theSIGNAL SCIENCE
15 June 2026
"Organisations are porous — society always finds a way in."
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Science

A Murder Changed How NBA Players Passed the Ball

New research using 124,000 NBA interactions reveals how George Floyd's killing reshaped cooperation between Black and white coworkers in measurable, asymmetric ways.

On May 25, 2020, a police officer in Minneapolis killed George Floyd. Within days, protests spread across six continents. But something quieter was also happening — inside offices, warehouses, and, as it turns out, on basketball courts. Could a seismic event outside the workplace actually change how colleagues behave toward each other inside it?

A new study from the University of Washington says yes, and it has the data to prove it. The research, published in the Academy of Management Journal, uses a clever and unexpected lens: the National Basketball Association. Professor Abhinav Gupta of the UW Foster School of Business and his colleagues argued that NBA teams function like miniature organisations. Players of different racial backgrounds must cooperate intensively to win, and crucially, their cooperation can be measured pass by pass.

By analysing more than 124,000 player-to-player interactions during the 2014–2015 NBA season, the team tracked how passing rates shifted as the Black Lives Matter movement gained public prominence following high-profile incidents of racial violence.

Photo: Max Winkler / Unsplash
NBA players coordinate on court, where passing data revealed real-world racial dynamics at work.
Discuss
  • Why did researchers choose the NBA as a setting for studying workplace cooperation?
  • What does the word 'asymmetrical' mean in the context of this study's findings?
  • Is it fair or unfair to judge workplace behaviour that is influenced by events outside work?
  • How might the results have differed if the study had been conducted in a different country or sport?
  • What responsibilities, if any, do organisations have when major societal events affect their employees?
Science

The Astronaut Who Rewrites the Rules

In 2022, the European Space Agency selected John McFall — a Paralympic sprinter, NHS surgeon, and above-knee amputee — as a reserve astronaut. Now a UK-Vast agreement could send him to orbit as early as 2027. If he flies, he would be the first person with a physical disability to live in space. …
  • Should space agencies prioritise flying astronauts with disabilities sooner rather than later?
∞
Employees do not leave the outside world at the door.
Abhinav Gupta, Professor of Management, UW Foster School of Business
Science

Pain relief hides in surprising medicines

In a San Francisco emergency room, the answer to agonising back pain might be sitting in the antidepressant cabinet. A new review by UCSF researchers found that ketamine, antipsychotics, and SNRIs could replace opioids for specific pain types — chest, head, and abdomen included. The opioid crisis, which began devastating American communities in the 1990s, made this search urgent. …
  • Should emergency doctors routinely test patients' genetics before prescribing painkillers?
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theSIGNAL IN THE LAB
1VOCABULARY
asymmetricalmega-threats
marginalisedseismicweightlessness
prominenceintensively
2GRAMMAR FOCUS
Modal verbs — deduction and speculation (must have, cannot have, might have)
Use 'must have' to express near-certain deduction about the past, 'cannot have' to express that something was impossible, and 'might have' to express that something was possible but uncertain.
must have · cannot have · might have · could have · must have been · might have been · cannot have been
  1. Researchers say the drop in white players' cooperation with Black colleagues caused entirely by chance, given how consistently it appeared across the data.
  2. The protests that followed George Floyd's death had a profound emotional impact on NBA players, as the study clearly shows their behaviour changed afterwards.
  3. Scientists admit they predicted exactly how John McFall's body will respond to weightlessness, since no amputee has ever lived in space before.
  4. The patterns found in the 124,000 player interactions influenced by many factors, but the researchers controlled carefully for alternative explanations.
  5. Doctors working in emergency rooms in the 1990s foreseen the full scale of the opioid crisis that would devastate so many American communities.
  6. George Floyd's killing the single event that accelerated a shift already building within NBA team dynamics over the previous years.
  7. Patients with unusual enzyme activity responded very differently to the same opioid dose, which helps explain why genetic testing is now considered so important.
3IDIOMS
Define each idiom in your own words. Then write one sentence of your own using one of them.
  1. leave the outside world at the door
  2. fracture along racial lines
  3. sit in the antidepressant cabinet
  4. gained public prominence
  5. rewrite the rules
  6. one person's relief is another person's risk
4CRITICAL THINKING
All three articles suggest that knowledge gaps — about race in workplaces, disabled bodies in space, and individual genetics in medicine — have real consequences for real people. Which of these gaps do you think carries the most urgency to close, and who should bear the responsibility for closing it?
5CREATIVE · HEADLINES
Write a headline for the NBA cooperation study in each of the following styles. One line each, no explanation:
  • TABLOID NEWSPAPER
  • LUXURY MAGAZINE
  • ACTIVIST BLOG
6WRITING
The three articles all describe situations where assumptions based on the 'typical' case — the able-bodied astronaut, the standard pain patient, the racially unaware colleague — have limited scientific or social progress. Write a short argument explaining why designing systems around the average person can cause harm, using at least two of the articles as evidence.
7DEGREES OF EXTREMITY
Complete each ladder from mild to strong.
  • noticeable→→
  • upset→→
  • well-known→→
  • difficult→→
  • shifted→→
  • charged→→
  • surprising→→
8SPEAKING
  1. What surprised you most about the study's findings?
  2. Could McFall's mission change how we design spacecraft?
  3. How might racial events affect cooperation in non-sporting workplaces?
  4. Which of the three articles raises the most urgent question?
  5. What risks exist when alternative painkillers replace opioids?