Strong Ties and Weak Ties in Sports
https://hockey-graphs.com/2017/03/14/strong-and-weak-links-talent-distribution-within-teams/
https://medium.com/@jasmintorres_58228/strong-link-vs-weak-link-cdd71d1db772
While growing up, the phrase “a team is only as strong as its weakest player” has often been heard by anyone who’s ever participated in sports or team activities. The meaning of this phrase relates back to the proverb that “the strength of a chain is limited to that of the weakest link in the chain”. This perspective on strong and weak link ties was examined by Malcom Gladwell’s podcast, “My Little Hundred Million”, in multiple unique scenarios from comparing donation impact to larger universities or smaller colleges in need to how to distribute talent within teams.
The main focus of the article was on exploring strong link ties and weak link ties to see how that impacts budgeting for recruiting. From the book The Numbers Game, by Chris Anderson and David Sally, it is defined that soccer is a strong link game compared to basketball which is a weak link game. What this means is that in soccer the possibility of ball possession and total scoring is low, therefore, even when securing a star player who is capable of scoring. “One weak link in the middle of the field can prevent Messi from ever seeing the ball” (Novet, 2017), meaning that the outcome of the game relies more on “the team without the worst player” (Novet, 2017). Compared to basketball with one star player the possibility of ball possession and opportunities to score is higher and the outcome of a game relies more on the performance of the star player.
It is clear to see the significance of the topics discussed in class applied to numerous fields. From strong ties and weak ties and the impacts of how major sports teams recruit, it could be interesting to also analyze a payoff matrix for each contract and trade. In addition, it could also be beneficial to model each team currently and define relationships between players and coaches to analyze the impacts of unbalanced or balanced networks on performance. With the endless amounts of data available, it is always exciting to see what the future holds in terms of finding an almost unbeatable game theory method of building a team.