… Now in his eighth season, Tucker is that most coveted of assets, a multipositional player, able to switch on defense and stretch the floor on offense. It’s a role that has evolved over time in the league, and perhaps best manifested in Draymond Green, whom Tucker hopes to unseat from his championship perch this season.
“Nowadays, Draymond’s an All-Star,” Tucker says. “Think about that. He’s an All-Star. He would never be an All-Star in the early 2000s. Never. Never, and that’s no knock to him. It’s props, actually. It’s amazing to me, and I know the game evolves, but that’s a really short amount of time for something like that to change so much.”
Tucker knows this better than most, because he remembers when his type of game was overlooked by NBA decision-makers.
… Take a typical workout. Operating out of OpenMat MMA, located not far from the University of Toronto campus, Blanco opens each session with dynamic warmups and muscle-activation exercises; he is especially fond of hosting Simon Says, punishing disobeyers with burpees. Next the class splits into teams for a competitive game that targets hand-eye coordination, like handball or spikeball, followed by footwork drills focusing on proper striking technique. Only then does everyone actually start hitting. “It’s almost like the last thing he’s teaching is the fight itself,” Martin says, now with the Islanders. “He’s all about finding a sense of calmness in uncomfortable situations.”
As with boxers and mixed martial artists, skaters work in shifts. “It’s that same go-go-go, get the rest and jump back in,” Nurse says. And so, more than anything else, Blanco wants to help them recover faster during those precious moments of rest. “I would like to think I’m not a meathead,” he says. “Yes, fighting is the most primal sport. But I try to look at it without any ego or testosterone-fueled approach. At the end of the day, what can make me a better athlete? Work on your breathing. If you can’t breathe, you can’t be mentally present.”
… “I’ve got the solution,” Calipari told ESPN on Tuesday. “The NBA, you want these kids in the G League, you want to do all this? Everyone that goes in the G League is guaranteed eight semesters of college education if you don’t make it. You give them a signing bonus, you pay them. And then if they don’t make it after two years, the NBA pays to have them on my campus. They have to sit out their first year, to prove they really want to be in college. So you can come to college, the NBA is gonna pay for it, for eight semesters. You come back, sit out a year to prove you really want to be in college, then you start playing and your clock starts.”
Calipari added that if a player does go to college after fading out of the G League, he must stay at least two years. Along with the required sit-out year, each player would have a minimum of six semesters in college before being able to enter the NBA draft.
… Changing perceptions remains the key with Southgate having spoken extensively about making it more enjoyable to play for England again – with predecessors complaining about the ‘weight’ of the shirt – and the camaraderie that can lead to.
He therefore offered up a small vignette involving Raheem Sterling and 18-year-old Jadon Sancho, who became the first player born since 2000 to represent England when he came on as a second-half substitute for Sterling in the goalless draw away to Croatia last Friday.
“Raheem after the game the other night, straight over to Jadon in the dressing room, congratulating him on his first cap,” Southgate said. “It would be very easy for him to say ‘actually he’s good competition for me and I’m gonna just put him to one side’ but in training he was passing advice onto him and that sort of embodies the spirit of the group, which is crucial if we’re going to have any success.”
What really sets you back is not what you don’t know, it’s what you think you know but really don’t. Forming bad mental models and having undue confidence in them is far more dangerous than just being aware of your limitations
New algorithms take advantage of multiple smart watch sensors to accurately monitor wearers’ sleep patterns.
As well as obtaining rich information on wearers’ sleep, the software, called SleepGuard, can estimate sleep quality and provide users with practical advice to help them get a better night’s snooze.
SleepGuard tracks a combination of different non-biomedical factors – including body movements, sounds related to sleep disorders and ambient lighting.
… Conway’s Law is important in the context of organization and software development. It states that the architecture of a system represents the communication structures of the organization that implements the system. For each module in the software there is a organizational unit and for each communication relationship between organizational units there is a dependency between the modules in the software.
Conway’s paper of 1968, however, also describes something else: If an organization wants to develop a big system, a lot of people will need to work on the project. Since communication in a large team is difficult, it collapses at a certain team size. Since communication and architecture influence each other, poor communication leads to chaotic architecture and additional complexity.
But Conway goes further: Obviously, if at all possible, you should aim for an elegant solutions that a small team can implement. But a manager’s prestige depends on the size of the team and budget he or she is responsible for, says Conway. That’s why a manager will strive for as large a team and a large budget as possible.
Here’s a fun paper to end the week. Data collection from sporting events is now widespread. This fuels an endless thirst for team and player statistics. In terms of football (which shall refer to the game of soccer throughout this write-up) that leads to metrics such as completed passes, distance covered, intercepts, shots-on-goal, and so on. Decroos et al. want to go one level deeper though, and use the data to uncover team tactics. The state of the art today for tactical analysis still involves watching hours of video footage.
Following an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, patients are often reassured that timely surgery followed by intensive physiotherapy will “fix their knee”. Not only does this message create a false perception of uncomplicated return to sport (RTS), it also ignores the large body of evidence demonstrating a high RTS re-injury rate following ACL reconstruction. In this article, we propose an individualised approach to the management of ACL injuries that targets a shift away from early surgery and towards conservative management, with surgery ‘as needed’ and rehabilitation tailored to the patient’s RTS goals. Education on the natural history of ACL injuries will ensure patients are not misguided into thinking surgery and intensive rehabilitation guarantees great outcomes. Further, understanding that conservative management is not inferior to surgery—and not more likely to cause knee osteoarthritis—will help the patient make an informed decision. For patients who opt for surgical management, rehabilitation must target strength and functional performance, avoid rapid increases in training load, and be guided by an RTS timeframe that is no shorter than 9 months. The content of rehabilitation should be similar for patients who opt for non-operative management, although the RTS timeframe will likely be shorter. All patients should receive education on the relationship between injury risk and training load, and understand that a home-exercise program is not inferior to intensive physiotherapist-led exercise.
Stress fractures of the elbow are rare in throwing athletes and present a challenge from both a management and rehabilitation perspective. Although the incidence of stress fractures of the elbow is increasing, there is a lack of data in the literature focused on throwers. Purpose:
To evaluate studies regarding the management and outcomes of stress fractures of the elbow in throwing athletes. Study Design:
Systematic review; Level of evidence, 4. Methods:
A systematic review was conducted by searching the Scopus, PubMed, and Cochrane Library electronic databases to identify studies reporting on the management and outcomes of stress fractures in overhead-throwing athletes. Management data included nonoperative and operative modalities, and outcome data included return to play, encompassing the timing and level of activity. Studies were excluded if the stress fracture of the elbow was not a result of a sport injury attributed to throwing or if the study failed to report whether an athlete returned to play. Results:
Fourteen studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in this analysis. There were 52 patients in total (50 male, 2 female) with a mean age of 19.7 years (range, 13-29.1 years). The olecranon was the most common location of the stress fracture (51 patients; 98.1%), followed by the distal humerus (1 patient; 1.9%). The majority of patients (n = 40; 76.9%) were treated operatively. Of the 40 patients who were treated surgically, 14 (35.0%) underwent a period of conservative treatment preoperatively that ultimately failed because of persistent nonunion or continued elbow pain. A total of 50 patients (96.2%) returned to sport either at or above their preinjury level. Of the 2 patients (3.8%) who did not return to sport, 1 did not return because of continued elbow pain postoperatively, and the other was lost to follow-up. Complications occurred in 9 patients (17.3%), all of whom were treated surgically. Conclusion:
On the basis of this systematic review, the majority of elbow stress fractures were treated operatively and approximately one-third after a period of failed nonoperative management. The return-to-sport rate was high. Further, higher level studies are needed to optimize management and return-to-sport rates in this population.
The occurrence of physiologic knee hyperextension (HE) in the revision anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) population and its effect on outcomes have yet to be reported. Hypothesis/Purpose:
The prevalence of knee HE in revision ACLR and its effect on 2-year outcome were studied with the hypothesis that preoperative physiologic knee HE ≥5° is a risk factor for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) graft rupture. Study Design:
Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2. Methods:
Patients undergoing revision ACLR were identified and prospectively enrolled between 2006 and 2011. Study inclusion criteria were patients undergoing single-bundle graft reconstructions. Patients were followed up at 2 years and asked to complete an identical set of outcome instruments (International Knee Documentation Committee, Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score, WOMAC, and Marx Activity Rating Scale) as well as provide information regarding revision ACL graft failure. A regression model with graft failure as the dependent variable included age, sex, graft type at the time of the revision ACL surgery, and physiologic preoperative passive HE ≥5° (yes/no) to assess these as potential risk factors for clinical outcomes 2 years after revision ACLR. Results:
Analyses included 1145 patients, for whom 2-year follow-up was attained for 91%. The median age was 26 years, with age being a continuous variable. Those below the median were grouped as “younger” and those above as “older” (age: interquartile range = 20, 35 years), and 42% of patients were female. There were 50% autografts, 48% allografts, and 2% that had a combination of autograft plus allograft. Passive knee HE ≥5° was present in 374 (33%) patients in the revision cohort, with 52% being female. Graft rupture at 2-year follow-up occurred in 34 cases in the entire cohort, of which 12 were in the HE ≥5° group (3.2% failure rate) and 22 in the non-HE group (2.9% failure rate). The median age of patients who failed was 19 years, as opposed to 26 years for those with intact grafts. Three variables in the regression model were significant predictors of graft failure: younger age (odds ratio [OR] = 3.6; 95% CI, 1.6-7.9; P = .002), use of allograft (OR = 3.3; 95% CI, 1.5-7.4; P = .003), and HE ≥5° (OR = 2.12; 95% CI, 1.1-4.7; P = .03). Conclusion:
This study revealed that preoperative physiologic passive knee HE ≥5° is present in one-third of patients who undergo revision ACLR. HE ≥5° was an independent significant predictor of graft failure after revision ACLR with a >2-fold OR of subsequent graft rupture in revision ACL surgery.
… For all its stability and growth, MLS struggles to scout the domestic landscape completely, often finding diamonds in the rough too late or not at all. Some say the same of the US Soccer Federation even after a decade-plus of heavy investment in its Development Academy and other youth initiatives. Matt Martin and Scott Rezendes think they can offer some solutions.
Longtime scouts and soccer executives with a decade’s worth of experience each in MLS, USL, and beyond, the duo launched The Soccer Syndicate in late August. It’s an ambitious startup aiming to build and commodify a comprehensive network of scouts and scouting information and offer its use to clients at all levels of the pyramid, both at home and abroad.
The Soccer Syndicate wants to connect aspiring players with clubs, schools, and other destinations that can help them make the most of their abilities. The goal is to make the evaluation process simpler and more efficient for the clubs.
… “It’s all about analytics these days,” said Jeff Weltman, president of basketball operations for the Magic. “The ancillary effects ripple throughout all of the analytics. We get millions of bits of information per game … and so the ability and the amount of length that you can put on the floor and the amount of ground you can cover, obviously, feeds into your defensive effectiveness.”
Length has been the catch word of the Orlando Magic during the past two seasons, since Weltman and general manager John Hammond were hired in May 2017.
Last year’s draft became an immediate indication of the Magic’s intentions with the selection of long, lean, athletic, slashing-type shooting forward Jonathan Isaac, a one-and-done player out of FSU.
The Milwaukee Brewers were finishing their pregame practice last week at Miller Park, going through the rote exercises teams have used forever. Pat Murphy, the Brewers’ bench coach, gestured to an infielder scooping a lazy ground ball.
“That’s 71 miles an hour,” he said, guessing the speed. “Not many balls are hit 71 miles an hour. It’s easily caught — you and I could go out there right now and catch it — so what are we doing here? I want to look at that. But I’m also smart enough to know that I want to grow and get better, but some things are just the way they are.”
The Brewers have successfully challenged other conventions in baseball, notably by their early and aggressive use of relievers in the postseason, and Murphy embodies a different kind of change. In a sport that rarely looks outside the pro ranks for coaches, the Brewers have two prominent ones with a background mostly in college baseball.