Knowledge management (KM) in the National Basketball Association (NBA)

Introduction

NBA is the professional basketball league formed in the United States in 1949 by the merger of two rival organizations. It is regarded as the highest basketball hall in the world. Being highly commercialized and competitive, this event has become the third largest sports league in the world. Powerful data analysis¹ enables a lot of explicit knowledge available to be used and learned. I take the game as an example to show the application scenarios of knowledge in different stages according to the BARDARPAR, combining the value chain and the knowledge gap to describe how knowledge is transformed and influenced from both coaches and players’ views.

BARDARPAR

BARDARPAR² – BAR(before action review)DAR(during action review)PAR(post action review) – is an improved analysis model based on the after action review (AAR). It uses a structured and systematic approach to review and analyze how emergencies or crises were handled. The model focuses on identifying gaps between plans and actions, understanding why these gaps occurred, and suggesting improvements for the future. It encourages collaboration among different stakeholders in a safe environment that promotes open discussions and learning. BARDARPAR is widely used in public health, animal health, and crisis management, helping to turn lessons observed into real, practical improvements and building stronger systems for future challenges.

Before the game

After a whole day of video-reviewing (the game tends to be at the evening), the coaches will take the shuttle bus or taxi quite early before the game starts³. The focus of overall strategy has already turned into implicit knowledge carried by different coaches. Each player has the assistant coach team knowing what to do especially to help warm up. It may sound silly, but making high quality passes is pride-worthy for many coaches. And without saying that it’s highly tacit and stands for how close the coach works with the particular player.

Other than the physical works, there are coaches in duty of “whiteboard”. It means they need to analyze and write down a list of information to allow the insight from the experienced coach to be transferred into the game. Illustrate the strengths and weaknesses based on injury matters of both sides on the white board. With the help of corporate memories generally documented in the records or archives, all the knowledgeable and accumulative decisions made can help the ongoing game.

Meanwhile, the statistical calculation like what is the score efficiency distribution of each area and who is the best or worst three-pointer shooter should be clearly highlighted and borne in mind.

During the game

Basketball game is a perfect example of how the knowledge gap and strategic gap⁴ appears and is fixed. As is mentioned, the information analyze and gathering is finished before the game. The coach team will form the systematic strategy and planing of the overall team, which is what must know. For instance, who and when to what extent should the opposite superstar be defended to kill the player’s physical power. And figure out what is the scoring made up percentage, is the team three-pointer shooting favor or not? But actually the game is never a still model like a robot. On the contrary, the dynamic and complex chaos is changing real-time, allowing all the unknown circumstance to happen anytime. The gap through the known things and the best practice and opportunity is actually the reflection of how well the team runs, which is usually called the “on-court chemistry”.

Unlike before the game, most said and transferred is the explicit knowledge, the tacit knowledge⁵ takes up the majority during the game. The memories of the physical activities are modeled and recorded in the body. How hard should the defence be and the movements on court are all about the body and practice over time off-court. Another more explicit instance is to take a team view, cooperation and the coordination is always the highest priority in NBA. The constant interaction allows the wide open shooting opportunity form. The more familiar with each other within the team, the higher possibility for the ball passed to the “open” shooter because they can even finish the decision making within seconds and an eye contact. Besides the offense, there are also quite a lot inter-supportive work to do in the defence. Due to the corporate memory, once the defence gambling failed and lose the position, others will not fall into panic and stay focus on their original defense task because they know how to make it up previously in the training.

Furthermore, knowledge transformation is enforced through the VALUE CHAIN⁶.

The player and the coaches are the knowledge management (KM) enablers as a whole for the bigger picture of value chain. During the game, the pace and movement should adjust accordingly from time to time. Therefore, the flexibility of the team strategy is of importance to conduct the best outcome for the organization which is the basketball team. Through the conduction of strategy, the new memories come into being within every member’s brain and will become the precious resource for next game.

After the game

When the game is over, players go over what happened in the game with the coach for approximately 15 minutes to half an hour. After all the necessary media and body routines are completed, usually the whole team gathers so that they can have dinner together. Its actually the WATER COOLER for NBA. That is not a rule but something that every team tends to stay together for chemistry purposes and offers the KM physical environment for knowledge to be shared and created.

Besides, KM strategy must be part of BUSINESS strategy, that’s why for star players they should finish the interview which means being available to answer questions for at least 45 minutes. This is also out of consideration for the media to maximize the value of a large chunk of money invested.

Out of the basketball court

The money ball theory is the theoretical application of the KM strategy. The influence of knowledge on reality is more than clear through it. It uses mathematical analysis methods⁷ and conclusions to build up the teams, focusing on the functional stability of players according to previous data rather than the performance of practical training. Promote the cultivation of new players and the continuous performance of old players in a greater proportion instead of buying star players at a high price. Numerous mathematical models and efficiency calculations rationalize the shots and advance basketball theory.

Conclusion

NBA, as one of the most popular professional sports leagues, demonstrates the great functionality of knowledge management (KM) in efficiency improvement and business optimization. Driven by data, a systematic knowledge value chain system is constructed with human knowledge as the carrier.

Efficiency is achieved in both knowledge creation and knowledge sharing, which finally leads to better sports performance and business value of the league. Continuous updating also keeps the NBA dynamic and knowledge fluid. In the future, emerging technologies such as AI can be further strengthened for the organic combination of knowledge management and sports, inspire other organizations outside the sport.

To sum up, the knowledge management practice of NBA shows the infinite possibility of knowledge and its irreplaceable role in sustainable development.

Article source: Adapted from KM in NBA, prepared as part of the requirements for completion of course KM6304 Knowledge Management Strategies and Policies in the Nanyang Technological University Singapore Master of Science in Knowledge Management (KM).

Header image source: David Tran on Unsplash.

References: