Brad Stevens, the coach of the Boston Celtics, knows a few things about basketball. At least one of his players refers to him as a “guru.” And about an hour after the premature confetti had been cleared from the court at Wells Fargo Center on Saturday night, Stevens casually mentioned that he was familiar with the 40-odd plays that the Philadelphia 76ers run during end-of-game situations after timeouts.
“I mean, we’ve watched them all,” Stevens said, somehow delivering this information without a trace of conceit.
But even Stevens needs help, especially given the injuries that have left moth holes in his roster this season. And he knows where to find it: Al Horford, a power forward in his 11th season who has emerged as a uniquely stabilizing force for the Celtics in these N.B.A. playoffs.
“When things get going poorly, everybody just kind of looks at Al, including the coaches,” Stevens said. “We all kind of stare at Al and wait for him to say something. And then when he does say something, we all feel better and take a deep breath and maybe we can go into overtime and win this thing. He’s unbelievable.”
On Wednesday, I asked someone with a team that had been linked to Josh Rosen over the last few weeks if the interest there had been genuine. And I found out that in that club’s war room, a certain quote was raised that stuck with everyone.
“You know the former Princeton [basketball] coach Pete Carril?” this person said. “The saying he had was, ‘Don’t ever recruit a kid with a three-car garage and a long driveway.’”
I don’t know if Rosen had either of those things growing up in Manhattan Beach, Calif. The geography of that town would suggest he probably didn’t. But the point was made, and it’s been made over and over again by coaches and scouts in the lead-up to last Thursday: He’s spoiled, and entitled, and not made for pro football life.
And as a result, the NFL largely never really trusted the UCLA quarterback.
That’s why, coming out of last weekend, I think Rosen is the most interesting figure in a draft class full of stories that should be fascinating for years to come. The new Cardinal has been considered the next big thing for longer than most fans have known who Josh Allen or Sam Darnold are, and going back to a time when Baker Mayfield was seen as more gimmicky product of a college spread than NFL prospect.
It has been hard to fathom how LeBron James can be playing more games than ever, more minutes than ever, and yet in some ways be more dominant than ever.
The answer might be simple: James has perfected the art of resting while playing.
It’s a concept high-energy athletes such as boxers and swimmers have used for years: looking for moments in competition in which they can ease their load and allow for little scraps of rest they hope will add up. For James, this means finding times within games when he can catch his breath even when play is going on.
Behind the Scene at Sporting KC: Ultimate Focus on Developing Players For The First Team.
Turning Back the Clock to when Head Coach Peter Vermes took over the MLS club in Kansas City and then looking ahead to the club’s ultimate goal, here is Diane Scavuzzo’s multi-part interview with heartland’s leader of the beautiful game.
… Two-way players, are an integral part of the youth game. Often, rosters are limited and games and tournaments abound, which can make developing youth players a unique challenge. Everyone needs to be able to pitch and play the field so the team can compete, and playing multiple positions also helps aid skill development by granting opportunities for athletes to develop at multiple positions.
However, the downside to this is that training economy for youth athletes is often overlooked. Pitch counts and inning limits (on the mound) are instituted in many leagues to help curtail the rise in arm injuries, but there’s very little control over innings played in the field or other measures of workload. There are even horror stories of youth athletes playing as many as 120 games in a calendar year—which is only 20-games less than what a AAA team plays in the regular season and twice as many as most D1 baseball teams.
Admittedly, a 120 games is not the norm for most youth athletes; regardless, there are many things we need to consider when playing and training them.
There has been an exponential growth in research examining the neurological basis of human cognition and learning. Little is known, however, about the extent to which sports coaches are aware of these advances. Consequently, the aim of the present study was to examine the prevalence of pseudoscientific ideas among British and Irish sports coaches. In total, 545 coaches from the United Kingdom and Ireland completed a measure that included questions about how evidence-based theories of the brain might enhance coaching and learning, how they were exposed to these different theories, and their awareness of neuromyths. Results revealed that the coaches believed that an enhanced understanding of the brain helped with their planning and delivery of sports sessions. Goal-setting was the most frequently used strategy. Interestingly, 41.6% of the coaches agreed with statements that promoted neuromyths. The most prevalent neuromyth was “individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style (e.g., auditory, visual, or kinesthetic),” which 62% of coaches believed. It is apparent that a relatively large percentage of coaches base aspects of their coaching practice on neuromyths and other pseudoscientific ideas. Strategies for addressing this situation are briefly discussed and include changing the content of coach education programs.
Nearly half the number of pitches—ones thrown during warm-ups and in the bullpen—typically go uncounted, adding significantly to a pitcher’s risk of injury, a new study shows.
Excessive pitching is one of the main risk factors for elbow and shoulder injuries among high school baseball players. The Florida High School Athletic Association limits 17- and 18-year-old players to 105 pitches a day.
But after observing and counting nearly 14,000 pitches by 115 starting pitchers in North and Central Florida during the 2017 high school baseball season, researchers found that 42.4 percent of the players’ throws were unaccounted for in team pitch counts.
Here’s how uncounted pitches add up: The typical player threw about 69 pitches during game action. But when warm-ups and bullpen activity go into the tally, the mean number of pitches per game swell to more than 119.
“What I feel is that expectations are very high and I am the only one that my expectations aren’t so high. I am very cautious of what’s going on. The summer is important, to have decisions on the squad and then we will see,” he said.
“We have to improve and work hard but we cannot say we are going to fight for the top 10 or fight forever. That will be a big mistake.
“We are one year ahead of schedule. I am not obsessed about making an impression on the Premier League. I want to build a team who can play home and away the same.
The University of Connecticut (UConn) researchers have created a biodegradable composite made of silk fibres that they believe can be used to repair broken load-bearing bones without the complications sometimes presented by other materials.
“Repairing major load-bearing bones, such as those in the leg, can be a long and uncomfortable process,” the team explains. “To facilitate repair, doctors may install a metal plate to support the bone as it fuses and heals. Yet that can be problematic. Some metals leach ions into surrounding tissue, causing inflammation and irritation. Metals are also very stiff. If a metal plate bears too much load in the leg, the new bone may grow back weaker and be vulnerable to fracture.”
The Belgian Football Association (KBVB), the governing body for soccer in Belgium, has announced a partnership with SciSports.
The deal will see the Dutch company provide its data intelligence and expertise to aid Belgium’s preparations for and during this summer’s Fifa World Cup in Russia, where they have been drawn in Group G alongside England, Panama and Tunisia.
… Training loads have been listed as one of the modifiable risk factors for soccer injuries. High-speed (HSR) and sprinting (SR) running distances in competitive soccer match play has been increasing.
An increase in HSR distance has been associated with increases in the number of soft tissue injuries in rugby. This study aimed to determine whether HSR and SR distances were associated with an increased injury risk in elite soccer players.
Hip and groin injuries are common in men’s professional football, but the time-trend of these injuries is not known. AIM:
To investigate hip and groin injury rates, especially time-trends, in men’s professional football over 15 consecutive seasons. STUDY DESIGN:
Prospective cohort study. SETTING:
Men’s professional football. METHODS:
47 European teams were followed prospectively for a varying number of seasons between 2001/2002 and 2015/2016, totalling 268 team seasons. Time-loss injuries and individual player exposure during training and matches were recorded. Injury rate was defined as the number of injuries/1000 hours and injury burden as the number of lay-off days/1000 hours. Time-trends for total hip and groin injuries and adductor-related injury rates were analysed using Poisson regression, and injury burden was analysed using a negative binomial regression model. RESULTS:
Hip and groin injuries contributed 1812 out of 12 736 injuries (14%), with adductor-related injury as the most common of hip and groin injuries (n=1139, 63%). The rates of hip and groin injury and adductor-related injury were 1.0/1000 hours and 0.6/1000 hours, and these rates decreased significantly with on average 2% (Exp(b)=0.98, 95% CI 0.97 to 0.99, P=0.003) and 3% (Exp(b)=0.97, 95% CI 0.95 to 0.99, P<0.001) per season (year on year), respectively. The seasonal trend of hip and groin injury burden did not improve (Exp(b)=0.99, 95% CI 0.97 to 1.01, P=0.40).
CONCLUSIONS:
Hip and groin injuries constitute a considerable part of all time-loss injuries in men’s professional football. Although there was a promising slight decreasing trend in the rates of hip and groin injury (as a category) and adductor-related injury (as a specific diagnosis), the injury burden remained at a consistent level over the study period.
… Some executives who have followed the numbers and helped design the dramatic changes to the sport are OK with the big swings, big flies and big whiffs. “I’ve got no problem with it,” one club official said the other day. “We’re just trying to adapt and win ballgames.”
But a lot of executives abhor the Frankenstein monster that the numbers and science have helped create, with the dueling parades of relief pitchers and increasingly overpowered hitters. “I hate it,” one high-ranking evaluator said. “It’s just not that fun to watch.”
Through the competitive application of the analytics, the in-game exposure of starting pitchers has been reduced, along with their workloads and their relative importance. Fifteen seasons ago, 44 starting pitchers compiled 200 or more innings. Last year, just 15 pitchers got to 200.
Instead, there are more pitchers for shorter appearances, with incredible velocity. Baseball’s marathoners — the starting pitchers who had to develop a strategy for attacking a lineup for a third or fourth turn — are an increasingly endangered species, replaced by relievers who are asked only to throw as hard as they can for one inning, or maybe two, and are trained and developed for that task. They are throwing harder than ever.
Why is it that some players seem to consistently underperform against certain opponents? And how could we measure the all-time most surprising head-to-heads in the game?
In just three weeks, 19 year-old Greek phenom Stefanos Tsitsipas has won 9 of 11 main draw matches on clay, defeated 4 top 30 players, and faced Rafael Nadal in his first ATP 500 final. Needless to say, tennis fans and commentators are taking notice. And amidst all of the speculation about how high Tsitsipas could rise, the youngster has already draw comparisons to several greats, including French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten.
Such comparisons could foretell more than a bright future for Tsitsipas. They could also suggest the type of opponent who could become an arch-rival of the youngster in his continuing career.
The adoption of a strict rookie salary cap in the 2011 NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement has led to a dramatically shortened negotiation and signing process. Gone are the days when a large portion of the first round was late to training camp, sometimes with summer-long holdouts. Many of the higher-round contracts for rookies prior to 2011 did not get settled until mid- to late July. The inflexible rookie cap has led to a completely different mode of negotiation.
In the pre-draft era, the draft was held in late April, and a contractual lull settled in. Teams did not want to set the trend, and neither did agents. Teams liked earning interest on money they would later pay in a bonus. Executives took vacations in May or June. I once called the late George Young, then a New York Giant executive, a few days after the team had selected offensive tackle Gordon King in the first round and told him I was ready to negotiate. His response to me was: “Call me back in July.” Click.
Because there was little early discussion, the gaps between the sides were wide in July. A drafted player cannot go to training camp until he signs his NFL contract, so in cases of disputes, players showed up late. It got so bad in 1987 that players like Rod Woodson and Cornelius Bennett did not sign until the replacement games had ended.