I got you.

I’m not arguing that basketball IQ doesn’t exist. I’m also not arguing that one play can determine your basketball IQ. That was like a microcosmic example. I was trying to show that no fan can have that great of a grasp on who has good basketball IQ because they don’t see everything from the view of the only person that matters in the situation, the player.

Let me state this, to make it perfectly clear. BASKETBALL IQ DOES EXIST. Each player has a different amount of basketball IQ. I am not arguing it doesn’t exist. I am arguing that we cannot measure basketball IQ as well as we think we can. Our biases, as much as we want to think they don’t exist, affect our view of a player’s basketball IQ. Since there are no stats to directly measure this concept, subjective viewpoints have more influence than an accurate measure should. The dominant bias can go a long way in determining who has basketball IQ.

His claim of basketball IQ is very legitimate, as someone who plays basketball I understand that. However, I don’t think that measuring something that is supposed to be intangible and has no stats to back it up is as easy as people make it out to be.

My initial reaction to that was along these lines, but I gave it some thought, and I do think you have to take into account how long all of these guys have been playing basketball. Just by how much they’ve played and been coached, their “basketball IQ” will have progressed compared to anyone else. Not saying they’re all good at the mental part of the game, but each individual is certainly better than he was in high school, for instance.

Not sure what you’re trying to say with “feel” compared to “IQ”. I think it’s easiest to lump all the mental intangibles together into one category than try to break it out. After all, it’s hard enough as it is to evaluate each individuals intangibles and the effect they have, more categories just complicates that further.

Things like race do matter, by the way. It affects how a player is perceived, and if you disagree with that, you’re just fooling yourself. People are incapable of being objective, and some subconscious perceptions do set in with every individual.

See my comment above.

I think you are misunderstanding me. I’m not saying basketball IQ doesn’t exist, I’m saying that it’s measure relies way too much on common sense and not enough on statistics.

I’ll use another intangible as an example. If you read Bill Simmons, he chides the Lakers all the time for what he perceives as forced chemistry. He doesn’t think a team with Kobe Bryant can have good chemistry because of the type of person Kobe Bryant is. Yet my friend, a Lakers fan (I know, how could that person be a friend right?) thinks that Kobe is a great leader and the Lakers are like a happy family. How could two observers come to a conclusion so different about something that seems to be so common sense? Well, without numerical data, how can you say either one is wrong? The only people who really know are the Lakers players.

And race and politics do not matter for basketball IQ. But they definitely matter for perceptions of basketball IQ. Or perceptions of a lot of things. Think about how many black players in the draft were praised as being athletic, versus white players. Yes, there are always a couple examples of white players who are praised as athletic (Budinger comes to mind), but race is “much more complex than you think.” Politics too. I promise you media portrayals of athletes go a long way towards common judgments of their perceived abilities.

Organized basketball is probably more complex than both of us think. The way you wrote that though, sounds like you are assuming you understand more about it than I do. Judging me based on me thinking basketball IQ is not valid as a measurable statistic is just the latest example of bias affecting an argument/viewpoint that has no stats to back it up. And you’re telling me it can’t happen when deciding about basketball IQ?

Just check the latest poll about how many games Baron Davis played last year. That’s where “common sense” gets you without calculated evidence. I fail to see why measuring basketball IQ would be different. If most of the people that tell me Stromile Swift has a bad basketball IQ also thought that Baron missed 57 games last year, why should I believe them? Because they “understand the game” better than me? Maybe, (doubtful though), but I would say that I am aware of my own biases more than a lot of those people (not saying I’m perfect by any means though, because objectivity is only an ideal), so unless they back up their claims with facts why should I take their word as law?

I think the problem is that things like basketball IQ are undeniably important, so scouts and general managers need to use their perceptions of it to evaluate players when deciding to draft, trade, sign, keep, or play them. So it becomes like a statistic in every way except that it isn’t a statistic.

I don’t fault them for doing their job, but really, if you could accurately and numerically measure intangibles like clutchness, basketball IQ, feel for the game, toughness, etc., when we looked back on drafts we should see that the best players would be picked in order. This is almost never the case (well, actually never, but who knows, there’s still a ways to go), so clearly, their measures of all those intangibles were off. Their sense of the player’s intangibles were off, even though at the time of the draft everyone assumed that player (Brown, Olowokandi, you and I both know this is etc.) warranted to be picked in that position.

Of course, there is the possibility that they measured intangibles correctly, they just chose wrong based on quantifiable stats. But with the level of scrutiny players and management are under, I’m pretty sure they would thoroughly examine everything as best they could.