Touchy subject

With a whopping two votes (out of three), research about touching and success in the NBA is my democratically selected topic for today. The research from UC Berkley, which is briefly explained in this NYT article, found that successful NBA teams generally exchange touches (i.e. fist bumps, high fives, hands on shoulders) more often than bottom feeders. The theory extends to players as well; in one of the more obvious findings, Kevin Garnett was declared the touchiest player in the NBA.

Ultimately, the research team was unable to definitively determine that touching spurs success, but it can still be fun to speculate. With that mindset, I've decided to consider some other seemingly irrelevant indications of sports success.

One of the most controversial factors of late is shoe height. Despite numerous objections, Kobe Bryant decided to wear low-top shoes to play basketball, which is traditionally a no-no. According to Kobe's own research, lower shoe height does in fact lead to success (and BROKE ANKLES).

Another potential contributor, with a decidedly LA bent, might be number of movie roles. Kareem and Shaq, two of the best NBAers ever, have both appeared on the silver screen. Ray Allen and Penny Hardaway did as well. OJ Simpson can claim acting as one of his top three most notorious undertakings.

Number of celebrity wives/girlfriends per team might be a negative factor, as was the case with Jessica Simpson and Tony Romo or Madonna and the New York Yankees (although they won later in that year). But there are exceptions to this rule like Tony Parker-Longoria.

Researchers could also count the number of tattoos players have and then go even further to see if the content of the tattoo has an effect. Maybe Shaq's Superman tattoo would be more effective if it was on his chest.

On a more serious note, it would be interesting to determine if attendance has any effect on success or if this relationship is merely one-sided (since success obviously increases attendance).

Until all of this research is done, I guess players will just have to touch each other a lot if they want to be successful.

Or practice.

Event of the Week:

With a week to go in the college basketball regular season, the Battle for the Basement in the ACC is incredibly tight with UNC, NC State, and Miami tied at 4-10. Even Virginia and Boston College are statistically in the running at 5-9. When UNC and Miami meet on Tuesday night, they will be playing for both a one-game lead and a tiebreaker over each other, since this is the only time the two meet this season. With only one game to follow it, a win in that game will place the victor out of the running for last place. More importantly, it would place the victor into next season's ACC – Big Ten Challenge since the team that does finish at the bottom of the ACC is ineligible.