This is assuming the body itself doesn't contain memories of a kind that are pertinent. The brain and the rest of the nervous system don't have a hard biological boundary.

I'm thinking that the brain wins the first few rounds, but then the brain in the new body starts to become more aware of its abilities and overtakes quickly. Being able to tower over someone is a huge advantage in basketball.

There's a kind of parallel in the life story of Mike McDaniel, who is now the head coach for the Miami Dolphins in the NFL. He had the mind, and gradually discovered that he didn't have the body. https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/39280819/mike-mcdaniel-miami-dolphins

LeBron James's mind in Boroditsky 5'3" body wins and it's not even close. Physical size is useful in basketball but it's not nearly as important as being good at basketball. It'd probably take LBJ a couple of minutes to figure out what his new body could/couldn't do but how long until Boroditsky learns how to effectively bounce a basketball? Surely it would be longer than it'd take LeBron to score 21 pts. This is of course assuming Boroditsky's mind in LBJ's body doesn't seriously hurt one or both of them as she clumsily tries to figure out how it works.

It's kind of like asking who would win a race on an F1 track, me in a Mercedes Benz F1W14 or Lewis Hamilton in a 94 Honda Civic. Lewis Hamilton, every day.

My guess is that the brain would win quite easily because of determination + skill. After a few games, physical conditioning might become a limiting factor.

It's an interesting question though (re: Dan's assertion above about hard biological boundaries): how much of "muscle memory" and general physical capability is in the brain vs. the body? Could LeBron's brain still shoot the ball effectively in a new body? Could Lera's brain expertly control LeBron's body?

I wonder if there's an analogy here to racing cars. If you stuck Lewis Hamilton in, say, a fast street-legal car (not a supercar or Tesla Plaid or anything) and a regular driver in an F1 car (with a bit of training as to how to use the controls), who would win? F1 cars are stupidly fast, but I'd bet on Hamilton every time.

Perhaps relevant to our question here: 3 expert fencers against 50 amateurs.

I feel like this question is analogous in some way to that (bleakly) hilarious poll from a few years back about how a not-insignificant number of random men think they could win a point against Serena Williams in a tennis match. Not the misogyny part, the part where these fools discount the holistic nature of extraordinary physical performance. As if a lifetime studying ballet technique from the sofa means you could get up and match Baryshnikov, as if Simone Biles could climb up on a horse today and win a gold medal in dressage. All knowledge is embodied, all prowess is intellectual. To tease the two apart is impossible.

The biggest question in my mind is how long after the swap this game happens. For the first little while, simply *jogging* in the new body without falling over is going to be a challenge. During that period, when they’re both super uncoordinated but one has a huge physical advantage, my money’s on King James’ body. Once they’ve both settled in, though, his mind’s got a huge advantage.

My first thought was, if we’re to assume the game happens right after the switch, Lebron’s brain would try to do something that would significantly injury Boroditsky’s body and the game would be over.

In terms of the skills gap, I'm reminded of the Billie Jean King/Bobby Riggs tennis match (subject of the 2017 film Battle of the Sexes with Emma Stone and Steve Carell). But I'm with Dan up top: the brain and the body aren't separate, and the conceit of brain swappability does all kinds of weird work (in the context of AI, ideas about consciousness and free will, the Singularity...). I wonder how much basketball intelligence even a powerful, highly plastic cognitive system like LeBron's could practicably amass at 5'3" and 105 lbs.

If the game happens immediately after the switch, I think that Lera's mind in LeBron's body wins. It's very likely that LeBron's-mind-in-Lera's-body injures themselves unintentionally trying to use Lera's body in ways that it's not prepared for - jumping and pivoting and such.

If the game happens after a short period, LeBron's-mind-in-Lera's-body wins in an absolute landslide. Once LeBron's mind is familiar with the restrictions of the body, the basketball knowledge would dominate.

Now, if they have a few years after the body switch to prep, things get interesting. How quickly could Lera's-mind-in-LeBron's-body get coached up to a level where the knowledge gap becomes relatively small, allowing the physical differences to become more central? This becomes a question of deliberate practice and so on.