The idea of chemistry is often used to describe players’ interactions on and off the court in the world of sports.  In its context, it is in an organization’s best interest to bring in players who will find the best “chemistry” amongst themselves in order to win a championship.  In reality, promoting chemistry on sports teams is simply maintaining structural balance in a network of people.

In class, we learned about structural balance with examples of triangles.  In a triangular social balance, each triangle of three nodes must have one or three positive edges.  A positive edge indicates that the two nodes like each other, while a negative edge indicates dislike between the two nodes. 

In arguably the largest scale example of what happens when a team becomes structurally unbalanced, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, two of the greatest basketball players of our generation, grew to dislike each other and lost their “chemistry” on the basketball court.  The organization, the Los Angeles Lakers, valued these two great players both tremendously.  They had won championships together and made the franchise an annual championship contender.  Each of the players respected the organization and its decisions, but when they grew to dislike each other, things began to fall apart.  It could be said that positive edges existed between the Lakers organization and each of Bryant and O’Neal.  While a positive edge existed between O’Neal and Bryant, the Lakers won three championships.  Once the animosity between the two All-Stars grew to the point of a negative edge between them, things dramatically changed in the Lakers franchise. 

The negative edge that grew between Bryant and O’Neal was one of the most documented disagreements between teammates in recent history.  The duo that had been the nucleus that helped the Los Angeles Lakers “three-peat” in 2000, 2001, and 2002, had disintegrated, and both stars decided L.A was only big enough for one of them.  Eventually, the disruption caused O’Neal to be traded to the Miami Heat. 

Generally, teams that win championships in professional sports are said to have the best chemistry on the court, ice, or field.  While Bryant and O’Neal got along, their team flourished and won three NBA championships in a row.  Once they had their well documented falling out, the L.A Lakers were not the same team, and have not returned to their championship status since O’Neal left. 

A link to the article “A Partitioning Approach to Structural Balance” is attached below:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VD1-3VW1DVP-3&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=7f620cd150cf73a035e54285166ae7a8