Networking and Basketball

Throughout the past few weeks in lecture and lab, we have learned about networks. Personally, I can relate computer networking to the basketball. I have played basketball my entire life so I know what the game is about and how it should be played. First of all, basketball is a team game. In order for a team to be successful, usually there has to be a system that allows the five guys on the court to work well together in order to score and defend. Unless one is playing in the NBA with the likes of LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, or Chris Paul, then it is extremely unlikely that a single player could lead, or even will, his team to victory. Therefore, teams must essentially set up a network in order to reach a common goal.

In this metaphor, each individual could represent a computer on a network. Obviously, there is so much that an individual computer can do, so in order to reach the goal of winning a game or finding a piece of information, then the individual computers would have to use a router to find the piece of information on another computer. The router could be represented by a teammate's interactions with another teammate. For example, a pass or a screen could be seen as a router on this network. Both computers, or teammates, are using each other to reach their goal.