Ethan Strauss, a writer known for his sharp insights on sports and culture, joins the conversation to discuss the intersection of athletics and societal issues. He reflects on basketball talent disparities across regions, including the challenges of the NBA's attempts to engage Chinese fans. The dialogue also dives into the complexities of diversity, equity, and inclusion in sports hiring practices, contrasting corporate pressures with meritocracy. Strauss shares candid takes on the impact of these dynamics on professional sports, balancing cultural commentary with humor.
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insights INSIGHT
NBA's Changing Player Demographics
The NBA is now disproportionately upper middle class black players, not just inner city players.
Resource access, rule changes favoring shooting, and genetics shape this demographic shift.
insights INSIGHT
NHL's Teen Power Players
The NHL engages teenagers directly to shape its league's future.
This novel approach reflects the league's fear of cultural irrelevance.
insights INSIGHT
NBA's International Ambitions vs Reality
The NBA's global push faltered partly due to political incidents and cultural disconnects.
China's vast population has produced surprisingly few top NBA players compared to small European nations.
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Ethan Strauss's The Victory Machine explores the inner workings of the Golden State Warriors dynasty, detailing the team's rise to prominence and eventual decline. The book delves into the dynamics between key players, coaches, and management, offering insights into the strategies and decisions that shaped their success. Strauss examines the cultural and organizational factors that contributed to the Warriors' winning formula. He also analyzes the challenges and controversies that arose during their reign. Ultimately, the book provides a comprehensive account of one of the most captivating and transformative periods in NBA history.
Strauss and Razib first discuss professional sports and the different representation of various nationalities. Strauss recounts the generational attempt by the NBA to get Chinese representation to gin up a lucrative rivalry, and how it sputtered due to the reality that 1.4 billion Han Chinese seem to have less basketball talent than small nations like Croatia. Razib also asks about how and why baseball is popular in parts of Latin America and East Asia, and why there are so many more Dominicans in MLB than Mexicans. Strauss says differences between populations are so obvious in sports there’s no need for complex social explanations.
Then they explore the role of DEI in professional sports, and especially the NBA, and how it might be impacting decisions in the league. They recall the years around 2020, when a drive for minority representation, and in particular of blacks, was prevalent across the corporate world, and how thatimpacted professional sports. Strauss then offers his theory for why the Dallas Mavericks inexplicably traded away a potentially generational talent, Luka Dončić, and Mark Cuban’s role in the choice. Finally, he highlights the racism that Jeremy Lin, one of the few Asian American stars in the 2010’s, faced from fellow players.
Razib Khan's Unsupervised Learning 