ATL - LMA retires with heart issue - pg 78

[Wonka]

Tim just keeps on keeping on. Good for him honestly.

[Plossum]

Thibs deserves COTY if he gets that Knicks team into the four seed.

[MickeyDavis]

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[Pachinko_]

And to be told by those who deny the mental part of the game that it was just a small sample size.

So is choking a thing or an illusion?

To be clear, I believe the mental part of the game is definitely a thing, I mean I see it every year with Gianni's FT% dropping by 10% in the play offs, and then I saw it with Bledsoe who said it himself that stress gets to him and he was working on it with somebody.

So there are definitely players who overperform or underperform under the spotlight.
What I was saying is that the spotlight is wrong LOL
In the sense that games are typically lost and won because of what happens before the last 2 minutes, not during.

[Licensed to Il]

Probably some players are thin skinned and perform more poorly in the playoffs because of it. Probably a bigger factor is opponents play harder, coaches tailor game plans to attack weaknesses, and significant adjustments are made (guys are told to get back in transition d instead of hunting for offensive boards, for example).

[MikeIsGood]

Chet Holmgren has a great skillset, but I really can't get over how skinny he is. For a frame of reference (pun intended, thank you), Durant was listed 6'9 208 coming out of HS; Holmgren is 7'0 190. And plays center. He very, very obviously will need to put on weight if he wants to survive, not to mention stay healthy. But I'm curious to see how much that will change his game.

[Pachinko_]

Chet Holmgren has a great skillset, but I really can't get over how skinny he is. For a frame of reference (pun intended, thank you), Durant was listed 6'9 208 coming out of HS; Holmgren is 7'0 190. And plays center. He very, very obviously will need to put on weight if he wants to survive, not to mention stay healthy. But I'm curious to see how much that will change his game.

Even young Toni Kukoc who was a total twig looked stronger than that

[Jez2983]

YOU GUYS! YOU GUYS!

DJ Wilson had his Thon game!

[FlagsFlyForever]

I’ll bite. If clutchiness doesn’t exist, how about its converse, chokiness? Is there no such thing as choking? Are you saying that last-second game-tying shot has the same psychodynamic as a first quarter shot in a lopsided game? No difference in heart rate, sphincter tightness, or requisite focus?

I think it’s true that we sometimes impute patterns to randomness and overassess things like perceived hot streaks, but performance under pressure on the big stage, in the big moment, is not that. Donte had his Robert Horry moment in the NCAAs, and that’s extremely suggestive about how he might respond under similar pressure in the playoffs.

I'll offer a challenge to you or anybody else who feels up to it. Select any player in the NBA (or multiple players if you're able) who will perform significantly above their regular season performance in this season's playoffs. Select another (group of) player(s) who will perform significantly below their regular season performance.

I believe you have a coin flip's chance of being correct on any player you choose.

And to be told by those who deny the mental part of the game that it was just a small sample size.

So is choking a thing or an illusion?

We all know the mental aspect of sport is real which is how this famous photo can exist. But it's an illusion in the manner you are suggesting which is why I feel comfortable saying nobody can reliably predict who will be clutch or who will choke before it happens.

[paulpressey25]

YOU GUYS! YOU GUYS!

DJ Wilson had his Thon game!

It would appear that with Christian Wood out, DJ was given those 20 shots.

[MikeIsGood]

Even young Toni Kukoc who was a total twig looked stronger than that

Holy ****, I had no idea Toni was ever that small.

[BroncoBuck]

YOU GUYS! YOU GUYS!

DJ Wilson had his Thon game!

It would appear that with Christian Wood out, DJ was given those 20 shots.

I didn’t realize Markus Howard has actually played minutes for the Nuggets lol.

That’s a ridiculous boxscore with some of those names playing close to 40 minutes. Reminiscent of the Tim Frazier 48? minute game

[sidney lanier]

... I feel comfortable saying nobody can reliably predict who will be clutch or who will choke before it happens.

Which is the human drama of athletic competition, as they used to say on Wide World of Sports. However, not knowing who will rise to the occasion is not the same thing as denying there is variability in performance pressure, which clutch-choke deniers seem to be doing.

Back to DDV: no one could have predicted that this Villanova bench guy would be the MOS in the Final Four. Your contention -- that because it is unpredictable, it probably doesn't exist -- is seriously flawed.

But more of interest is whether DDV being clutch in the Final Four tells us whether he's got the clutchiness gene, or the Final Four performance was a one-off, or, as some would maintain, there's no such thing.

I guess you could deny the evidence of proven performance under pressure just out of spite or contrariness, but it seems to me that doing it before makes it likelier that you can do it again.

[coolhandluke121]

I don't think there's such a thing as performing better in the clutch. Someone who can step their game up on command in big moments is really just someone who's coasting and under-performing the rest of the time. If they are capable of playing better, they're costing their team a lot more wins by playing worse than they're capable of 99% of the time than the guy who plays up to his ability 99% of the time and chokes in the clutch. A LOT more. I don't think very many guys are so airheaded that they would approach the game the way some casual fans approach "clutch" analysis, but I suppose Kyrie would be one candidate. I sure as hell know it worked on a lot of gullible fans, if that was his intention, when Lebron carried him to a title and he stood on Lebron's shoulders for 3 seconds to steal a bunch of the glory.

I do think there's such a thing as choking in the clutch. The anxiety is probably even physiologically measurable with modern medical technology, so there's an explanatory mechanism for the issue. You do want guys who can stay poised and play the same in the clutch as they do the rest of the time, such as Chris Paul, but you don't really find guys who predictably perform better in the clutch. Kobe was actually worse in the clutch because he played so selfishly and had tunnel vision, but hey, at least he wasn't "choking." This is the same reason the closer role is still a big thing in baseball. You need a guy who is used to the pressure and has proven he can handle it, even if there's otherwise really nothing special about that guy and lots of other guys could have been groomed for the role. Theoretically it's not an efficient way to use a bullpen, as match-ups and leverage should be more important, but it still sticks.

[Licensed to Il]

I think "the clutch gene" is seriously misunderstood. When we anoint Kobe or whoever with that, we rarely factor in an adequate sample size. For example, I'd love to see stats for the last two minutes of NBA games, where the score was within 8 points. That would be a much better indicator of clutch, than say how many last second game winners someone had.

Another problem though, is how difficult it is to quantify clutch. Is Robert Horry clutch because as the 4th or 5th best option on a few finals teams, he got wide open looks? Is a guy like Chris Bosh less clutch, because he didn't take a lot of end game shots, though he was a better player? This is just one of those discussions that has and will exist forever, because there are so many ways of analyzing it. Having said all that, even casual fans usually know which player on their team has the best chance of making a bucket in a pressure situation.

[emunney]

I don't think there's such a thing as performing better in the clutch. Someone who can step their game up on command in big moments is really just someone who's coasting and under-performing the rest of the time. If they are capable of playing better, they're costing their team a lot more wins by playing worse than they're capable of 99% of the time than the guy who plays up to his ability 99% of the time and chokes in the clutch. A LOT more. I don't think very many guys are so airheaded that they would approach the game the way some casual fans approach "clutch" analysis, but I suppose Kyrie would be one candidate. I sure as hell know it worked on a lot of gullible fans, if that was his intention, when Lebron carried him to a title and he stood on Lebron's shoulders for 3 seconds to steal a bunch of the glory.

I do think there's such a thing as choking in the clutch. The anxiety is probably even physiologically measurable with modern medical technology, so there's an explanatory mechanism for the issue. You do want guys who can stay poised and play the same in the clutch as they do the rest of the time, such as Chris Paul, but you don't really find guys who predictably perform better in the clutch. Kobe was actually worse in the clutch because he played so selfishly and had tunnel vision, but hey, at least he wasn't "choking." This is the same reason the closer role is still a big thing in baseball. You need a guy who is used to the pressure and has proven he can handle it, even if there's otherwise really nothing special about that guy and lots of other guys could have been groomed for the role. Theoretically it's not an efficient way to use a bullpen, as match-ups and leverage should be more important, but it still sticks.

I feel like you're halfway to my conclusion, which is that guys who consistently "perform better" in the clutch are really just guys who are less impacted by the hormonal stress response and thus play better relative to their competition, which ultimately it's what it's all about, so a player is not independently boosted by big moments, but it's a distinction without a difference.

[Bmaasse]

I don't think there's such a thing as performing better in the clutch. Someone who can step their game up on command in big moments is really just someone who's coasting and under-performing the rest of the time. If they are capable of playing better, they're costing their team a lot more wins by playing worse than they're capable of 99% of the time than the guy who plays up to his ability 99% of the time and chokes in the clutch. A LOT more. I don't think very many guys are so airheaded that they would approach the game the way some casual fans approach "clutch" analysis, but I suppose Kyrie would be one candidate. I sure as hell know it worked on a lot of gullible fans, if that was his intention, when Lebron carried him to a title and he stood on Lebron's shoulders for 3 seconds to steal a bunch of the glory.

I do think there's such a thing as choking in the clutch. The anxiety is probably even physiologically measurable with modern medical technology, so there's an explanatory mechanism for the issue. You do want guys who can stay poised and play the same in the clutch as they do the rest of the time, such as Chris Paul, but you don't really find guys who predictably perform better in the clutch. Kobe was actually worse in the clutch because he played so selfishly and had tunnel vision, but hey, at least he wasn't "choking." This is the same reason the closer role is still a big thing in baseball. You need a guy who is used to the pressure and has proven he can handle it, even if there's otherwise really nothing special about that guy and lots of other guys could have been groomed for the role. Theoretically it's not an efficient way to use a bullpen, as match-ups and leverage should be more important, but it still sticks.

Nah, I disagree with this. A player's emotions, adrenaline, and endorphins all play a part in this, and in many cases I believe its an involuntary response.
To a lesser extent, it's similar to a person having the ability to lift a car to save a loved one under duress, but ask them to go outside on a random Saturday to duplicate that feat and they wouldn't come close.
Certain situations will dictate whether one will have the ability to tap into that extra gear. The birth of a child or the death of a parent. Or just knowing that the game is on the line and a play needs to made.

[coolhandluke121]

Nah, I disagree with this. A player's emotions, adrenaline, and endorphins all play a part in this, and in many cases I believe its an involuntary response.
To a lesser extent, it's similar to a person having the ability to lift a car to save a loved one under duress, but ask them to go outside on a random Saturday to duplicate that feat and they wouldn't come close.
Certain situations will dictate whether one will have the ability to tap into that extra gear. The birth of a child or the death of a parent. Or just knowing that the game is on the line and a play needs to made.

With all due respect I think that's ridiculous. It's a game, not an emergency. It's strictly accomplishments, not survival instinct. There's also been research showing that whoever gets identified as "clutch" in one season has basically no correlation with who is clutch in other seasons. It's been a while since I've seen studies on that but I remember Billy Beane was adamantly against the b.s. clutch narratives and had evidence to back it up. Clutchiness is all narrative-driven. A lot of guys are basically the same in the clutch as there are at any other time, and that's all you can ask for because there are plenty of guys who tighten up in the clutch as well.

You just provided evidence for improved performance in emergency situations. What's your evidence for improved performance in the clutch in sports, bearing in mind that you can't just find 50 players who have been better in "the clutch" and cite that as evidence because with literally thousands of players in the pool there are bound to be plenty who have better clutch stats just because of random deviation. A scientific approach without confirmation bias would be to identify a bunch of players who you deem to be "clutch" and bet on them being "clutch" again next year.

I once researched the regular season stats vs. playoff stats of every single great player I could think of off the top of my head in NBA history, which was well over 100 players. There were basically about 3 players who consistently had better stats in the playoffs, and there were bound to be a few just because of the randomness. That's not the same as clutch situations but it does speak to my point about how "playing better when it counts" is a dumb narrative because they're all trying to play well nearly all the time and if they could play better "when it matters", they would do it nearly all the time because it nearly always matters.

[Bmaasse]

Nah, I disagree with this. A player's emotions, adrenaline, and endorphins all play a part in this, and in many cases I believe its an involuntary response.
To a lesser extent, it's similar to a person having the ability to lift a car to save a loved one under duress, but ask them to go outside on a random Saturday to duplicate that feat and they wouldn't come close.
Certain situations will dictate whether one will have the ability to tap into that extra gear. The birth of a child or the death of a parent. Or just knowing that the game is on the line and a play needs to made.

With all due respect I think that's ridiculous. It's a game, not an emergency. It's strictly accomplishments, not survival instinct. There's also been research showing that whoever gets identified as "clutch" in one season has basically no correlation with who is clutch in other seasons. It's been a while since I've seen studies on that but I remember Billy Beane was adamantly against the b.s. clutch narratives and had evidence to back it up. Clutchiness is all narrative-driven. A lot of guys are basically the same in the clutch as there are at any other time, and that's all you can ask for because there are plenty of guys who tighten up in the clutch as well.

You just provided evidence for improved performance in emergency situations. What's your evidence for improved performance in the clutch in sports, bearing in mind that you can't just find 50 players who have been better in "the clutch" and cite that as evidence because with literally thousands of players in the pool there are bound to be plenty who have better clutch stats just because of random deviation. A scientific approach without confirmation bias would be to identify a bunch of players who you deem to be "clutch" and bet on them being "clutch" again next year.

I once researched the regular season stats vs. playoff stats of every single great player I could think of off the top of my head in NBA history, which was well over 100 players. There were basically about 3 players who consistently had better stats in the playoffs, and there were bound to be a few just because of the randomness. That's not the same as clutch situations but it does speak to my point about how "playing better when it counts" is a dumb narrative because they're all trying to play well nearly all the time and if they could play better "when it matters", they would do it nearly all the time because it nearly always matters.

That's fine we can agree to disagree. If you are telling me that you can perform a task over and over again without having any variance of your execution related to your emotional state or other surrounding factors, then you are either a robot or a vulcan.
Also you're suggesting that every playoff game will be viewed by any particular player as equal. It could be possible that some of the regular season games carry more weight than some of the games in the playoffs, especially for players who have made multiple trips. Trying to do research to determine whether or not a "clutch gene" exists is like trying to do an experiment to prove that "love" is real. Some things you can just see.
If there are players who are unclutch like Eric Bledsoe clearly was, why is it hard to think that there are players who exist on the opposite end of that spectrum?

[Prez]

Brooklyn is just insane, they are not losing if they get their top 3 guys healthy at some point.