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Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

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Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#61
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides his physical and mental talents, he's also an incredibly dedicated worker and has also embraced a lot of innovative playing, training and recovery ideas that has helped him extend his peak physical years beyond where they normally are. One of the surprising things I heard about last year was that the newer basketball cameras that record all aspects of play rated him as one of (maybe even the) slowest players…

LeBron also has very healthy body mechanics, which is an underrated part of durability. The difference between more durable and less durable players isn’t only down to conditioning and training and genetics; an NBA player jumps and lands, cuts and stops, and generally subjects his body to the limits of what it can withstand. Constantly and repeatedly doing that in biomechanically vulnerable ways (bracing the knees in…

I recall an interview recently where he estimated he spent (of his own money, not just efforts with the team) about $1M/year maintaining his body.

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is less spectacular than people believe. If you are extremely focused in a sport event, as is the case for top players and Formula 1 drivers, it is natural that they can remember details with precision. This would be far more difficult for mundane events.

I agree. It’s only impressive if their memory in other areas is at least average. If it’s just a matter of using all of your resources in one limited field then it’s far from impressive. Most people have a less singular focus, and it would be more helpful to compare total performance rather than comparing this one area.

The point is that such feats of memory do not necessarily have anything to do with the skill itself: a great F1 driver is a great F1 driver, irrespective of how well he/she remembers races; so why do such feats of recall come along for the ride (pun unintended)?

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#63
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your overstating the 'LeBron needs power' narrative. In LA, he will be behind the shadow of Kobe as an example, with little hope to surpass him. I think it's more legacy definition, he's been talking 'Chasing a Ghost' for a years now and rebuilding LA (after 8 consecutive finals decimating the East, a Ring to Cle) would do that. Leaving Mia for Cle was due to (Kyrie + 2*(#1 overall)) > (Bosh+(Wade - 1.2 knees…

If you mean shadow as far as likeability for Lakers fans I agree. But nothing as far as talent. Kobe isn't even a top 3 Laker of all-time and LeBron is on another level which is a notch below Jordan.

shallow troll

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#64
post #40
post #7

He isn't smart enough to adjust his offensive game. His go to move is to lower his shoulder. The best defensive players and teams give way and then he is off balance and he tends to miss the shot. He has done that his entire career. See Durant and Iguodala's defense. Also his straight line drives are completely negated by a good shot blocker(s). See Tyson Chandler and the Mavericks. A more adaptable player would have…

being allowed to bring the shoulder back up with an elbow to the face of the defender while taking an extra 2 steps after picking up the ball outside of the free throw line helps too....

have to say i agree, he gets away with bulldozing right through the defender and the leafue cant afford to foul him out

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#65
post #27
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this IS truly incredible. This reminds me of how many chess grandmasters can easily recall and recite and visualize every move in a game from years past. I think James deserves a little more credit than just being on par with chess GMs: to memorize something so complex as a basketball game without even attempting to commit it to memory speaks to his extraordinary intelligence.

You probably already know this, but of course the companion trivia there is that chess masters' incredible recall for board positions only works for realistic layouts - when tested on randomly placed pieces, masters apparently remember them no better than beginners. If basketball is analogous, one could suppose that (A) there may not be anything special about LeBron's memory per se - e.g. he might remember the plays…

This is presumably because the chess master understands the position. I see three pawns, a king, a rook, and a knight. The chess master sees a castled king. I see 30 pieces all over the board. The master sees the Sicilian Dragon Harrington-Glek variation. I have no idea what happened next. I see eight candidate moves. The master sees three but knows that only one will make this particular opponent uncomfortable. With this level of understanding, it is way easier for the master to remember the game.

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#66
60 Minutes did a story on this condition four years ago or so. They called it "Super Memory". Actress Marilu Henner was one of the people that possess this super recall ability.

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHeEQ85m79I

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en23bCvp-Fw

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#67
post #22
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard the same about the top Formula One Drivers. After the race they can recall almost every turn of the race in detail with their engineers. It takes hours to get all the information across. It makes sense that a good memory is big asset for an athlete. It allows them to replay a situation and learn from it. When I did martial arts my memory of a fight was pretty vague so I couldn't analyze and learn much.

I've noticed this ability as well in other fields: it seems those at the very top (chess grandmasters, piano virtuosos, etc) have an incredible ability to remember the details of performances in their field. The question is: is it their existing recall abilities that (in part) helps them to get to the top, or is it the process of becoming that good that greatly enhances their memory?

In Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, Ericsson had chess grandmasters look chess boards of real games, and they could recreate the board in a pretty short fashion.

But when they took chess boards of randomly placed pieces, they could not remember the placement of pieces any better than a random group of people.

The idea is that through practice, you develop the ability pattern match and chunk together the data into more cohesive blocks, and memory fewer of these blocks.

The rough analogy in software is to take a quick look at some code and recognize the design patterns, and remember the design patterns used rather each individual character.

In fact, words are a form of chunking -- we don't remember hundreds of character sequences, but we remember the words instead.

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#68
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your overstating the 'LeBron needs power' narrative. In LA, he will be behind the shadow of Kobe as an example, with little hope to surpass him. I think it's more legacy definition, he's been talking 'Chasing a Ghost' for a years now and rebuilding LA (after 8 consecutive finals decimating the East, a Ring to Cle) would do that. Leaving Mia for Cle was due to (Kyrie + 2*(#1 overall)) > (Bosh+(Wade - 1.2 knees…

If you mean shadow as far as likeability for Lakers fans I agree. But nothing as far as talent. Kobe isn't even a top 3 Laker of all-time and LeBron is on another level which is a notch below Jordan.

> Kobe isn't even a top 3 Laker of all-time

Eh, he's barely a top 3 Laker, if only because Jerry West always lost to the Celtics, Wilt wasn't there for very long and still lost to the Celtics, and Shaq came and went. I put him third all time after Kareem and Magic.

But that really says a lot about the Lakers--you have to stop and think for awhile before naming the best NBA player who never played for the Lakers, Celtics, or Bulls at this point.

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#69

Impressive, no doubt. This type of memory happens more often than people realize to athletes and coaches. Pattern recognition in competitive sports is extremely valuable. Lebron is one of the all time greats because he combines such unique gifts, his memory, his work ethic, his physicality, size and quickness. He is just a freak all the way around. His basketball IQ has some interesting affects on teams he plays thou…

> This type of memory happens more often than people realize to athletes and coaches.

I was blown away how much Mike Tyson knows about boxing history. Great athletes are skilled but they are also students of the game [1][2][3].

You can't get video anymore unless you look since Norm MacDonald Live episodes are off Youtube while he gets his new show on Netflix, but Mike Tyson | Norm Macdonald Live episode had so much boxing history sprinkled in it was amazing [4].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtRfwTLtiM8 [2] https://youtu.be/rhThso-PE_o?t=47m15s [3] https://www.boxinginsider.com/columns/mike-tyson-boxing-hist... [4] https://player.fm/series/norm-macdonald-live-1705948/ep-26-m...

Re: Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

#70
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It’s only impressive if their memory in other areas is at least average. If it’s just a matter of using all of your resources in one limited field then it’s far from impressive. Most people have a less singular focus, and it would be more helpful to compare total performance rather than comparing this one area.

The point is that such feats of memory do not necessarily have anything to do with the skill itself: a great F1 driver is a great F1 driver, irrespective of how well he/she remembers races; so why do such feats of recall come along for the ride (pun unintended)?

I'm not so sure that's true. I have a feeling when you're flying down the road at 200mph remembering every last detail of that course is particularly important.

Similarly with basketball or any other highly curated group of individuals performing a skill.

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