Left-Handed Players Decline In Playoffs More Dramatically Than Righties

[RealGM Wiretap]

Left-handed players may have a bigger advantage in the regular season than the playoffs due to the unconventional nature of their game being easier to adapt to over an extended stretch of games.

Julius Randle is having a difficult playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks with a PER of 19.7 PER and .567 True Shooting Percentage compared to 7.4 and .403 during the first four games of the playoffs. 

"One thing I was curious about what was lefties stereotypically much more left handed than righties are right-handed," said Kevin Pelton on The Lowe Post podcast. "They have a tougher time going to their off hand. I went and looked this up yesterday and according to Basketball Reference's database of lefties, they drop off more in the playoffs from their regular season performance about 13 percent in terms of wins above replacement player metric compared to seven percent for righties."

"How much of that is Harden?" asked Zach Lowe.

"Not that much of it," replied Pelton. "He's not an extreme..."

"I was being facetious. Who are some other lefties who have dropped off the playoffs?"

Pelton mentioned David Robinson and Chris Mullin as a few notable players who were meaningfully better in the regular season than the playoffs. 

Via Kevin Pelton/ESPN

[alienpick]

Useless statistic; the sample size is too small to be meaningfully objective. Especially when in comparison to right handed statistics.

[DreamTeam09]

Useless statistic; the sample size is too small to be meaningfully objective. Especially when in comparison to right handed statistics.

May I ask why you would say that off of the rip when Lowe went far back to players like David Robinson and Mullen who were playing in the 90s

[d-train]

Makes sense, lefties are by nature unreliable. They avoid accountability and dismiss responsibility.

[Cassius]

Makes sense, lefties are by nature unreliable. They avoid accountability and dismiss responsibility.

LMAO

[Liam_Gallagher]

Kareem Rush going 6/6 from 3 in game 6 of the 2004 WCF says hello!!

[njknicks]

There are about 529 players in the NBA currently in 2021.

Of those, there are approximately 42 players that are left-hand dominant players - est. 12.5% of the league.

Of these 42 left handed players - a handful enter the playoffs ( with substantial minutes ) - considerably less than right handed players.

Therefore you can not compare left hand dominant players vs. right in the playoffs because the sample size is significantly less - it would be a skewed statistic considering that 87.5% of the league is right hand dominant.

[DavidSterned]

Bill Russell says hi.

[Revived]

Makes sense, lefties are by nature unreliable. They avoid accountability and dismiss responsibility.

Ok tell us, what was her name?

[Winsome Gerbil]

Weird devilspawn anyway, so hardly surprising.

[Darthlukey]

Kareem Rush going 6/6 from 3 in game 6 of the 2004 WCF says hello!!

I remember that day vividly, awful day

[Darthlukey]

Useless statistic; the sample size is too small to be meaningfully objective. Especially when in comparison to right handed statistics.

May I ask why you would say that off of the rip when Lowe went far back to players like David Robinson and Mullen who were playing in the 90s

To be fair, Robinson was simply exposed for the fraud he was in the playoffs rather than just attributing it to being left handed. No idea about mullin

[oaktownwarriors87]

Is this The Onion?

Basketball reference doesn't even do "wings above replacement player" (WARP)

And basketball reference doesn't let you search stats like that anymore, you have to go to stathead.com and use their paid service