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Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

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

#71
post #13

First-off, I think this is interesting because athletes have hit the point of diminishing returns on physical abilities, and now the games are turning mental in every sport. The NBA has done a great job at turning strategy into a spectator sport. In the NFL, the possibly single worst athlete in the quarterback position is the best ever. They are changing too. I’m not sure MLB can adapt. I wonder whether this doesn’t…

I don't follow football but I'm curious. Who is the bad athlete/best player you're referring to?

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

#72

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…

Winning a title in Cleveland is one of the singular greatest achievements in NBA history, and in American sports history.

In a lot of ways, it transcends the quantitative metrics we generally use to measure athletes' success.

LeBron will not control the Lakers from top to bottom, especially with an even more charismatic leader like Magic around. I think it's generally understood he went to LA in part to kick start his post playing career.

Both of which are to say, LeBron has his own goals, desires, and motivations for his decisions, which may sometimes go beyond just counting rings.

(Also, I'm still not ruling out Magic, LeBron, and the pull of LA leading to another title before LeBron retires.)

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

#73
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)?

Driving is only a part of racing. Giving feedback to the team is at least as important so they can set up the car and develop it. I remember reading an interview with a driver who had tested a car together with Ayrton Senna (who became a superstar later). When the team asked him how the car was he gave a few pointers whereas Senna could describe every part of the car in every turn in detail. Guess who is the more valuable driver for the team? Good drivers have more sensors than others and they can record more data.

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

#75

His memory has always been laughably impressive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNVJFRl6f6s

Almost as laughably unimpressive is the vapidity of the next question asked, something like "down after one game, how concerned are you?"

Um, 7? 6? 14?

I think coaches and athletes don't necessarily get upset about having to answer questions per se. I think a lot of times they are upset that the people writing about their sport have so little knowledge or curiosity about it.

Zach Lowe, as a counterexample, seems to get a lot of interesting answers out of players and coaches because he makes good observations and thus can actually ask interesting questions.

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

#76
post #65
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's like a compression algorithm, eliminating redundant details.

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

#77
As others suggested, this is common in sports. I believe the reason is epinephrine release. Epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) greatly improves attention to details and vivid memories by enhancing the brain, facilitating long-term memory recording.

From wikipedia:

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Epinephrine acts by binding to a variety of adrenergic receptors [...]. Its actions are to increase peripheral resistance via α1 receptor-dependent vasoconstriction and to increase cardiac output via its binding to β1 receptors. The goal of reducing peripheral circulation is to increase coronary and cerebral perfusion pressures and therefore increase oxygen exchange at the cellular level.[64] While epinephrine does increase aortic, cerebral, and carotid circulation pressure, it lowers carotid blood flow and end-tidal CO2 or ETCO2 levels. It appears that epinephrine may be improving macrocirculation at the expense of the capillary beds where actual perfusion is taking place.

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I would argue that adrenaline can turn seconds in to years, the world suddenly starts going in slow motion, especially when your body is trained by having adrenaline rushes frequently.

One of the reasons many newly hired SREs learn many things about their stack quickly over incidents is adrenaline rushes... Of course, in the case of incident response, it might have negative connotations as a recent talk at SRECon by a DO employee showed: nearly 70% of SREs had trouble sleeping because of anxiety after am incident.

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

#78
post #13

First-off, I think this is interesting because athletes have hit the point of diminishing returns on physical abilities, and now the games are turning mental in every sport. The NBA has done a great job at turning strategy into a spectator sport. In the NFL, the possibly single worst athlete in the quarterback position is the best ever. They are changing too. I’m not sure MLB can adapt. I wonder whether this doesn’t…

I don't follow football but I'm curious. Who is the bad athlete/best player you're referring to?

Probably Tom Brady.

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

#79
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To see this point proven, watch video of Derrick Rose's movements and landings. While we're on the topic, I wonder if anyone has started using computer vision to inform players of their movements and avoid injuries.

Here's a great breakdown of Rose's poor body mechanics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_rdO8OLHZo

That's really interesting, thanks!

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

#80
post #13

First-off, I think this is interesting because athletes have hit the point of diminishing returns on physical abilities, and now the games are turning mental in every sport. The NBA has done a great job at turning strategy into a spectator sport. In the NFL, the possibly single worst athlete in the quarterback position is the best ever. They are changing too. I’m not sure MLB can adapt. I wonder whether this doesn’t…

I don't follow football but I'm curious. Who is the bad athlete/best player you're referring to?

Tom Brady is notorious for how unathletic he was during the NFL combine before the draft (in which he was picked in the 6th round, #199). Here is a picture just to give you an idea: https://sports.cbsimg.net/images/blogs/Tom-Brady-shirtless-0...

Now I don't think there is much argument that he is the greatest player to ever play the game.

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