> Office workers, sleepy truckers, hospital nurses on 10-hour shifts, cabbies, students, cops? They're not the only ones who benefit from a cup, or a few, Harkless pointed out.
Don't get me wrong, I love coffee. However, it may be more accurate to say that all of these people (including the athletes) are using caffeine to medicate their chronic sleep deprivation, which may be at least partly caused in the first place by caffeine consumption.
NBA basketball players are in a tough position because they often need to peak between approx. 7-10pm (local time), and they frequently travel between 4 time zones. Most individuals would be naturally winding down alertness during those hours, even with good sleep patterns.
I don't think this is the case. I played on a B/C-tier Overwatch team as the main DPS (mostly Tracer) for several months and I can tell you there is a stark difference in snap-reflex between non-caffeinated and caffeinated states, regardless of sleep amount. There were many other things I did to improve my reflexes and rote mechanical skill in general, but none made as much an obvious difference as caffeine.
You make a good point. Sure, caffeine provides a quick, easy and relatively safe (and legal) boost. But ultimately, you have to balance that short term solution with a slightly longer term view of sleep quality and other recovery efforts. For example, what do they eat / drink as soon as the game is over to optimize recovery (so caffeine is less necessary the following night).
Put another way, you can alert the body and the mind but that doesn't necessarily lead to a high quality performance. Feel better is not the same as scoring more points.
One of the trainers mentioned in this article, Ben Kenyon, is actually a neighbor of mine. He lives in the same apartment complex. I haven't seen him since the season started but when I do he always seems like he's running at 150%. I have no idea how these guys do it.
But I can attest to the benefits of straight black coffee with grass fed butter, it takes a while to get used too and you can't overdo it (you'll get the runs) but it provides a noticeable energy boost while also being a bit satiating from the fat.
When I was a road warrior at Hewlett Packard, one of my coworkers bought me an aeropress. Kinda changed my life to be honest. Being able to make legitimately great coffee no matter where I am is fantastic.
Up until that point, I had a lot of weeks where I'd be traveling 20-30 hours a week, and drinking garbage coffee. Great coffee makes working so much easier, and an aeropress isn't much larger than a soda can. I basically pack the aeropress, a few filters, and a canister of freshly ground coffee beans. I'm able to make coffee that rivals any good coffee shop, and it takes up nearly no space in my luggage.
Caffeine does wonders when taken in a calculated manner. For some time now I restrict myself to at most 3 cups of coffee a week so I do not build tolerance.
I try to plan those cups ahead of time and always receive a very noticeable boost in energy level and concentration from them.
As I get older, my tolerance has lowered. I used to be able to handle a Starbucks 'tall' cup, but now I can only drink two espressos at most, if spaced out by two hours or so. If I go over my limit, it's 7-9 hours of lying still in a dark room with a migraine-like headache.
Portland travels further than any other team because "Portland is the only team in the Pacific Northwest."
(Geez I'm not a sports fan but who moved the Sonics to Oklahoma without telling me?)
Anyway yeah look at this map and you can see it: Portland is both near the geographic extent (like Boston, Miami & LA), and relatively far away from its adjacent cities (unlike those 3).
Dellavedova of the Cavaliers, drank tons of coffee before games during the finals series against the Warriors when Kyrie was out. He played above his perceived ability, though the Cavaliers ultimately lost.
He also collapsed after one of the games from dehydration, had to be taken to the hospital, and was not effective in any games afterwards. Maybe he had a little too much energy?
> "WHEN IT COMES to the toll of travel, the NBA is in a league all its own. NBA teams, according to ESPN Stats & Information's Vincent Johnson, average 43,534 miles per season, nearly 7 percent more than..."
Not to get too far off topic but couldn't it be possible for the NBA (or any league) to optimize for this?
Along the same lines, I have to wonder if there's a way to incorporate such signals into a betting algorithm. That is, once you get past home team advantage, perhaps stops / miles in the previous week is worth +/- X points.
I would guess player travel is a bit low in the schedule makers priorities. They have a lot to account for with arena availability as they often share with concerts/events and even a handful share with professional NHL teams and their own 40+ home game schedules.
The NBA optimizes for this somewhat. Many east coast teams will play all three Texas based teams in a single trip. There are a lot of factors that can get in the way of this, such as concerts, trade shows, or other large events that are booked in large arenas.
For instance, the Spurs are forced to go on 22 day road trip because their home arena is busy hosting the annual San Antonio Stock and Rodeo Show.
There is also a lot of data on team win/loss percentages that I'm sure vegas keeps up on. On average - teams on the 2nd game of a back to back road trip win just 32% of their contests. Also, teams that play one game at home and another on the road the following night only win 37.3% of their contests.
I'd also guess that east/west miles traveled are more of a disadvantage than north/south miles. Flying sucks, but messing with your circadian sucks even more.
The league also semi-optimizes for this with divisions/conferences.
If you need extreme data points you should look into the Russian Premier League for Football. While sports in the USA use Eastern/Western Conferences to lower travel requirements, the Football leagues enforces 2 matches per teams regardless of location. In the 2017-2018 season the farthest two teams were 5,000+ miles apart! [1]
As others have mentioned, the league optimizes for this somewhat. For instance: East Coast teams often go on a West Coast road trip where they will play in Denver, LA, Portland, Utah, etc. for a stretch. Also, often times West Coast teams play in Brooklyn (Nets) and Manhattan (Knicks) in a short period of time.
Well it's odd because a sentence later it is being emphasized that the water must be 190 not 189 or 191. Maybe the kettle was set to 220 as some strange setting not relating to the actual temperature of the water? Or maybe being NBA players they have a moon kettle.
Much better than this coffee routine is an afternoon nap.
My sport has similar playing times as NBA players, our games are 2-3/week from 7pm-11pm, and coffee at 6pm is by far not that good as a nap from 3:30 to 5, and drinking a lot of water (1-2 liter) with sugar and electrolytes during the games. Coffee is actually problematic, it causes dehydration. Slightly better than coffee would be beer for pure endurance sports (running, swimming, cycling) which don't need much attention.
If you are optimizing for pure caffeine delivery I'm a little surprised that they go through so many lengths to grind and brew boutique coffee when there are caffeine pills available. Much easier to deliver a proper dose as well.
I wonder if any of them have experimented with cold brew yet. Personally, my preference is Funranium Labs' (http://www.funraniumlabs.com) Black Blood of The Earth (BBoTE). The upside is that you don't need to carry around alot of apparatus: You can get a good Americano equivalent with 3:1 or 4:1 BBoTE to hot water. Or you can have it straight.
One downside is that it's supposed to be stored cold; but it can handle 2 days of room-temperature (considering how it is shipped), so maybe it's not too big of an issue. Another downside is most of the BBoTE offerings are single-origin, so things go out of stock from time to time, but there are some blends available: Death Wish is one, and the proprietor has been known to do custom batches of Dunkin Donuts and other blends.
While teams in the NFL only play one game per week, there are a few games played in England each year. That can be an 8 hour time difference for west coast teams.
The process of making the NFL schedule has been discussed here before (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14192378, for example), and IIRC they do try to give teams some time off after extra-US games (so they can adjust, time-wise), either on their own or because teams ask for it.
I'm impressed that the MLB, with ~2X the number of games, manages to travel less than the NBA. I wonder if it's a venue availability issue or a better traveling salesman algorithm.
Well off the top of my head, most of the time baseball teams play 3-4 games in a series in the same place.
In basketball, lets say you're an east coast team, they'll usually schedule a tour of all 4 LA teams, but you have to play every Western team once, but not all at once.
Baseball is a very local sport, you play the teams nearby you considerably more than you play any other teams. Also, as others mention, they’ll play multiple games in one location.
[+] [-] jly|7 years ago|reply
Don't get me wrong, I love coffee. However, it may be more accurate to say that all of these people (including the athletes) are using caffeine to medicate their chronic sleep deprivation, which may be at least partly caused in the first place by caffeine consumption.
NBA basketball players are in a tough position because they often need to peak between approx. 7-10pm (local time), and they frequently travel between 4 time zones. Most individuals would be naturally winding down alertness during those hours, even with good sleep patterns.
[+] [-] sov|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|7 years ago|reply
Put another way, you can alert the body and the mind but that doesn't necessarily lead to a high quality performance. Feel better is not the same as scoring more points.
[+] [-] notable_user|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] naner|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hawaiianbrah|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trynewideas|7 years ago|reply
I'm mostly amused that anyone thought "people who live and work in Portland frequently drink coffee" was some sort of revelation.
[+] [-] 40acres|7 years ago|reply
But I can attest to the benefits of straight black coffee with grass fed butter, it takes a while to get used too and you can't overdo it (you'll get the runs) but it provides a noticeable energy boost while also being a bit satiating from the fat.
[+] [-] johnvanommen|7 years ago|reply
Up until that point, I had a lot of weeks where I'd be traveling 20-30 hours a week, and drinking garbage coffee. Great coffee makes working so much easier, and an aeropress isn't much larger than a soda can. I basically pack the aeropress, a few filters, and a canister of freshly ground coffee beans. I'm able to make coffee that rivals any good coffee shop, and it takes up nearly no space in my luggage.
[+] [-] Scea91|7 years ago|reply
I try to plan those cups ahead of time and always receive a very noticeable boost in energy level and concentration from them.
[+] [-] personlurking|7 years ago|reply
As I get older, my tolerance has lowered. I used to be able to handle a Starbucks 'tall' cup, but now I can only drink two espressos at most, if spaced out by two hours or so. If I go over my limit, it's 7-9 hours of lying still in a dark room with a migraine-like headache.
For more on cortisol and caffeine: https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2014/01/05/why-th...
Chronopharmocology and caffeine: http://neurosciencedc.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-best-time-for...
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rdiddly|7 years ago|reply
(Geez I'm not a sports fan but who moved the Sonics to Oklahoma without telling me?)
Anyway yeah look at this map and you can see it: Portland is both near the geographic extent (like Boston, Miami & LA), and relatively far away from its adjacent cities (unlike those 3).
https://sportemind.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/nba-map.jpeg
[+] [-] dlgeek|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vertline3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wbronitsky|7 years ago|reply
He also collapsed after one of the games from dehydration, had to be taken to the hospital, and was not effective in any games afterwards. Maybe he had a little too much energy?
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|7 years ago|reply
Not to get too far off topic but couldn't it be possible for the NBA (or any league) to optimize for this?
Along the same lines, I have to wonder if there's a way to incorporate such signals into a betting algorithm. That is, once you get past home team advantage, perhaps stops / miles in the previous week is worth +/- X points.
[+] [-] mschip|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamrawk24|7 years ago|reply
For instance, the Spurs are forced to go on 22 day road trip because their home arena is busy hosting the annual San Antonio Stock and Rodeo Show.
There is also a lot of data on team win/loss percentages that I'm sure vegas keeps up on. On average - teams on the 2nd game of a back to back road trip win just 32% of their contests. Also, teams that play one game at home and another on the road the following night only win 37.3% of their contests.
[+] [-] trophycase|7 years ago|reply
The league also semi-optimizes for this with divisions/conferences.
[+] [-] bliblah|7 years ago|reply
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9318_Russian_Premie...
[+] [-] lghh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 40acres|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rue|7 years ago|reply
But that’s slightly different because it could be seen to change the dynamic form performance over a season to fewer best out of N events.
[+] [-] biohax2015|7 years ago|reply
That is already done. Vegas accounts for every conceivable variable under the sun.
[+] [-] smarks|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sambroner|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vertline3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ansible|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] treve|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rurban|7 years ago|reply
My sport has similar playing times as NBA players, our games are 2-3/week from 7pm-11pm, and coffee at 6pm is by far not that good as a nap from 3:30 to 5, and drinking a lot of water (1-2 liter) with sugar and electrolytes during the games. Coffee is actually problematic, it causes dehydration. Slightly better than coffee would be beer for pure endurance sports (running, swimming, cycling) which don't need much attention.
[+] [-] aczerepinski|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whalesalad|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CaliforniaKarl|7 years ago|reply
One downside is that it's supposed to be stored cold; but it can handle 2 days of room-temperature (considering how it is shipped), so maybe it's not too big of an issue. Another downside is most of the BBoTE offerings are single-origin, so things go out of stock from time to time, but there are some blends available: Death Wish is one, and the proprietor has been known to do custom batches of Dunkin Donuts and other blends.
[+] [-] bluedino|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CaliforniaKarl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nhebb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jontas|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gimmeThaBeet|7 years ago|reply
In basketball, lets say you're an east coast team, they'll usually schedule a tour of all 4 LA teams, but you have to play every Western team once, but not all at once.
[+] [-] notable_user|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madcaptenor|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sixo|7 years ago|reply