The Simulation Machine

How accurate is a NBA2K simulation in terms of what we might see in a month’s time? The video we’ve placed at the top of this text looks like basketball, but how much of it is basketball?

That question leads to other questions — questions like, “Is it … realistic that Kelly Oubre is backing down Javale McGee in the post?” “Does Dwight Howard really participate in five out that much?” “Would Howard really have trouble backing down Devon Booker?” — and it runs straight into the deep variance that exists at the heart of sports.

You can measure the trajectory and entropy of ball movement in basketball and American football. There is a relationship between competitive balance and the popularity of an event. You can have a go at measuring who’s a predictable hitter in baseball and who’s an unpredictable hitter. NHL ‘underdog’ teams tend to do statistically better than basketball teams.

And there’s a whole lot more. But these kinds of questions also might explain why a software engineer named Oluwatobi…