Davis 1

Jalan Davis
Zack De Piero
Writing 2
MW @ 3-450
6 May 2015
Team Success in the NBA
A good NBA basketball team constantly wins games and the players
play together effectively; therefore the players utilize the concept of team
success. Team success occurs when one is actively participating as a
member of a team to move the team or work towards the completion of
goals. In the National Basketball Association (NBA), it is important for every
player on a team to contribute in order for their team to succeed. The
National Basketball Association is the primary mens professional basketball
league in North America and is one of the most popular sports league in the
world. With thirty teams filled with some of the best basketball players in the
world, the NBA is currently one of the most enjoyable sports to watch
nowadays. So if a team is not playing effectively during a season, what can
be done to improve their performance in the NBA? Some research has been
made to find the answer to this particular hypothesis. The main purpose on
conducting such research is to learn about something new that can be
confirmed by others and to eliminate our own biases in the process (Driscoll
154).

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Jose Martinezs Does Midseason Change of Coach Improve Team
Performance?

Evidence

from

the

NBA,

Dawei

Shis

Research

on

Comprehensive Evaluation Model-Based NBA Schedule Influences on Team

Performance, and Sim Rissos 3 Ways George Karl is Changing the
Sacramento Kings are all sources that help determine the hypothesis of how
an NBA teams success can be altered and eventually improved. Martinezs
piece discusses how midseason coaching change can improve a teams
performance. Shi confides that a season schedule has different effects on
teams competitive result to some degree. Risso, in his piece from Bleacher
Report, summarizes how the coaching change in the Sacramento Kings has
improved the team to some degree. All of these sources develop research
questions or hypotheses and collect data on events, objects, or people that is
measurable, observable, and replicable (Driscoll 154). While Martinez and
Risso have a similar hypothesis that a midseason coaching change can affect
a NBA teams success during the season, Risso uses a real life example in his
piece to support the argument that a midseason coaching change can
improve a teams performance, which can attract a wider audience than both
Martinez and Shi.
In the first research article chosen, Jose Martinez, in his piece, uses a
sports-management approach in his research to explain his reasoning that a
midseason coaching change can alter an NBA teams performance. One of
the most important management dilemmas for owners and general
managers of sports teams is whether to make a midseason coaching change

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when the team is faltering (Martinez 108). In the beginning of his article, he
acknowledges that making a coaching change is a huge decision to make for
the teams management and ownership and that there are some costs and
benefits. Starting the article with the cost-benefit comparison is a great way
to allow the reader to become more engaged in reading this article. He then
includes a chart of the number of coaching changes through each season
beginning with the 1949-50 season and ending with the 2009-10 season.
Towards the end of his article, he comes to the realization that the earlier in
the season the changes made the more likely improvements in performance
will result. This finding is certainly due to the fact that a new coach is likely
to bring a new system and new personality and it will take time for the
players to adjust to both (Martinez 112). His analysis throughout the entire
article was very effective; it gave the reader a reason to think about why a
team would go through a midseason change in order to be successful in the
near future.
In Dawei Shis mathematical piece, he states that reasonable and
scientific schedule should not only reflect fairness of competition but also
increase the superb degrees of competition. Shi uses mathematical and
scientific information that can be hard for readers to view and understand his
viewpoint. He includes some significant methods and analysis and gives
some formulas to help support his argument, even though he did not explain
them really well. He introduces the schedule analysis and evaluation
methods really well, the purpose of analyze NBA schedule is to eliminate

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inequality of competition and improve splendid degree of competition. To
analyze schedule pros and cons to one team, many factors should be
considered (Shi 327). He continues to write about the schedule evaluation
methods and he begins to include formulas on how to calculate how
competitive a teams schedule can be. For basketball fans, this piece can be
pretty hard to read. It was honestly tough to figure out he was trying to
explain to the readers in this piece, but the main point of this article is to
show with analysis and models that competition in a teams schedule can
greatly affect their success for the season.
Sim Rissos Bleacher Report piece is great piece for Sacramento Kings
fans to read; he clearly attracts a lot of Kings fans with the title of the article.
Even though this team went through a midseason coaching change twice,
Risso tries to convince Kings fans to be positive about this recent coaching
change and understand that the future looks bright with a quality and
experienced head coach in George Karl. In this article, he introduces the
three key points the Kings are improving in, better ball movement and
spacing, better pacing and aggressive offense, and better defense. Risso
introduced these three ways as a way to let the Kings fans know where the
teams weaknesses were before his arrival. Considering the Kings made the
coaching change midseasonmultiple coaching changes, actuallyit's
remarkable they've been able to change their style of play as much as they
have (Risso). In the conclusion paragraph of this article, he states that the
Kings currently do not really have roster to run Karls fast-paced offense and

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with a full offseason ahead, they really need to make the right moves in
order to be an improved team for next season. Overall, the Kings are looking
like a team that can improve next year with this system under head coach,
George Karl.
After through reading each of the articles, there are some similarities
and differences between all three of the articles. Jose Martinezs sportmanagement research article is quite similar to Sim Rissos article; both of
their research showed how a midseason coaching change can improve an
NBA teams performance. The main difference between the two is that Risso
uses a real life example to help support his argument and Martinez uses
model examples and analysis to help solve his hypothesis. Martinezs article
is an example of inductive reasoning, where researchers start with a
question and collect information that eventually leads to a conclusion
(Driscoll 158). His article begins with the question, Does Midseason Change
of Coach Improve Team Performance? Once Martinez sets his hypothesis, he
begins his research by providing some concrete evidence to help support his
argument. Dawei Shis article, in contrast, is an example of deductive
reasoning, where researchers start with a hypothesis or general conclusion
and then collect specific data to support or refute their hypothesis (Driscoll
158). He didnt begin his research with a question; therefore he begins his
research that supports his conclusion. His mathematical approach shows how
the competitiveness of a teams schedule can affect their performance by
using utilized mathematical modeling methods and mathematical statistics

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methods. In comparison to Risso and Martinezs articles, this article is not as
attractive to basketball fans.
Sim Rissos non-academic media text on Bleacher Report accomplished
significantly more in comparison to the two scholarly articles. Two of the
scholarly disciplines, sports-management and mathematics, were used by
both Jose Martinez and Dawei Shi to deeply discuss the effect on NBA teams
performance. Shi makes detailed analysis of proper influences conditions
that NBA regular season schedule affects competition. Martinez discusses
research investigating whether replacing coaches in the middle of a season
improves a teams performance. Because Risso uses a real life example of
the Sacramento Kings head coaching change in the middle of the season,
Rissos piece was easier to read and understand. Even though Risso and Jose
Martinez had a similar topic, the scholarly articles written by both Martinez
and Shi were less persuasive. The overall similarity of all of these articles
was that they all explain the effect of an NBA teams success/performance
during the regular season.

Works Cited
Driscoll, Dana L. "Introduction to Primary Research: Observations, Surveys,
and Interviews." Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Vol. 2. N.p.: n.p.,
2011. 153-73. Print.

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Martinez, Jose A. "Does Midseason Change of Coach Improve Team
Performance? Evidence From the NBA." Jounral of Sport Management.
Human Kinetics Inc., 2013. Web. 4 May 2015.
Risso, Sim. "Ways George Karl Is Changing the Kings." Bleacher Report. N.p.,
2 Apr. 2015. Web. 06 May 2015.
Shi, Dawei. "Research on Comprehensive Evaluation Model-based NBA
Schedule Influences on Team Performance." Journal of Chemical and
Pharmaceutical Research. N.p., 3 June 2014. Web. 4 May 2015.