re: General NBA Links

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The jokes write themselves. Kirk Hinrich has made millions and millions of dollars from the Bulls on account of his grit. Tom Thibodeau would have a rightful claim to the title of Grindfather if not for the existence of Tony Allen down I-55. The Bulls of the past few years openly decline interest in the finesse superstars of the NBA, instead preferring to ride with gritty wolves like Joakim Noah, Taj Gibson and Jimmy Butler.

But as it turns out, there is some science on grit out there. What Forman might be referring to is the research of Angela Duckworth, who runs a lab at Penn focused on the study of grit and self-control.

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if Duckworth's science is right, there's value in it for general managers (in identifying truly gritty prospects) and coaches (in developing grit on the team). Surely some teams have already used cognitive tests to identify the presence or lack of grit; front offices do all of those prospect interviews at the Combine for a reason. And a lot of what would be specific about building grit is likely baked into existing player development philosophies. In a sense, Duckworth's work on grit (as far as I understand it) is a quantification of well-known theory

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That brings up another point that the brilliant Kevin Pelton makes:

The interesting question to me is how much grit is already priced into a player's statistical performance.
In other words, can a player without grit put up huge numbers in college or the pros? What would be valuable to NBA GMs is an ability to determine analytically what players have put up numbers due to having a high level of determination and long-term goal setting and what players have done that in spite of lacking grit.

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