What appeal does basketball have for systems thinkers?

As I sit here watching Game 3 of the 2022 NBA Finals I thought I might describe what appeals to me about basketball from systems thinking…

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As I sat here watching Game 3 of the 2022 NBA Finals, I decided to describe what appeals to me about basketball from a systems thinking perspective.

Firstly, let me come out and say that this is not what got me into basketball — I have played since my primary school days and still get out every day, usually, a few times a day, to shoot for fitness but also as a test of discipline in improving skillsets such as shooting and dribbling: there’s always more to learn!

In recent years, I have gotten back into following basketball as a fan, especially NBA basketball. For fans today, there is a fantastic amount of coverage and much to dig into from every aspect of the game. The specific coverage of each team and immediacy on new media platforms mean you can consume coverage before, during, and after games.

At the game level

The dynamics at play in an individual game of basketball are very interesting. The interplay between offensive and defensive tactics is an exciting aspect of basketball for systems thinkers.

One concept I find very interesting in this area is the idea that improving your offence improves your defence. The dynamic at play here is that the more possessions you complete successfully as a basket, the more often you face the opposition's offence when your defence is set, i.e. your players are in their positions and know which opponents they are responsible for defending. When there is a miss and the defending team rebounds, or there is a turnover, i.e. you lose the ball, and it goes into the possession of an opposing player, it becomes what is known as transition.

In transition, the defence is not set — it's moving back from offence and sprinting to try to get into position. The chance for an offensive player to be free or for a mismatch, such as a larger player on a smaller player or a more athletic player on a less athletic player, is more likely. A mismatch increases the likelihood of a scoring opportunity.

A common perspective in response to teams struggling to contain the scoring of all the opposition teams they face is that they need to recruit more defensively capable players. Sometimes, this is definitely what is required. But sometimes, further improvement of the team’s offence is a viable or preferable option. This is just one example of how the interaction of the elements of the system of basketball needs to be considered to determine the best intervention to achieve improvement.

Team line-ups — the draft, the trade deadline and cap space.

The previous example leads us to consider the composition of the team's roster. NBA basketball has a very interesting set of dynamics around how teams can cultivate their rosters. I will cover this in a future post.

You can read about this topic in Part 2:

Do you have some systems-in-action examples from outside your area of expertise like I have shared in this post? Share them in the comments.