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You have arrived at the web home of Noah Brier. This is mostly an archive of over a decade of blogging and other writing. You can read more about me or get in touch. If you want more recent writing of mine, most of that is at my BrXnd marketing x AI newsletter and Why Is This Interesting?, a daily email for the intellectually omnivorous.

July, 2013

What wins basketball games?

The key to winning basketball games is turning possessions into points.
I know we're long past the NBA finals, but I really liked this quote about what actually wins basketball games:
There is nothing that has ever won a basketball game except for turning possessions into points. Both teams have about the same number of possessions -- they alternate all game -- and one team will turn those into more points. Halftime speeches, energy drinks, blue-chip college pedigrees ... nothing matters unless it makes one team better at turning possessions into points than the other team.
One of the things that drives me a bit nuts is people saying Lebron James doesn't have the killer instinct or whatever else. At the end of the day this is the thing that matters. Moneyball proved it, Wages of Wins is proving it, it's hard to deny math.
July 1, 2013
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Noah Brier | Thanks for reading. | Don't fake the funk on a nasty dunk.