Screw your coach’s challenge
The league has other ideas
Yesterday we dug deep into the data to discuss how best to use coach’s challenges in NBA games. Which kinds of calls, which parts of the game … what it takes to succeed with more than 80 percent of your challenges like the Knicks, instead of less than 30 percent of the time like the Spurs (who somehow have only had five successful challenges all season).
Today the mission is different: to explain why coach’s challenges were never the right solution.
Slow-motion replay can warp your brain into thinking NBA refereeing is easy. But stand on the baseline as Giannis crashes through the defense, with one real-time angle in lousy human eyes and … refereeing is hard as hell. Owing to the fact players get faster every year, it’s harder than ever. No human could ever call a game perfectly; that’s a job for a cyborg wi…
