Foul Matters
March Madness is sweeping the blogosphere! Well, sort of.
There's a discussion going on on three very erudite blogs regarding the strategy of removing a player who's in foul trouble: Matt Yglesias credits it to Brian Weatherson, and Brian also posted it on Crooked Timber.
It's a simple question that demands a slightly complex answer-- the taller-than-expected Matt gets most of it in his post, and the commenters on the various threads pretty much cover the rest of what needs to be said. There isn't really a single answer, but rather a mish-mash of psychology and strategy that's sort of hard to explain in abstract terms. Leaving players with foul problems in is one of those strategies like "always go for it on fourth and short" that works very well in the spherical, frictionless world of economic approximations and video games, but tends not to be tremendously effective in the real world.
Of course, my first thought on reading this was "George F. Will's Sports Machine". Which is nasty and uncharitable, but then my brackets got completely nuked today, so I'm a touch cranky.
Posted at 10:22 PM | link | follow-ups |