt by his Nebraska education. You know, became one of the wealthiest men in human history. Uh, and similarly, Paul Millsap, uh, fell to the second round perhaps because teams are like, "Well, we don't trust a guy from Louisiana Tech." But in the long run, he became, uh, you know, a great NBA player, an all-star NBA player. Uh, so it's interesting that the real world and the NBA seem to... Colleges seem to serve a similar function. They give you that early shine, but then they don't seem to do much beyond that. (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson39:00

      How important is going to college at all?

   4. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz39:05

      Well, one of the things that's very interesting, uh, in the data is historically, uh, NBA players who didn't go to college, you know, who went straight out of high school, massively overperformed their draft spot. Uh, y- you know, it was a great bet. And now you have to go to college for a year, so you can't take advantage of this, uh, inefficiency anymore. But for many years, it was an extraordinary idea to draft, uh, a player straight out of high school. So, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, uh, Rashard Lewis, you know, numerous players, uh, Amare Stoudemire, just massively outperformed their draft spot. I think one of the reasons for this, my hypothesis... You know, there are many hypotheses for these. But my hypothesis is if you skipped college and g- went straight to the draft, it was such a bold move. It was saying something about yourself, and you knew yourself so well and your capabilities that you knew something about yourself that the rest of the world missed, uh, that, uh, w- is a huge advantage in being a basketball player. And I think I compare that to the great entrepreneurs. Uh, you know, if you look at the very greatest entrepreneurs, uh, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, what do many of them have in common? They dropped out of school very quickly. And I think if you looked at these great entrepreneurs on paper, if you looked at Zuckerberg and Gates, you know, you'd say, okay, they went to a good school. They maybe had high test scores. They were interested in computers. But so are lots of people. But the fact that they dropped out of school to follow their entrepreneurial spirit I think was another clue that they had something else about themselves that was so remarkable, that the another person who had a similar background but wanted to stay in school didn't have. And I think the same in NB- in, among NBA players. Like, Kobe Bryant knew something about himself. Amir Johnson, Rashard Lewis, they all knew something about himsel- themselves, uh, in making that decision to go straight to the NBA, uh, that the rest of the world didn't know. And they, uh, uh, th- there just, there was just, just extraordinary inefficiency where high- es- straight out of high school players massively ov- overperformed their draft spot.

   5. CWChris Williamson41:19

      Yeah, it's so interesting, the, I guess, kind of selection effect of what's going on here. Like, how much of this is just there's a smaller pool that we're moving from or somebody has a, a particular outlier, which is, it's c- it's a commonality between all of these different people, right? There's a common thread that goes between them all. And yeah, just ridiculous self-belief, I suppose probably correlates with a ton of others. I mean, f- uh, honestly, self-belief might correlate with VO2 max.

   6. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz41:47

      Yeah. (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson41:47

      Like, you, I would totally be open to hearing that, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh, you know, zone two threshold and lactate management ability are strongly correlated with self-belief. Like, sure.

   8. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz42:02

      That, I, I totally believe it. I think one of the frustrating things is, of writing a book about NBA basketball when you're an NBA basketball fan as I am, an enormous NBA basketball fan as I am, is it's almost impossible for the book to be finished. 'Cause, you know, as, there are 100 more questions I wanna look at (laughs) uh, based on these, these findings like that. That would be fascinating to look at. You know, I don't know if there's a way to measure it, but I'd, I'd love to see, you know, to, to-... look at that and to really understand, uh, why hand size has been undervalued and, you know, why high school players have overperformed and all these questions are just, like, you answer one question, and if you're a fan of the game, you have 10 more questions you wanna answer based on that question. Uh, so I had to remind myself, uh, many times in the process of writing this book that, uh, perfect is the enemy of the, of the good (laughs) and, and that I had to finish the project at some point.

   9. CWChris Williamson42:56

      You mentioned

8. 42:57 – 48:59

   How Effective is the NBA Draft?

   1. CWChris Williamson42:57

      there about the NBA draft. And coming from a Anglicized, colonial British imperialist background, the idea of a draft for us, we don't have it in rugby, we don't have it in cricket, we don't have it in football. And yet, it's so common in American sports, you know. What... How effective is it? Is it, is it good? Is it a good idea for basketball at least?

   2. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz43:25

      I mean, I think it evens the playing field for sure. Uh, you know, there, there are some sports where the best teams are just the richest teams. Uh, you know, the, the, you know, the... whatever team can, uh, spend the most money on the best players is going to be the best team, is gonna be the best team. And, uh, that's not really true in basketball. You know, San Antonio was a great team for many decades, uh, even though they're in one of the smallest markets. And I'm a huge Knicks fan. Uh, we're in the biggest market, you know, we should be able to s- uh, spend the most on players, we have the biggest T- uh, you know, TV deal, and, uh, and we can't. We've been te- te- we're finally good again this year, but, uh, we were terrible for so long. And, uh, I think the draft does, uh, you know, serve as a, as a, as an equalizer, uh, where, you know, if you do get that number one pick and you are able to, uh, you know, draft a Tim Duncan, uh, or, uh, you know, uh, you are gonna potentially have a great team for 10, 15 years. Uh, so it definitely does serve the purpose of equalizing things, I w- I would say. And it also is fun, uh, to try to, you know, predict, uh, who's gonna be a good player. You know, the NBA is one of the best leagues at predicting who's gonna be a great player. You know, if you look at, uh, the top 10 NBA players of all time, uh, 60% of them, I think, were number one picks. Uh, the number one overall, the entire number one-

   3. CWChris Williamson44:55

      All right. So, it's very, it's very predictive then.

   4. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz44:58

      It's, it's, uh, it's very predictive. It's not true in baseball, it's not true in football. The numbers are much lower in those sports. Now, of course, there are outliers. So, uh, Nikola Jokic on Denver was a second-round pick, and he's, you know, one of the best, if not the best, NBA player. Uh, so there are exceptions. But, uh, you know, and, and there are these inefficiencies as I discussed about in the book. You know, hand size isn't properly taken into account. And, uh, you know, I... Another one I talk about is standing leap versus vertical leap, uh, which is very interesting. Uh, if you look at i- wha- when NBA players are, uh, t- participating in the combine where they're measured on all these traits, how tall they are, their wingspan, their hand width, uh, they ha- they have to, uh, uh, the teams wanna see how high they can jump, and they give them two tests. Uh, the first one is a, a standing leap. You stand in place and just, you know, without any head start, see how high you can jump. And then the second one is a vertical leap, you get a running head start. It's not a full-on, you know, the whole court running head start, but you get some head start, and then see how high you can jump. And of course, with a running head start, everybody can jump higher. And one thing that's very interesting is if you see what predicts blocked shots or rebounds among basketball players, it's not the vertical leap, the running head start leap, it's the standing leap.

   5. CWChris Williamson46:22

      Mm.

   6. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz46:22

      Because a lot of basketball, you don't get a running head start.

   7. CWChris Williamson46:25

      It's around the net.

   8. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz46:25

      You're boxing out a player... Yeah, you're boxing out a player and the ball just comes and you j- jump, or a guy is going through the lane and you just, maybe, get half a step and, and leap. So, if you actually look at the draft, there's an inefficiency where players who have a great standing leap relative to their vertical leap are undervalued. And the players who have a great vertical leap relative to the standing leap are overvalued. And I think the reason for that is it's such a sexy, shiny trait, that running-

   9. CWChris Williamson46:51

      Yeah, yeah.

   10. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz46:52

       ... head start leap-

   11. CWChris Williamson46:52

       Yeah.

   12. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz46:52

       ... if you can... You know, the people, they're... If you can run the length of the court and, you know, leap from the free throw line and dunk the ball, like, that is so, such an at- impressive athletic feat that I think people are blinded, are just like, "Oh, my God, this person has to be amazing at basketball." It's much sexier than someone who can l- leap not as high, but higher relative to what you'd expect without a running head start. So, that's an inefficiency, uh, in the draft, but-

   13. CWChris Williamson47:18

       Yeah. Th- there needs to be a, uh, a, like, coolness modifier for the exercises.

   14. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz47:26

       Yeah. And I, I, you know, I... Uh, again, once you write a book like this, just your mind's... and you're a sports fan, I'm just a fan of all sports, my mind just starts racing. "Yeah, does this play out in other s- sports? Are, you know, are cool traits, uh, tradi- you know, overvalued in bo- in both sports?" But I guess it's probably yes.

   15. CWChris Williamson47:42

       What I bet, I, I absolutely bet that, um, pitch speed, like, average pitch speed in baseball is something that is very, very highly prioritized. You know, if you're regularly able to hit three figures throughout multiple innings, uh, i- it's just, it... the whole crowd, when they see that 100.00, like, "Oh," like, the whole crowd makes noise, right? So, it's like... But is that, is that the best? I mean, does, even in base-

   16. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz48:14

       Yeah. I b- I believe it. And yeah, I, I believe it. And, you know, in, in football, our, our football, American football, uh, you know, the, the speed of a player relative, l- o- of, let's say, a wide receiver, relative to running good routes, you know, a, a player who just has an incredible 40-yard dash, you know-... 4-2-5, 4-3. You know, it's so impressive, so exciting. Uh, I think they tend to be drafted maybe higher than they should be, relative to someone who runs a 4-4-5, a 4-5, but, you know, really precise on those routes. Like, it's just not that exciting. (laughs) Uh, but it is more important th- you know, I, yeah, you could probably go through lots of sports, uh, where the sexy traits are overvalued.

   17. CWChris Williamson48:58

       There's

9. 48:59 – 54:22

   The Advantage of Being Able to Make Yourself Better

   1. CWChris Williamson48:59

      a really cool YouTube video by Total Running Productions about Su Bingtan. So, he is the 14th fastest sprinter in the world, but he's the only... He might be the only non-Black sprinter in the top, th- the top quite a lot, but he's the only Asian sprinter in the top 200 or something. And the guy's 5'8", I think, 5'8" or 5'9", uh, and when he ran at the Tokyo '21 semifinals, his 100-meter time, which I think came in at like 9.8, 9.81 or something, but he broke the world record for the 40-meter and the 60-meter in the 100-meter. So, this-

   2. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz49:46

      Interesting.

   3. CWChris Williamson49:46

      ... guy is like an... It's, the video that I'm talking about, you, you, I'll send it to you once we're done. It's so good, dude. And you see this, this dude who can't get below 10 seconds, he can't get l- below 10 seconds, and he's just, uh, is this the theoretical limit for Asian sprinters? And he changes his starting foot and rebuilds his running rhythm from the ground up, you know, when he's been doing it for, uh, two decades or something. And, uh, it's just so, it's, it's awesome. He's like my favorite, he's one of my favorite track and field guys now, this short Chinese dude who's just the mo- the acceleration of him is so insane. It's crazy.

   4. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz50:25

      Well, I thi- I think, uh, one of the things you see in all sports are th- these players that just are so good at making themselves better, uh, throughout their career. And, you know, you talk about wide receivers, Jerry R- Rice, the greatest wide receiver of all time, uh, he didn't have the greatest natural gifts, you know, he wasn't the fastest, he's not the tallest, but he just would improve every year and just so, such dedication to his craft, you know, tiny improvements, such a focus on, you know, the routes he was running. And, you know, if you think of basketball, Kawhi Leonard I think fits that profile as well. Maybe not the most naturally gifted, uh, player, but just year after year improving s- paying attention to every subtle little thing, you know, the how to rebound better, pl- play the angles off the, uh, off the rim better. And I think it is fun, uh, to watch these players, uh, e- e- even in many ways, more fun than watching the naturally gifted, you know, the, the most naturally gifted players who maybe don't have to put in quite the effort and they're, uh, they can frustrate you. You know, Shaquille O'Neal, uh, he was on, he was interviewed and they said, "Phil Jackson, your coach, said that if you just practiced hard, you could've been MVP 10 years straight." And you'd think Shaquille O'Neal would be outraged at this statement, you know, how could someone say that? And he basically admitted (claps hands) that this was true. (laughs) Uh, he's like, "Yeah, I, you know, I didn't love practicing, you know, I liked, uh, my cheeseburgers in the off season." And, but he was just so gifted. You combine that height with that, uh, you know, th- that foot speed and that athleticism, uh, it just didn't matter. But, you know, Shaq is a little frustrating. You know, i- if I were a Lakers fan, I'd be so frustrated, like, "Why can't you just learn how to shoot free throws for God's-"

   5. CWChris Williamson52:23

      (laughs)

   6. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz52:25

      ... (laughs) God's sake?" Like, uh, whereas, you know, some of these players, the, the real craftsmen who, uh, just constantly are improving and upping their game year after year working at it can be really, really fun to watch.

   7. CWChris Williamson52:36

      What have you come to believe, or what are the insights about the role of hard work in achieving goals?

   8. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz52:46

      (laughs) Uh, I think it depends so much on the pursuit. Uh...

   9. CWChris Williamson52:52

      Everything that isn't basketball or volleyball.

   10. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz52:54

       Yeah, I mean, th- uh, uh, y- if you're 5'9" and you have small hands and you're slow and you can't jump, like, there's noth- you got no chance. Uh, you know, you can w- work as hard as, as you want, it's not gonna help. I, I would say basketball, because it's so dependent on so many traits that are so genetic, such as height, uh, I think hard work, it moves the needle a little bit. And I think, you know, there, you know, Michael J- there's a difference between m- you know, Michael Jordan is considered the greatest of all time and Shaq isn't, probably in large part because Michael Jordan outworked Shaq. And, you know, if Shaq had outworked Michael, I think Shaq would be, uh, the player that, you know, is number one on everyone's mind as the quintessential basketball player. Uh, but, so I think hard work, uh, can take you, uh, you know, from Shaq to MJ, but it's not gonna take you from Seth to Shaq. (laughs)

   11. CWChris Williamson53:54

       (laughs)

   12. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz53:54

       Or, you know, it's, it's not a- there, there's, there's, uh, you're moving the needle a little bit, uh, but not that much in basketball. But there's other pursuits where, uh, hard work maybe matters more. Uh, the, and, and I always suggest if you're not genetically gifted, you know, there are some sports, equestrian riding or skiing or, you know, there are certain sports where I think you really can improve your craft, uh, you know, y- you, you can move the needle a lot more through hard work than you can in a sport like basketball or sprinting or

10. 54:22 – 1:00:56

    How Seth Used AI to Write About Basketball

    1. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz54:22

       something.

    2. CWChris Williamson54:23

       All right, so we kind of flirted around it and some of the people who don't know or didn't listen to our previous episodes and realize that you're an ex-data scientist from Google, and then you've written all of these phenomenal books, which I love, um...... why you know so much about basketball. Like, h- why, who are you to write this book and how do you, uh, s- happen to have this, like, encyclopedic X-ray vision to be able to see what's going on inside of the world of basketball?

    3. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz54:54

       Uh, so (laughs) well, first of all, I'm an enormous basketball fan. Uh, I have been since I was a little boy. Uh, you know, I, I don't think I could've written a, a book of, you know... a, a book like this of who becomes the best figure skater in the world or, uh, who becomes the best opera singer, uh, 'cause I definitely was relying pretty heavily on, uh, knowledge I have from, uh, three decades as a, uh, a, a passionate fandom of basketball. But this book, uh, I used a new tool, uh, that I have become obsessed with. Uh, it was initially called Code Interpreter. It's now called Data Analysis. It's from ChatGPT. And it's basically a way to do data analysis that has just completely revolutionized my work stream. Uh, like it's... I, I say it's the most amazing product I've ever seen. I always need to offer the caveat, I have zero affiliation with Ch- with, uh, OpenAI. I feel like when I say this, I sound like I'm a spokesman for their, you know, pitchman for their product. Uh, I, I, I, I'm not associated with OpenAI at all. But, uh, a basic, uh, uh, data analysis, uh, Code, what was originally called Code Interpreter, it writes all your data analysis, your data science code for you and runs it. And it is just such a game changer, that things that used to take me four months now literally take me four hours or sometimes less. Like, it's just so wild. Uh, scraping datasets, cleaning datasets, merging datasets, running regressions, making charts. It is the most insane product I've ever seen. And so this book was just like written in like an explosion of just data analysis in like a shockingly short time of just all day pla- running Code Interpreter analyses of basketball. And I was having of my life and just, like, just so quickly producing these charts, producing these analyses. Uh, you know, I think this book, uh, would've been a project of many, many years, uh, without Code Interpreter. And with Code Interpreter, it was a project that took basically 30 days (laughs) , uh, which I, I... Initially, I was really proud of, but now people are like, "Well, do I wanna read a book that only took you 30 days?" Uh, like, uh, but I think-

    4. CWChris Williamson57:17

       There's a really, there's a really famous, um, lecture, I guess. This guy... It's a clip from a, a, what looks like a marketing class or a sales class perhaps or something. And he says, "How much would you pay me if you wanted me to design your new logo?" And the guy says, "I'd pay you $1,000." He goes, "Okay." "And how much would you pay me if I was able to design it in 30 minutes?" He said, "Well, I'd pay you, you know, like $500." He's like, "Hang on a second."

    5. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz57:45

       Yeah.

    6. CWChris Williamson57:45

       "So you're getting the service more quickly."

    7. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz57:47

       (laughs) Yeah.

    8. CWChris Williamson57:47

       "But you're, you want to pay less because you think that the amount of time is indicative of the amount of effort, which is indicative of the amount of quality."

    9. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz57:56

       Yeah. It was, it was interesting. So initially, the first version of Who Makes the NBA, I... One of the marketing hooks, I'm like, "Look, I wrote this book in 30 days," and I also show at the end, I, um, this is how I did it, this is how I used, uh, ChatGPT to do all the analysis. Not to do the writing, the writing I did all myself, but to do the analysis, uh, to make the art, all the art is AI generated from Midjourney or DALL-E. You know, here's what I learned along the way in, in writing this book. And a few people were like, exactly like this guy said, like, "Well, we don't, I don't wanna read a book in your 30-day vanity project." So now I've toned that down and I've said more that, you know, I've, I'm, I, I also show you how to use AI, I, I'm, I'm de-emphasizing the actual time, uh, that I use. But I think that's just unfair to just how revolutionary ChatGPT is, that prior to the existence of Code Interpreter, if I said, uh, I wrote a book on NBA basketball in 30 days, I think people would correctly say, "This is a piece of crap and a Seth vanity project, and I don't want anything to do with this." But I think because of Code Interpreter, because of Midjourney, because of DALL-E, because of ChatGPT, you can write a book in 30 days that is a real treaties on basketball with new insights on the game, you know, many answers to previously unanswered questions. Uh, I think people don't realize just how revolutionary, uh, AI is for the creative process, that the rules of how long something should take, uh, you know, over the last year have completely changed.

    10. CWChris Williamson59:30

        Mm. Yeah, it's very interesting. It's very interesting to think that you've got this, like, arbitrary link between time spent and, and quality. It would be like if you said, um, "Here's some butter, but I churned it myself, like, with my feet or something." "Oh, uh, very much appreciate the fact that you went through all of that effort to give me this butter." You go, "Okay, yeah." And then that, that book that you see that's in front of you, it was actually written by hand, uh, but it's, it's a handwritten book and then the, all of the pages are kind of stitched and sewn together. But, you know, like technological progress, people are very... Typically, there's a lot of inertia to people being dragged along. And, uh, yeah. Interesting, man. Very, very interesting. I suppose what we're seeing here is just, like, leverage at such an insane level of magnitude that your ability to manipulate ChatGPT and Data Analyzer and to be able to spit out what you needed and to then to be able to put it together and then to be able to use ChatGPT to be able to proofread the words so that there wasn't any errors in it, like, that is...It's taking a skill set but leveraging it so much, way more than even something like Wikipedia or a word processor could do. Um, so yeah. People are just not, not ready for this level of exponential. Dude, I appreciate you. I think you've smashed it with the book. I'm really impressed.

11. 1:00:56 – 1:03:53

    Seth’s Goal to Write 100 Books

    1. CWChris Williamson1:00:56

       You say at the beginning, you make a joke that you're gonna try and write 100 books.

    2. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz1:00:59

       (laughs)

    3. CWChris Williamson1:00:59

       That is a joke, right? You're not gonna try and do 100 books.

    4. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz1:01:02

       Uh, I don't know. I might. I, uh, I'll see. I'm trying to work on the monetization of this book, like I'm trying to figure out, uh, like, uh, yeah, exactly how to... If I get the monetization right, 'cause I also self-published this book-

    5. CWChris Williamson1:01:17

       Yep.

    6. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz1:01:17

       ... it was like all the publishers are just like, "We don't know, uh, what to do with your weird (laughs) 30-day project," like that's not... Publishers move very, very, uh, slowly.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:01:28

       Yep.

    8. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz1:01:28

       So no publisher would really touch this. So I'm kinda trying to figure out the monet- If I got the monetization right, I would wri- I would just keep doing it 'cause the other thing is this was the best month of my life, bar none. It was so fun, uh, in part 'cause I was writing about, uh, you know, the NBA. I'm a huge basketball fan. Of course that's gonna be fun for someone like me. But in part because one thing I found is AI just does so many of the things I freaking hate doing. (laughs) So, you know, I'm a, I'm a data scientist, data analyst, like a lot of data science, data analysis is not particularly fun, uh, you know, uh, for me, writing code, cle- debugging code, uh, you know, looking up code, uh, f- you know, figuring out exactly how to add something to a chart in this way, it's just, you know, mind-numbing, a lot of it. And in this project, that was all gone. Like all I did was come up with ideas and I'm just like, "Here, data analyst, do it for me." (laughs) And it was just awesome. It was so fun. So it's just like, it was the most fun month I've had in my life. So, you know, if I can get the monetization right on the book, on th- on this, then I'm just, yeah, I'm going, I, I'll bring-

    9. CWChris Williamson1:02:45

       Bring those together-

    10. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz1:02:46

        No, I've got-

    11. CWChris Williamson1:02:46

        ... and you've got a decade of the most fun months of your life back to back to back.

    12. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz1:02:50

        Yeah. No, I said I'd have a baseball book out by opening day, then I'd have an Olympics book for the, you know, by the summer, then I have an NFL book for, uh, (laughs) for the start of that season. I just keep on going and it would just be the most fun mo- yeah, the most fun months of my life, so.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:03:05

        Hell yeah. Seth, I appreciate you. Uh, I look forward to seeing what you do next. I'll bring you back on. Let's have this, uh, let's have this chat one more time.

    14. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz1:03:12

        Chris, thanks so much for having me and congrats on the success of this podcast. It's been, uh, you re- I remember when you first reached out to me to talk about my first book, Everybody Lies, and I, I think I looked you up and you were like a two-bit podcaster. Uh, I'm like, but I'm like, "Yeah, he seems like a nice guy. I'll do this, this little podcast." And to see you, uh, go into the stratosphere, uh, has been a true joy and very well deserved because you have worked really hard for it.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:03:38

        Thank you, man. I really appreciate that. I really, really do. Until next time, mate, I'll catch you later on.

    16. SSSeth Stephens-Davidowitz1:03:43

        Thanks. See you, Chris.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:03:44

        If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe.

Episode duration: 1:03:53