Braess’ Paradox in Basketball
At the conclusion of our study of game theory, the concept of Braess’ Paradox was introduced. As stated in the textbook, Braess’ Paradox is the idea that “adding resources to a network can sometimes hurt performance at equilibrium.” Initially, this phenomenon comes across as counterintuitive, but through examples, it makes sense why this can be the case. In class, Braess’ Paradox was explained primarily through the use of transportation networks. It was discussed in both lecture and the textbook that “in Seoul, Korea, [for instance,] the destruction of a six-lane highway to build a public park actually improved travel time into and out of the city.” Upon researching Braess’ Paradox further, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it has numerous other real-world applications as well.
“Basketball and the Theory of Networks,” a piece from the MIT Technology Review, describes a study that interestingly applied the principles of Braess’ Paradox to organized basketball. Prior to reading this, I would never have associated the network metaphor with team basketball. Here, however, the two are cleverly connected. One can “think of the pattern of passes that players make to score a basket as one route through a network of all possible combinations of passes.” In other words, the series of passes made from one player to another can be considered a path in a directed graph. Ultimately, the study found, “Losing the best player on the team can sometimes improve [the team’s overall] performance.” Brian Skinner, the investigator behind this study, called the finding, an extension of Braess’ Paradox, the Ewing Paradox. At first glance, this approach also seems counterintuitive, particularly because professional basketball teams often offer salaries of great size to the league’s most prominent and skilled players as if they were the one and only way to achieve success on the court. Regardless, Skinner’s research suggests otherwise and provides such teams with an alternate strategy worth considering.
Like in many studies, however, there are limits to these findings. Skinner’s application of Braess’ Paradox, for example, does not take into account the various strategies the opposing team’s defense can pursue; doing so would greatly complicate the matter. Still, the piece optimistically suggests that these same principles can potentially play a role in other sports, in which passing is a critical component, as well. Before coming across this study, I had figured that Braess’ Paradox applies, for the most part, to transportation networks only. It is indeed quite fascinating that many of the implicit interactions we fail to fully recognize can be explored using network theory and its core tenets.
Sources:
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/414784/basketball-and-the-theory-of-networks/
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0908.1801v4.pdf