So you believe in cold but you don't believe in hot?
I believe clutch is in the persona of a player more so than the numbers can dictate. I believe it's more about being able to control one's adrenaline during certain situations and having the ability to channel that adrenaline into focus and concentration at the time. A complex myriad of mental and physical attributes converging at the same time.
Some have it...some don't.
It's impossible to have a stat about this but I'm pretty sure every player in the World hits free throws at a higher rate during practice than in a game, that imo is a very good reason to debunk the "clutch" theory.
Increased ability during "Clutch" situations - high pressure situations - makes sense from a chemical standpoint. Increased levels of epinephrine and norepinephrine during these situations can have a wide range of effects on players. Everyone knows what an adrenaline rush is. As your heart rate increases, you're getting more blood (oxygen) to your brain, more blood to your muscles and your pupils will dilate. Your hearing ability will decrease, and your peripheral vision is limited. You get tunnel vision and you're basically in the "zone".
Some players get overly excited or nervous, some become scared, and some have learned to find a good balance and seem to display increased focus and stamina.
I could buy that but untill I see proof of a guy performing clearly and repeatedly better during the clutch than under a normal situation I just can't. Not when the guy generally percived as the clutchest player of this generation hits like 20% of his shots during the clutch.
Behind significantly better in clutch time than during the rest of the game is a negative to me.
Stephen Jackson and to a lesser extend Gary Neal takes a lot of bad shots, that is to say low percentage shots, during games. In clutch time, they are more focused and reduce the amount of these bad shots taken. Being clutch was/is in fact for them being less a chucker and having a better shot selection.
Robert Horry was coasting when it didn't really matters. Being clutch was in fact for him carrying about the game.
I agree with DAF86. While there are players like Bonner who disappear when there are some pressure, I don't believe in the opposite. Players who do way better in clutch time or during the playoffs than the rest of the time have a flaw that is either chucking or coasting.
I find that unlikely. The rush is more likely to screw with your muscle memory and the balance of your whole system. Those physical responses are made to let you run and fight, not put a fine feathered touch on a basketball. They make delicate work much more difficult, not easy. As a matter of fact, I propose that clutch players do not feel the pressure at all and remain as they do in non-clutch time. By that factor, I also propose that a choker experiences the chemical rush and ends up failing because of that.
Just look at clutch players. They are cool and collected, like the situation isn't any different than normal. It is like public speaking. You are either comfortable like nothing is wrong (clutch) or you get nervous, sweating, and feel a rush (choke).
I propose that Gary Neal is an anomaly or he is just really good at collecting himself and getting back to normal in big situations. Sometimes you gotta stop thinking so much and he seems good at it.
Good take. It's more about two players that are both good shooters...only one keeps the same steady hand and the other goes all shaky.
I agree that certain ("clutch") players are able temper the chemical effects of high-pressure situations. But I disagree that all those effects are negative when it comes to basketball. A fine feathered touch is great but it means nothing in overtime if you don't have the legs to get ball to the rim.
I believe that all players feel pressure, the most "clutch" and the most "un-clutch". The difference comes in how they deal with that pressure and whether or not they are able to suppress the negative effects while taking advantage of the positive effects. I think we're downplaying the increased levels of focus that certain players have during these situations. So I disagree that it's all about players "getting back to normal". Coming out of a timeout, in overtime of a tie game, a player can do his best to relax his mind and his body, but it isn't going to change the physiological effects associated with an increased heart rate. Certain players use that to their advantage, others can't handle it.
I think there are different types of clutch players. There are those who play better in important moments. Horry obviously and Neal. Ginobili is also in there...since he arrived, you can always count on him to hit the big shot to stop a run or seal a game. Parker in the last few years is getting there with his midrange game. It might be off all game long, but come 4th quarter, I now feel like its going in. What separates the other guys tho is that Parker still has a tendency to force the issue which gets him in trouble.
The other level of clutch are players who I feel like just shoot the same regardless of what time of the game it is. Tim, Bruce, and Finley come to mind for me.
Then there are guys who sometimes make big shots but its not the norm. RJ and Barry are two guys who come to mind for me.
Then there are the chokers. Bonner, as much as I like him, is scared of shooting in crunch time. One of the only times I've seen him shoot without hesitating in crunch time, he drilled the two biggest shots of his career in game 1 against Memphis. For whatever reason, he gets nervous and passes up good shots (or shoots as a last resort like he did against the Clippers).
The last two columns: first one is what percent of their threes while with the Spurs fell within the criteria, second one is how many of these threes they attempted per 1000 minutes with the Spurs.
Sifting through the stats, here are some other observation:
-While Bowen's overall numbers here aren't great, if you isolate just his shots in the playoffs that fit the criteria, he was 4-for-6.
-Bonner even worse in the playoffs (1-for-6)
-In Horry's first year with the Spurs, he was 1-for-13 on such shots. That means he was a ridiculous 21-for-43 in his last four years with the Spurs. That's 48.8%.
-Fans' perception of being clutch has a lot to do with quan y. Finley, Neal, Mason and Horry were widely regarded as clutch during their time ... and I don't think it's a coincidence that they are near the top in that "Per 1000 Min" category. As bbum said, it's the Kobe Bryant effect.
-Bonner and Barry were criticized for routinely passing up clutch shots ... which might be illustrated by those two players being last in the "% 3s Clutch" category.
Nice analysis, man! It's funny because I'm reading this while sitting in my graduate statistics class. Do you have any background in academic stats?
On the subject matter, I think it's not hard to imagine "clutch factor" being a real phenomenon. I would operationalize it by relating it to calmness under pressure. It has been empirically established that there are individual differences on this factor, i.e. some people get more nervous (physiologically aroused) than others in stressful situations. It is also well-known that nervousness interferes with task performance. Therefore, if we define "clutch shooting" as the ability to perform a shot with minimal impairment from stress, then this is clearly a real phenomenon.
Oh, and have you ever thought about doing some inferential tests like t-tests, anova, or regression? Most people would have no idea what that means, but it would be really cool for those of us who do.
Nice analysis. If the raw data is easy to use, I'd really love to see the same analysis with vander's criteria (which seems "clutcher" to me) and also with 2pt and/or FT shooting, just to see if some players generally improve in the last 5 minutes of contested games and/or OT.
More data:
From the 2002-03 season until today, the Spurs shoot 35.8% (238-for-665) on three-pointers under this clutch criteria. On all other three-pointers, the Spurs have shot 37.5% (4,961-13,228).
The most clutch team graded out to be the 2003 Spurs -- which makes sense subjectively. The least clutch team was the 2010 Spurs -- which could explain why that team was the worst team of the bunch.
Pretty interesting, tbh.
It seems like using the entire 4th quarter and a max deficit of 10 is going result in a large part of the sample being made up of shots that most people wouldn't consider "clutch". I don't think of 3 pointers early in the 4th quarter (close game or not) as clutch. Or 3's with a couple of minutes left and down by 10. In fact with a minute or two left and losing by 10, there isn't a of a lot of pressure on that three point shot. I appreciate the effort you put into this and realize that it would take some time to actually narrow it down to a partial quarter. But I don't think you ended up with a good definition of "clutch".
Good convo in this thread
Personally, I don't really believe in clutch in terms of someone becoming automatic in big moments. In fact, a simple definition for clutch could be the ability to avoid choking.
Every three-point shooter probably has a true percentage they shoot when they are totally locked in mentally and playing within the framework of the team. Clutch players are able to shoot that percentage in key moments, while uncluch players shoot worse.
I don't think "how badly they want to win" enters the equation. Pretty much every choker really, really wants to win. For example, I doubt Bonner is unclutch simply because he doesn't care enough.
For the record, it's not literally shooting the shot a million times. But rather it's the same moment in time repeating itself a million times.
Horry always said that he was able to hit clutch shots because basketball was never life and death with him. He said that he gained that perspective after caring for his sick daughter (the one that recently died). For him, make or miss didn't really matter to him very much in the grand scheme of things.
I think that explains a lot of Horry's success, tbh.
I'm using Vander's criteria next. It should be interesting.
However, before I run the numbers, I'll explain why I didn't use it to begin with: My goal in this experiment wasn't to necessarily calculate a player's clutch three-point shooting percentage exactly. IMO, that doesn't make sense to be the goal since that's something that is possible to calculate. You'd have to go back in history and look at each three-point attempt and determine if it was a clutch attempt or not. Obviously, that would take forever but by doing so, you could get an actual clutch three-point shooting percentage.
The criteria I used was based off the logic that using the clutchest option of the available variables could serve as a guide. Road requires more clutch than home, fourth quarter requires more clutch than earlier in the game, shooting while behind requires more clutch than being ahead, etc.
And while I agree that three-pointers when being up by 1-3 are important, I see a flaw that is Spurs-specific due to their strategy: When the Spurs are up by a small margin late in games, they like to let the shot clock run down and then run a pick-and-roll with 5-7 seconds remaining. Oftentimes, by the time the guard gets around the pick, there's only a few seconds remaining in the shot clock, which then results in a lot of contested three-pointers either by the original ball-handler or the player who receives the first (and only) pass. Especially back when the Spurs were a great defensive team, they valued wasting time more than getting quality shots when they were ahead late. Conversely, when the Spurs are behind, the goal is always a made basket and wasting time doesn't enter into the equation.
Perhaps I'm wrong and Vander's criteria will be better but I thought about it a lot and that's why I elected not to include "daggers".
We'll see . . .
Interesting thread. My thoughts would echo what several other have said about the definition used to define clutch situations and the "Kobe effect". There are players that have no fear of such situations and we recognize that whether or not the stats support the notion.
I highlighted the Bonner numbers above because I was just looking at a small set of Bonner stats to demonstrate how the stats can say many different things if you make some changes in the criteria used or the scope of the search.
So thinking back to the Memphis series last year and the two 3-pointers Bonner made near the end of Game 1. He took 4 other 3-pointers in that series that met the criteria in the OP and made one. So he was 3-6 in clutch situations in the 2011 playoffs (not sure how you got the 1-6 number). In non-clutch situations he was 3-12. Put that data in the tables used in the OP and Matt Bonner appears to have been incredibly clutch in the 2011 playoffs. Even moreso if you used Vander's criteria.
In the end, clutchness is a much more subjective thing. We recognize that in Horry. You cited Horry's terrible numbers from the 2004 playoffs with the Spurs. Most of us forget that he was even worse for the Lakers in the 2003 playoffs. He shot 2-38 from distance in 12 playoff games that year (including a miss at the end of Game 5 against the Spurs from almost exactly the same spot as his shot in OT of Game 5 of the 2005 Finals). That wretched performance was one reason he was available to the Spurs as a free agent in the summer of 2003. Yet, after two abysmal playoff runs, he did not shy away from the tough shots in 2005. That's clutch.
^Game 1 was at home, tbh.
So far, the Vander Criteria has created a massive drop in sample size. Pretty surprising since it's using both home and road stats.
And the CoM needs to leave this thread and never come back
mea culpa
There was a reason for his shooting in both cases. In 2003 he was forced into playing more minutes than usual and probably got worn down quicker. In 2004 he was going against the Lakers and I think that affected him psychologically.
And the CoM needs to leave this thread and never come back
cannot wait
Elnono get your ass over there !
I strongly believe it does, but its not limited to just that factor. But this one can't be measure because we're talking about work ethic, mindset and at ude.
It doesn't mean Bonner doesn't care about winning, if you polled every NBA player if they wanted to win you would probably get a result of 99% yes and 1% no. But how badly does he really want to win.. and how badly does he want to be responsible for it? When Bonner chokes in the playoffs, how many people would bet their life that Matt goes home with a burning rage and proceeds to train like a man possessed? Now imagine how Duncan, Ginobili, Kobe, Jordan, Bird, Dirk etc would react if they choked an entire playoff series away.
Similarly, how many talented 7'0 footers want a career like Duncan's? How many talented swingmen would want to achieve what Kobe did? Probably the majority of players would love to do what they did. But very few will actually put in the work necessary to become an all time great.
Therefore, I think at ude matters a lot. The all time great clutch players in the NBA are known for their confidence on and off the court. I don't think its a coincidence.
What does com stand for?And the CoM needs to leave this thread and never come back
Last edited by angelbelow; 02-22-2012 at 07:35 PM.
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