Malcolm Gladwell Plays Weakest Link (a.k.a. How Are We Not Extinct)

“Dad, they’re gonna make fun of me.”

“Son, they can’t make fun of you if you’re making the shot.”

– Exchange between ’60s pro basketball player Rick Barry and his dad. Rick Barry goes on to be one of the very few players who takes free shots in a way that makes him look very silly, but greatly increases his chances of scoring. Throughout his career, he would find to his amazement that almost no one else is willing to do the same…

Canyon Barry, son of Rick Barry, does the “uncool granny shot” virtually no one else is willing to do     – pic from sportsgrid.com

Which would you choose: Looking “cool” but missing, or scoring almost every single time…. but looking silly while doing it? There is apparently some physics-related reason why if you shoot underhanded (“silly”) you have a better chance of making the shot, ceteris paribus, all other things equal.

Who cares? Looking cool is everything. Even if your personal vanity is one reason your team loses. (I’m serious. This is one of those crazy things about human nature – as you will see, we knowingly “reward” behaviours, thoughts and even people, that aren’t totally good for us, our goals, our teams. This is, among other things, advertising and marketing gold.) I’m not sure just how sarcastic I really intend to be with this.

“Cool Way” of doing it – pic from goldenstateofmind.com

Looking silly (in a derpy throw) is perfectly legal, btw. So how come players cared so much how they looked doing it, yet people seem to care a lot less how they look/ what others think when it comes to breaking rules/ cheating for real? Because people who “cheat” still “look cooler” than straight-shooting nerds?

WHO decided that?

(We did. Despite all the so-called “terrible” consequences, a lot of us would still secretly rather be egotistical cheating Lance Armstrong than Whatshisface, Guy Who Didn’t Cheat And Came In Second (meaning he pr-obably worked pretty hard too, y’know?) M-aybe not. Here’s a 2012 Business Insider article that lists various Second Places in various cycling tournaments that Armstrong won, who were also doping. S-o Whathisotherface, who maybe didn’t even make the top 10 (like, OMG this world.)

This drives me nuts, but probably not for the reasons you might expect. Not Really Sorry means Would Totally Do It Again means Waste Everyone’s Limited Resources To That End. (Hence my pre-occupation also with recidivism rates. The people who don’t think they did anything tha-at wrong are the worst to have back in a society. Not only do they justify away their misdemeanour (implying selfishness – they don’t care who else is hurt, including their own loved ones), they’ll just get smarter at not getting caught next time. Which wastes even more resources on these people. Effort to “help” someone who isn’t really sorry is effort robbed from someone else who needs, actually wants, and deserves help.)

Resources Are Finite. If you have no real interest in shooting straight then get the hell out of the way so someone else who really wants to do better with the hand they’re dealt in life can have your spot. There are too many people in this world who don’t even get the one fair shot.

Numbers off lastmile.org – they took a 55% recidivism rate down to 0 by offering education and rehiring opportunities in tech. And that USD 48bio annually on prisons – a lot of public schools could really use that funding

<ends rant>)

Rick Barry describes how the first time he makes an underhanded shot, he gets heckled from the stands and called a “sissy.” In a standard basketball season, “sissy” Barry misses 9 or 10 free throws. In comparison, LeBron James shooting the “cool” way misses 150 free throws per season – wait for it – and it is still absolutely “professionally acceptable” (not to mention socially acceptable) to make this choice all the time. 

“Women are just as bad…” For Gladwell’s podcast, they spoke to Columbia University women’s basketball players – who were quoted demurring over making the “granny shot”. Columbia U has an admissions rate of ~6.1%, meaning 6.1% of all applicants are admitted. (For reference, Harvard’s is at 5.4%). No one would think any young women who attend Columbia U aren’t smart. But they’re still afraid of looking stupid.

Sociologist Mark Granovetter labels it your “threshold”. The number of other people who need to do something before you’ll consider it. (He uses riots as an example, things like throwing bricks through windows. According to him, your belief system does not always overlap your “threshold.” In the moment, you’re going to do it if enough other people are doing it. Or… not doing it, in the case of “granny” shots. )

In Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy, Rick Barry says, “It’s almost incomprehensible to me that someone could sacrifice that… I wouldn’t accept that a teammate wasn’t going to play his hardest..” Simply put, his drive to be a stronger shooter is bigger than his worry about what others think of him. That’s a double edged sword: Barry is also so tactless his team mates have said, “If he went to the UN he would start World War III.” But get this – he includes in his own autobiography the negative things his wife and parents say about him. When asked about it, he shrugs, “I didn’t ask for editorial rights, let ’em say what they want to say.”

Here’s the method to the madness: Who is almost the only other person in the entire world of pro/ semi-pro basketball who takes their free shots underhanded? Rick Barry’s son, Canyon Barry (pictured far above.) In college basketball. (Read: College kid who doesn’t care what other college kids think about how he looks. No, I don’t think that’s easy. Canyon Barry graduated with a degree in Physics, is pursuing a Masters in Nuclear Engineering at U of Florida, and in the 2018/19 season, played professionally for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye.)

HOW YOU LIKE THEM – No, I’m more a Proof Of The Pudding person. See, one of the most intimidating things I have ever read in a (Christian) parenting book is how kids have the most awfully fine-tuned hypocrisy-dar. You have to actually walk your own talk. (This is just terrible information.: “There is No Easy Way Out.” Their Marketing people must’ve had a fit.)

Even Mary Poppins let the medicine go down witha spoonful of sugar… If at midnight your 18 year old son is driving down a highway at 100 miles an hour with 2 of his friends, it’s not because he thinks it’s a good idea. It’s because he cares (too much) what his friends think about him. He’s got a low “threshold.”

“I felt silly – like a sissy – shooting that way…. I just couldn’t do it.” – Wilt Chamberlain

“Throwing like a sissy” earned Chamberlain the NBA free throw record he shares with Adrian Dantley** that remains unbroken today, and he still went back to Looking Cooler, Scoring Lousier.

If people know you are a particularly bad free thrower though, the other team will just keep fouling you every time you touch the ball, in the last minutes of the game – because you’re going to miss most of your free throws so it’s better to give you free throws than to let you have the ball any other way. (<shrugs> Why wouldn’t the opposing team foul you all the time? That’s their best way of defending their basket against you.)

Repeatedly deliberately fouling the other team is more “socially acceptable” than looking derpy making a free shot – am I the only one who thinks this is hilarious?)

Here’s another one: Every year, all the draft-eligible college players are put in a pool, and the 32 football teams out there take their pick. Obviously, the player who is picked first is the most valuable. But. How much more valuable? (There’s also a bunch of elaborate clauses that come with signing the first draft pick. This is not unlike the terms and conditions of structured investment products, and get this – there’s an actual market as well. How exciting is that? You can trade First Pick for say, 5 or 6 Second Picks.)

Can’t wait to say it: What if the price of First Pick is so bid up, what if you’ve paid so much premium on that first player upfront, it negates the benefit of having him? (This is the simple case of paying too much for something good, making it n-ot so good anymore.)

If the price of a First Pick player has traded up to 5 or 6 times the equivalent of a(n early) Second draft player. Does a First Pick at that price provide the equivalent value of 5 Second Picks?

Awhile ago, when trying to explain to Rockstar why attitude is so important, I used the easy go-to of Hollywood stars. At the time, Shia Labeouf* was highlighted as one of the most “profitable” actors to hire – he came in on time, was incredibly dedicated and respectful, despite not being very well-known at the box office (at the time.) He wasn’t the biggest box-office attracting name, but he was in the top 10 for profitability. 

Shia Labeouf (gif from giphy.com)

In contrast is Lindsay Lohan not too long after her Parent Trap success.

LiLo today (she’s 33, but hard partying and drinking seriously ages you), and back when she played twins on Parent Trap – pic from elitedaily.com

Because of her hard partying (she was known to hit up 3 clubs in one night), she “had” to take the next work day off, or else simply didn’t arrive in any condition to film productively. (That’s not counting when she would get arrested for drunk driving.) It meant film crew had to work (and be paid) overtime, sets, equipment and venues had to be employed overtime, her co-workers hated her had to yes, work overtime. She was wayyyyy more famous and “bankable” at the box office than Shia, BUT all the extra costs incurred by her bad attitude soon made directors and producers think twice about hiring her. She was not profitable. (She also went from a net worth of about USD 30mio around the age of 18 to USD 100,000 at her lowest, and has admitted “I was ..19 with no one (in LA) to really tell me I couldn’t do certain things… and look where that’s got me now.” 

<pause>

Know why I care that my kids know (and care) how to be likeable? Because they may not always get to pick and choose their friends/ workmates/ partners, but when they do, I hope to give them their best chance at the choices they aspire to. Choice, as Peter Buffet (son of Warren Buffet) once said, is the biggest privilege in life.

screenshot off Amazon.com

(*In the interests of full disclosure – LaBeouf then went on to roles where he played high-as-a-kite characters and – you guessed it – took real drugs for those scenes resulting in times of “drunken disorderliness” and police arrests. Former co-actor Tom Hardy who was famously punched out cold by LaBeouf during one such movie production has openly still voiced respect for his work ethic. When LaBeouf got arrested for drunk driving around that time, went into rehab, came out and won some awards, he thanked the police officer in Georgia for arresting him that night.)

One More Footnote: Adrian Dantley who shares the NBA free throw record with Wilt Chamberlain played with custom-made lifts in his shoes because one of his legs is 2 inches shorter than the other. Yes and he had a career in pro basketball and shares an unbroken NBA record. 

Our “weakest links” in society aren’t the Have-Nots in the “talent” department, or even the ones with disabilities. They are the ones with the wrong attitude.