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strongchick
Well-known member
Hi folks! Miss me? Heehee. Just visiting. Saw this article and thought of you all.
Interesting article on the geniuses in sports and a possible reason why they are winners. They are talking about something we've always known, I think:
http://espn.go.com/magazine/vol5no11freaks.html
Kidd sees the game of basketball in large chunks, as a movie, instead of the slide show that others see. Kidd knows, for instance, that Nets teammate Richard Jefferson prefers soft looping lobs and Kenyon Martin prefers them harder and faster. At game speed, even when Martin or Jefferson is trailing a play, Kidd can simultaneously see the situation (the potential for the lob) and accommodate his teammate’s preference. This split-second awareness is why Kidd occupies a rarefied spot in the basketball world. It is why, in a basketball sense, Jason Kidd is a genius.
The basis for this genius comes down to one word: Speed. But not by its traditional definition. This isn’t stopwatch, 40-yard dash speed. It’s brain speed, or how fast the mind puts the body in motion. It is memory, pattern recognition and preparation all mixed together. Physical speed -- the kind we can see and compute -- is the manifestation of what goes on in the mind beforehand. Mental speed becomes physical when Gary Payton, the human premonition, disrupts a three-on-one fast break by overplaying a passing lane and coming up with a steal. Or when Andruw Jones, seemingly off before the crack of the bat, tracks down a liner to the gap. Or when Allen Iverson, arms and legs in arbitrary abandon, embarks on one of his fearless rages through the lane.
Every time you watch, astonished, and ask yourself how did he do that, be assured it starts inside the brain. The best of the best are the ones who do their sharpest thinking when there’s no time to think. Put simply, mind speed is what we’re seeing when we can’t believe our eyes
Interesting article on the geniuses in sports and a possible reason why they are winners. They are talking about something we've always known, I think:
http://espn.go.com/magazine/vol5no11freaks.html
Kidd sees the game of basketball in large chunks, as a movie, instead of the slide show that others see. Kidd knows, for instance, that Nets teammate Richard Jefferson prefers soft looping lobs and Kenyon Martin prefers them harder and faster. At game speed, even when Martin or Jefferson is trailing a play, Kidd can simultaneously see the situation (the potential for the lob) and accommodate his teammate’s preference. This split-second awareness is why Kidd occupies a rarefied spot in the basketball world. It is why, in a basketball sense, Jason Kidd is a genius.
The basis for this genius comes down to one word: Speed. But not by its traditional definition. This isn’t stopwatch, 40-yard dash speed. It’s brain speed, or how fast the mind puts the body in motion. It is memory, pattern recognition and preparation all mixed together. Physical speed -- the kind we can see and compute -- is the manifestation of what goes on in the mind beforehand. Mental speed becomes physical when Gary Payton, the human premonition, disrupts a three-on-one fast break by overplaying a passing lane and coming up with a steal. Or when Andruw Jones, seemingly off before the crack of the bat, tracks down a liner to the gap. Or when Allen Iverson, arms and legs in arbitrary abandon, embarks on one of his fearless rages through the lane.
Every time you watch, astonished, and ask yourself how did he do that, be assured it starts inside the brain. The best of the best are the ones who do their sharpest thinking when there’s no time to think. Put simply, mind speed is what we’re seeing when we can’t believe our eyes
