Research Paper: The Kings of the System

One of the fun aspects of learning advanced knowledge in a particular field is finding ways of tangentially applying it to other realms of one’s life. Being a quant does limit this a bit; I’m not going to find much use building an optimal route for walking my dog in the morning (cuts down on time outdoors and catching up on the backlog of podcasts I need to listen to), constructing a factor model for making Caribbean green seasoning paste (numbers in a recipe are supposedly just suggestions), or running game theory on a board game (while this does result in winning a high percentage of games, it also results in no one wanting to play with you ever again).

However, there are some fields in which financial engineering finds a sold meshing in terms of analysis, output, and satisfaction of answering a question. One of these is statistical analysis of sports, a field initially popularized by Billy Beane (i.e. Moneyball) and now widespread across multiple sports and levels of play. I decided to jump in and answer a question: could any of today’s NBA teams adopt and run the Grinnell System, a fast-paced playstyle that emphasizes a massive volume of high-value shots (layups and three-pointers), stifling full-court press defense, and hockey-style full lineup changes every 90-120 seconds. This results in keeping opponents off-balance due to the extreme departure from their regular playstyle, scores nearing triple digits by halftime, a near-constant flow of action. The title of the paper (and the title of this post) spoil the surprise a little bit, but this is one paper where the journey is just as important as the destination.

The paper can be found here: The Kings of the System. Any and all feedback via the contact form is greatly appreciated. Enjoy!