Welcome to the home of Noah Brier. I'm the co-founder of Variance and general internet tinkerer. Most of my writing these days is happening over at Why is this interesting?, a daily email full of interesting stuff. This site has been around since 2004. Feel free to get in touch. Good places to get started are my Framework of the Day posts or my favorite books and podcasts. Get in touch.

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What wins basketball games?

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 // This post is about: ,