On the basketball court, you are always hearing tales of hustle. Usually, when a player of little skill receives a compliment, it’s some variation on the phrase “you’ve got hustle.” “Hustle” even made it into a joke in the movie Airplane!: a child’s claim that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, hardly a player of little skill, didn’t have it. That’s the flip side of hustle. If you’re good at basketball, you might not even need it.

But what is hustle? Simply trying hard? And what impact does it have on the court?

Statisticians who have made their name analyzing baseball statistics have recently turned their attention to the problem of hustle. Analyzing performance on the court of players who don’t have outstanding shooting, rebounding or stealing statistics, they have begun to develop a theory of hustling and determine its effect on the game. And its effect can be quite staggering.

Take, for example, “The No-Stats All-Star,” Shane Battier, whom Moneyball author Michael Lewis singled out in a New York Times article. Battier was an excellent college player at Duke and an integral part of its 2001 championship squad, but his skill set seemed massively overmatched at the professional level. Indeed, looking at his statistics playing for the Houston Rockets, Battier could be considered nothing but a scrub. But basketball’s statistics leave much of the game undocumented, and, according to Lewis, Battier excels at the shadow game—the strategic part of basketball that the statistics leave out. He puts his hand in opponents’ faces and drives down their shooting percentage. He takes magnificent dives, drawing offensive fouls and he always finds the right man on the court. Shane Battier has hustle.

So, hustle isn’t just a physical thing. It’s not trying harder than your opponent, or, at least, not just that. Instead, it’s a whole range of tactics and strategies that untalented players can use to level the court with talented ones. An inspiration to most of us.