Hypothetical Sports Contest #2

[stinkypete]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't agree, in face-offs it mostly about getting first to the puck.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah. and after the nba player pushes the kid's stick out of the way, he's going to get to the puck first.

[Baracus]

I think you are underestimating how hard it is to have proper control of the stick in a stressed situation when having the balance of a 3-day old skater.

[David Sklansky]

I picked the NBA team because I was under the impression that the majority of athletes who make it to the pros in any of the trhee major sports was probably a star in all three sports in high school. That's not true? If it is true the fact that they haven't played the game for a while would be approximately made up for by the fact that they are older and even more athletic. We are talking here about playing 16 and 17 year olds from an average high school.

[hasugopher]

I remember a while back, ESPN (I think) had a clip of Lebron James trying to take some batting practice with a high school team and literally could not hit a baseball. He was probably about 1 year out of high school. I know it's just one guy, but I think it's fair to assume that most basketball players just don't have the coordination and muscle memory to beat an average high school team. 3 days of practice would be beneficial to the NBA team but not enough to beat the HS baseball team. Baseball is kind of a funny sport as far as the skill set goes (there's a good chance this was DS's reasoning for choosing baseball) in that two of the major skills-- hitting a baseball and throwing a baseball, just do not come naturally whatsoever. I'm sure you could hand select individual players from the NBA who were not long out of competitive high school baseball, give them a bit of practice, and they would win. But your average NBA team? (almost) no chance.

Take 30 NBA players against 30 high school football players and have them duke it out on the gridiron, and I'd say the NBA team by a landslide.

[Baracus]

[ QUOTE ]
I picked the NBA team because I was under the impression that the majority of athletes who make it to the pros in any of the trhee major sports was probably a star in all three sports in high school. That's not true? If it is true the fact that they haven't played the game for a while would be approximately made up for by the fact that they are older and even more athletic. We are talking here about playing 16 and 17 year olds from an average high school.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's probably true in many cases, I might be focusing a bit to much on the huge players like Shaq and other 2.16m players etc who by their enormous size will be somewhat handicaped in other sports because lack of speed and agility.

[w_alloy]

[ QUOTE ]
I picked the NBA team because I was under the impression that the majority of athletes who make it to the pros in any of the trhee major sports was probably a star in all three sports in high school. That's not true? If it is true the fact that they haven't played the game for a while would be approximately made up for by the fact that they are older and even more athletic. We are talking here about playing 16 and 17 year olds from an average high school.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is really not true at all anymore. Coaches usually put a lot of pressure on top tier athletes to not stray from their chosen sport, generally because of injuries.

Also, Baseball is an extremely specialized sport. While LeBron James could dominate a sport like volleyball or make a great soccer goalkeeper without much practice, baseball doesnt work like that. I'm a pretty good all around athlete and recently tried to play a baseball pickup game. I have almost no baseball experience. While I was probably the best soccer, basketball, and football player, I was in the bottom 10% at baseball. These werent even highschool level baseball players.

[Justin A]

I think the NBA team would win easily.

Average high school baseball teams pretty much suck. I think there's a good chance that someone on the basketball team will have a 90+ mph fastball, and that alone is enough to shut out an average HS baseball team.

[Superfluous Man]

[ QUOTE ]

Average high school baseball teams pretty much suck. I think there's a good chance that someone on the basketball team will have a 90+ mph fastball, and that alone is enough to shut out an average HS baseball team.

[/ QUOTE ]
90 MPH means nothing when it never gets near the strike zone.

Anyway, it's gotta be the HS team, and I don't really think it's close. If you've ever seen one of those ESPN specials where athletes from, say, the NFL, compete in other sports-related contests, the majority suck at hitting a baseball. And that's batting practice, even the 4th pitcher on an average high school team has much better stuff than that.

Also, other people have mentioned it, but the skills required to excel at baseball aren't as correlated with raw athleticism as they are in the NBA or NFL. When a guy becomes fat in the NBA, he becomes a laughingstock. When a guy becomes fat in the majors, it has relatively less effect as long as he can still hit the ball out of the park (John Kruk, Babe Ruth, probably Ryan Howard in 10 years).

[riverdance]

the answer is in the eyes.

basketball players need "wide" eyes. they need to see the whole floor, using their peripheral vision to its fullest.

baseball players need "narrow" eyes to see the pitch.

it's very hard to do both well.

[FG Kicking Mule]

[ QUOTE ]
The HS team would destroy the NBA team without question. Even if the NBA team has a guy that can throw strikes, if the HS guys can put the ball in play they are rarely going to be thrown out. Also the best pitcher at a large highschool will have at least a reasonable breaking ball which would be extremely hard for the NBA guys to hit. I played baseball at a large high school and I can not imagine a team of any athletes with no baseball experience being able to beat us on 3 days of practice. Baseball is not nearly as much about athleticism as it is about mechanics. Think about guys like Cecil Fielder, David Wells, and John Kruk. I don't think their athleticism got them to the Major League.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't disagree with your post.

But in high school, Cecil Fielder was actually all-state in football and basketball.