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Total Recall: LeBron's mighty mind (2014)

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

#91

Post by toasterlovin »

philwelch wrote: post #87
toasterlovin wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't discount him just being more durable as a result of his build. He's 6'8" and 250lbs, which is on the more muscular side for the NBA. I'm 6'6" and have been anywhere from 180-320lbs as an adult (currently about 290lbs), with the range being due to adding significant muscle mass as a result of weight lifting. I can tell you that I am much more durable at my current weight than I was at 180lbs. Bumps and fall…

LeBron’s size and body composition helps a hell of a lot, but good body mechanics—especially landing mechanics—get more important, not less, as a player gets bigger and stronger, because the amount of landing energy he has to dissipate grows in proportion to those factors.

Agree 100% that mechanics are important for things like landing jumps. Body composition is probably more important for most other sources of injury, though. After all, it's hard to have proper mechanics when you collide with somebody unexpectedly, or when you land on your side because somebody knocked your legs out from under you.

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

#92

Post by fbernier »

philwelch wrote: post #45
jl2718 wrote: 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…

Eh...the NBA still has a ton of great athletes with dubious basketball IQ (Westbrook) and, conversely, guys with great basketball IQ who are held back by their limited physical skills (Ben Simmons, Rajon Rondo, dare I say Lonzo Ball). The best players are generally the ones who combine basketball IQ with the hand-eye coordination needed to sink jumpshots from anywhere or the athleticism to go over, through, or past t…

Westbrook does have a good IQ but I can understand why some people could think that.

As for athleticism, I really, really, really dont understand where you are coming from with Ben Simmons lacking in that area. The only thing the guy doesn't have is a mid-range jumper. As for the rest he is a 6'10" point guard, so basically Magic Johnson with maybe a tad more athleticism.

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

#93

Post by RaceWon »

maxxxxx wrote: post #19
William1000 wrote: post #2

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

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.

> When I did martial arts my memory of a fight was pretty vague so I couldn't analyze and learn much.

I'm guessing it's because of the adrenaline. I don't remember anything from my first Formula Ford race (and I had years and years of street racing experience at that time and vast databases of memories from those street races), but after a while that level of "combat" actually becomes cherished, you relish the "fight". Then you are in the position to make use of your memory to aid yourself in becoming better when you are not even participating.

I'd say this is probably more true for racers where seat time is very expensive so you must develop the ability to bench race (visualize yourself actually driving, shifting gears, looking into the corner, and so on, and so on) to become competitive.

FWIW, and in my personal experience; when you get to the point where you remember what you were actually thinking right before you made an input, then you are truly in a position to really improve when you are not even actually participating.

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

#94

Post by philwelch »

fbernier wrote: post #92
philwelch wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh...the NBA still has a ton of great athletes with dubious basketball IQ (Westbrook) and, conversely, guys with great basketball IQ who are held back by their limited physical skills (Ben Simmons, Rajon Rondo, dare I say Lonzo Ball). The best players are generally the ones who combine basketball IQ with the hand-eye coordination needed to sink jumpshots from anywhere or the athleticism to go over, through, or past t…

Westbrook does have a good IQ but I can understand why some people could think that. As for athleticism, I really, really, really dont understand where you are coming from with Ben Simmons lacking in that area. The only thing the guy doesn't have is a mid-range jumper. As for the rest he is a 6'10" point guard, so basically Magic Johnson with maybe a tad more athleticism.

Simmons is a great athlete, but not being able to shoot jumpers is more of a physical limitation than a mental one, so he still serves as a good counterexample to the argument that NBA success is primarily mental in nature.

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

#95

Post by theluketaylor »

ssharp wrote: post #8
wallflower wrote: post #3

LeBron James is arguably the greatest player of his modern era (Wilt Chamberlain did not have as much competition), if not all time. Yes, he has tremendous physical gifts and dexterity. What most people don't know is he has an almost uncanny eidetic memory that allows him to truly know how the other players on a team have played against him or his team in the past without studying game video ipso facto... and also wh…

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…

fivethirtyeight did a similar analysis of Messi going into the world cup and found he covered less distance than most players, but somehow managed to create more separation with the defence than anyone else.

I think it would be common across all sports to find the true elite players do something fundamentally different from everyone else. I would also place a large bet the thing they do that makes them elite would be something coaches at lower levels (or even the elite level) would be trying to train out of them trying to extract even more performance.

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

#96

Post by raihansaputra »

maxxxxx wrote: post #19
William1000 wrote: post #2

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

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.

Off the top of my head, this was one of the most important quality of Michael Schumacher. He can really feel the differences between setups and communicate that with the engineers. He really shined in the early 2000s due to the extensive testing he did in Maranello to develop the car and the setups[0].

The current drivers are really impressive too, they have the track layout, the braking points, the turning points of every track they race in their head to the point they can drive it by memory[1][2]. I think this also contributes to the memorisation of the race detail as the track contours and details are in their 'cache' or background memory so they can spend more cognitive capacity in feeling out the changes instead of trying to absorb the whole 'event' or race.

[0]: http://atlasf1.autosport.com/98/bel/schumacher.html

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pVBsH5ljnI

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StqJ40ro56g

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

#97

Post by raihansaputra »

I'm really curious on those who do have these kind of usable high memory capacity. I seem to be able to remember random facts in my head but for other, more important subjects (such as basic numbers about the company I'm working for, my emotions and feelings on a certain point in life, lessons and experiences that I've gone through in life) seem to pass me by and I feel like I just have these holes in my memory that I can't patch. I remember my friends sometimes ask me why I date my Instax pictures and I just realised that I cannot recall my memories easily without aids and/or concrete data (one of the reasons why it's hard for me to turn off my location history on Google). This is especially a hindrance in my personal/social life as I often forget significant life events for myself or others and come across as uncaring to others.

How to improve my memory in general, basically, is my question. I've read 'Moonwalking with Einstein' that describes techniques used in memory competitions (such as recalling thousands of digits of pi) but I don't feel that is applicable in real life. Maybe someone here could chime in on that.

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

#98

Post by jimbokun »

cloudwalking wrote: post #84
jimbokun wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hi…

I think it's generally understood he went to LA in part to kick start his post playing career. I'm curious about this, do you know of any good reading?

Random example:

https://247sports.com/nba/cleveland-cavaliers/Article/David-...

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