Techno-efficiency vs. the human element
Sports as a window into society.
In the modern era, we are in a rush to optimize the performance of everything. Technology can help us solve problems, but not every aspect of human life is a problem that needs to be fixed.
A positive example of technology in society: In our elections, vote-counting machines can count paper ballots faster and more accurately than humans do. The machines can be tested and audited with human hand-count samples.
In our justice system, forensic evidence has become highly advanced. But would we want ChatGPT to replace judges and juries? Although humans can be flawed and emotional in our judgements, I think most people would be alarmed by the idea that a guilty verdict would be rendered by the cold calculations of a machine.
There are limits to what we should do with our technologies.
Sports is one of those human endeavors where, in my view, the doctrine of techno-efficiency is encroaching in unpleasant ways. While sports is an embodied and aesthetic activity, there are still pressures to optimize to perfection.
Two specific tensions will be discussed in this post.
Instant replay technology is meant to eliminate the mistakes of referees, but it can have negative consequences for how games are experienced.
Advanced stats are meant to eliminate inefficiencies in team strategy, but many fans find the math-infused strategies to be less enjoyable to watch.
To illustrate these tensions, I will start with an anecdote from baseball, and then I will dive deeper into the aesthetics of basketball.
I attended just one Arizona Diamondbacks game this past season. The score was tied 0-0 heading into the 9th inning. This kind of a game could be described in two different ways. It’s either a horrible offensive showing or a pitching duel. (Back when pitchers were allowed to throw complete games, we called it a pitcher’s duel.)
The most exciting play of the game happened when a San Diego Padres batter slapped a bunt to the Diamondbacks’ second baseman, Ketel Marte, in the top of the 7th inning. Marte charged toward the softly bouncing grounder as the batter sprinted to first base. Marte used his glove to scoop-flip the ball to the outstretched arm of first baseman. The umpire made a dramatic “You’re Out!” gesture, and the crowd went wild….
….for a moment.
The crowd noise died down when the Padres challenged the call. Everyone sat around waiting for a replay review. Fans murmured to each other as the jumbo-tron showed the play in slow motion:
Fan 1: Damn, I think that guy was safe.
Fan 2: No, that’s gotta be an out.
Fan 1: Are you sure? He looks safe to me.
Fan 2: Pretty sure. The video needs to be conclusive to overturn the call.
A few minutes later, the umpire made an announcement: “The ruling on the field is upheld. The batter is out.” The crowd responded with a polite cheer.
In reality, it was a 50/50 call. Even after re-watching the instant replay right now, I still can’t tell if the batter’s foot hit the bag first. You would need pressure-detecting technology in the glove and the base to know for sure.
Does it really matter, though?
Maybe the umpire (subconsciously) got caught up in the excitement of a great play during a defensive game, and gave the Diamondbacks the benefit of the doubt. A called out would be a fun play for the home team, even if the runner’s foot touched the bag .001 seconds before the ball touched the glove (which, again, would be impossible to know without pressure-detecting technology).
Let’s say the umpire called the runner safe. That call would still be more fun than checking on instant replay. Wouldn’t it? Instead of sitting around murmuring about a replay, fans would get to yell at the umpire for the bad call, and then move on to see if the defense would hold.
I am playing “devil’s advocate" somewhat because I don’t think I would eliminate instant replay altogether if I had the power.
My point is that we lose something when we try to perfect sports through technological efficiency. There are trade-offs involved.
In professional basketball, there are two opposing trends at work. The math-formulaic strategy of high-volume three-point shooting is speeding up the game, while the increased use of instant replay is slowing the game down.
Let’s continue the thread of instant replay first.
Basketball instant replay is worse than any other sport. If you watch an NBA game, you will see that, for many calls, people complain just as much after the video review as they did before it. Oftentimes, the television announcers will predict the replay review will go one way, but the refs call it the other way.
The human element is strong with basketball refereeing:
Refs will sometimes call fouls more strictly in order to “tighten up” a game where the physicality is getting too intense.
There are some calls, like when a defensive player attempts to draw a “charge” on the offensive player, that are extremely hard to judge, even with slow motion reviews.
This is the worst: Sometimes a ball is clearly knocked out of bounds by Player A (everyone in a pickup game would know it was out on Player A) even though instant replay shows that, technically, the ball last brushed the fingertip of Player B, who was holding the ball when Player A knocked it out of bounds.
It is almost impossible for an instant replay review to reverse a foul that is called on the court, because there is always a little bit of contact on the play. So even if a particular foul was a ticky-tack call that would not have been called for the vast majority of the plays in the game, the call won’t be overturned upon review.
Instant replay isn’t always bad in basketball. Sometimes a blatant mistake gets corrected. And it’s good to double-check if a shot was released before the buzzer, or if a player’s foot was behind the line on a three-point shot.
But with so many subjective calls, and with instant replay sometimes backfiring, why not just make a call and move on?
Basketball is more fun when it’s quick. Instant replay slows games down to a halt, over and over and over again.
The constant stoppage of play is annoying. Nothing has changed the aesthetics of the professional game more, however, than the analytical strategy of high-volume outside shooting.
The Phoenix Suns were pioneers of the three-point shooting revolution that now dominates the NBA. The innovation by the Suns didn’t happen because of number-crunching, though. It was a stylistic preference combined with personnel to match.
Coach Mike D'Antoni liked to play an open, run-and-gun style of basketball, and the Suns team of 2004-05 was built around this philosophy. Directed by point guard Steve Nash and surrounded by versatile players like Shawn Marion, the team’s motto was “Seven Seconds or Less”. The goal was to shoot the first open shot available, rather than wait to try to get the best shot possible. All of their players, including their center Amar’e Stoudemire, could run the court and shoot.
During the 2004-05 season, the Suns averaged 24 three-point attempts per game, while the league average was 16.
The result was aesthetically pleasing. The games were thrilling. The scoring attack was fast, balanced, and unpredictable.
The Suns teams of this era performed well in the playoffs, but they never won a championship. At the time, common basketball wisdom said that this style of play wasn’t capable of winning a championship.
The next phase of the three-point shooting bonanza was Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors. Not only did Curry shoot a ridiculous amount of three-point shots, but he maintained a high percentage with his increased volume, cutting against the traditional expectations for three-point shooters. The Warriors broke through with a championship in 2015, and followed up with titles in 2017, 2018, and 2022.
Since then, the strategy of high-volume threes has been affirmed by analytics. The statistical gurus say that chucking it up from deep is more efficient than taking mid-range shots, so that's what teams are doing now.
During the 2023-24 season, the league average was 35 three-point attempts per game. This season, the average is 38.
Fans are seeing 76 three-point attempts per game between the two teams, with 64% of those shots being missed.
A lot of people, myself included, find this to be ugly basketball. Not only do we see a ton of bricked threes, but the score fluctuates wildly back and forth. In the old days, teams won because of superior strategy or execution. Today, more of the games seem to be won based on shooting streaks. Additionally, longer shots mean longer rebounds. So rebounding becomes more about luck than about positioning, further contributing to the sensation of chance outcomes.
Here’s how I would put it: Basketball is fun when teams play fast and shoot threes, but it’s boring when games become glorified three-point shooting contests.
I’m not convinced, either, that bulk three-point shooting (or any other type of micro-statistical perfection) is essential in order to win basketball games.
A lot of Suns fans last year complained that the team wasn’t shooting enough threes to be competitive. But whenever I watched a game, I saw a team that was discombobulated on both offense and defense. If the only factor that changed was more outside shooting, I don’t think it would have made a difference.
As recently as 2023, the Denver Nuggets, a team that averaged toward the bottom of the league in three-point attempts, won a championship. You could say this is an anomaly because of the unique characteristics of their MVP center, Nikola Jokić. But this anomaly proves an important point: There are different ways to find advantages over teams.
If the aesthetical argument isn’t good enough for this analytically obsessed world, here’s a study from some math people who argue that the three-point shot is being over-utilized in recent years. They say the “true point value” of the three is now slightly lower than the two.
The study’s conclusion is that players who are worse at shooting threes should shoot fewer threes.
To which an old-school basketball coach might reply, “No shit.”
There is no escaping the doctrine of techno-efficiency in the modern era.
On social media we measure ourselves with followers and likes, while the algorithms try to extract monetary value from every ounce of our attention.
Our public education system revolves around test scores, our politicians are studied in poll numbers, and the well-being of nations is measured by GDP.
We have instant replay, so we stop the game to check plays. We have laptops, so we create digital curriculums for our schools. We have artificial intelligence, and we’re going to discover why we need it.
To value the human element is to appreciate that, unlike machines, we can find enjoyment and meaning in our inefficiencies.
Scientific progress is a good thing, but art is not meant to be perfected.
And neither is sports.
Love the article. “Conclusive evidence in baseball, basketball and football is also arbitrary. Now can you figure out a way to get teams to stop the commercial break? As a Suns season ticket holder it’s a yawn.