How clutch is Lebron James?

[uberhikari]

The overall sample looks reasonable - but the 1990-1992 does look funky net rating wise (the TS really isn't that implausible given that it's such a small sample of possessions... but sure it is high).


I believe he listed the games which are all likely findable on youtube. If I ever have the time I'll check the 1990-1992 sample at least since that shouldn't take that much time.

On one hand you're using Dipper's data to justify the conclusion that Michael Jordan was a clutch God, but, on the other hand, you're claiming that Dipper's conclusions might be a function of a small sample size. You can't have it both ways. Either Dipper's data is proof that Jordan was clutch or the data is meaningless because of sample size. You can't have it both ways.

In any event, I very seriously doubt Dipper's numbers are correct. Like I said, I've been looking at clutch statistics for a long time and have never seen anything even remotely close to a 71 TS%.

Ok, you haven't even followed the discussion. Emenince specifically brought up the 1990-1992 subsample - which is what I did some checking on last night. Those aren't the numbers I was using - I was looking at MJs overall career clutch numbers. It would be silly to cherry pick 3 seasons of MJs clutch stats and then use that to claim he's insane in the clutch - and that's not what me or anyone else was doing. In any case if the FT distribution is correct (24% coming during clutch minutes) Dipper's numbers actually look pretty plausible for the subsample. If I get some time I can look at the entire sample - it's 97 games so checking the box scores will take longer.

1. You can't be serious. I would bet dollars to donuts that Dipper's FT distribution is incorrect. Think about what you're implying for Christ's sake. The last 5 minutes of an NBA game is only 10.42% of the entire game (48 mins). If someone suggested that a player took 24% of all their FTs within the last 10.42% of a game I would be suspicious. But your suggestion is even more absurd, because we're only talking about a specific subset of 5 minute intervals of game time, i.e., only clutch minutes.

So, are you really going to entertain the possibility that Jordan took 24% of his FTs within the last 5 minutes of only a subset of games?

2. I think the sample size problem persists irrespective of the 1990-1992 subset. MJ played 179 PS games. If half of his games included clutch time, we're talking about 90 games * 5 minutes, which is 450 minutes of clutch time. MJ played 7,500 minutes over his entire PS career, which means we're talking about extrapolating useful information from ~6% of his entire playing time in the PS.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

If the Warriors hit a few open shots in game 7 of 2016 then LeBron becomes a lot less clutch because LeBron shot 9 for 24 in game 7.
Everything great LeBron did in games 3, 5, and 6 becomes nothing if LeBron loses game 7 while shooting 9 for 24, because that's how fans are.

Of course if that means that Durant does not join the Warriors then LeBron can redeem himself in 2017.

Rings do lie.

[bledredwine]

Ok, you haven't even followed the discussion. Emenince specifically brought up the 1990-1992 subsample - which is what I did some checking on last night. Those aren't the numbers I was using - I was looking at MJs overall career clutch numbers. It would be silly to cherry pick 3 seasons of MJs clutch stats and then use that to claim he's insane in the clutch - and that's not what me or anyone else was doing. In any case if the FT distribution is correct (24% coming during clutch minutes) Dipper's numbers actually look pretty plausible for the subsample. If I get some time I can look at the entire sample - it's 97 games so checking the box scores will take longer.

1. You can't be serious. I would bet dollars to donuts that Dipper's FT distribution is incorrect. Think about what you're implying for Christ's sake. The last 5 minutes of an NBA game is only 10.42% of the entire game (48 mins). If someone suggested that a player took 24% of all their FTs within the last 10.42% of a game I would be suspicious. But your suggestion is even more absurd, because we're only talking about a specific subset of 5 minute intervals of game time, i.e., only clutch minutes.

So, are you really going to entertain the possibility that Jordan took 24% of his FTs within the last 5 minutes of only a subset of games?

2. I think the sample size problem persists irrespective of the 1990-1992 subset. MJ played 179 PS games. If half of his games included clutch time, we're talking about 90 games * 5 minutes, which is 450 minutes of clutch time. MJ played 7,500 minutes over his entire PS career, which means we're talking about extrapolating useful information from ~6% of his entire playing time in the PS.

1. You’re forgetting not to include bench minutes

2. I watched jordan’s Full game 55 against Phoenix the other night and have been watching old finals games. Jordan chooses when to takeover and does hit many free throws in the forth. He was also known to be a “slow starter” because of this. Pippen stated that if the Bulls were within six going into the 4th, he “knew we had won the game because Michael would take over”

3. Please watch some full games. You’ll be surprised by many things. Even I have been. Realgm has you believing all sorts of propaganda. The only way to know what is to watch full games. They’re a hell of a lot more impressive than highlights and show how little stats reveal (jordan coasted even in the beginning of finals games). The most surprising propaganda being Jordan’s passing, 3 point game, and the level that he actually played at. Go watch.

Realgm had me wondering if I was overrating him for a bit, but watching full games, the guy was simply on another level from anything we’ve seen. Fingerrolls midair 2 feet from the bucket with his body stopped, when he missed it almost always rimmed out or rolled out, effortless dribbling around multiple defenders. And so on. The game looked so easy to him. Start with 1993.

[LKN]

On one hand you're using Dipper's data to justify the conclusion that Michael Jordan was a clutch God, but, on the other hand, you're claiming that Dipper's conclusions might be a function of a small sample size. You can't have it both ways. Either Dipper's data is proof that Jordan was clutch or the data is meaningless because of sample size. You can't have it both ways.

In any event, I very seriously doubt Dipper's numbers are correct. Like I said, I've been looking at clutch statistics for a long time and have never seen anything even remotely close to a 71 TS%.

Ok, you haven't even followed the discussion. Emenince specifically brought up the 1990-1992 subsample - which is what I did some checking on last night. Those aren't the numbers I was using - I was looking at MJs overall career clutch numbers. It would be silly to cherry pick 3 seasons of MJs clutch stats and then use that to claim he's insane in the clutch - and that's not what me or anyone else was doing. In any case if the FT distribution is correct (24% coming during clutch minutes) Dipper's numbers actually look pretty plausible for the subsample. If I get some time I can look at the entire sample - it's 97 games so checking the box scores will take longer.

1. You can't be serious. I would bet dollars to donuts that Dipper's FT distribution is incorrect. Think about what you're implying for Christ's sake. The last 5 minutes of an NBA game is only 10.42% of the entire game (48 mins). If someone suggested that a player took 24% of all their FTs within the last 10.42% of a game I would be suspicious. But your suggestion is even more absurd, because we're only talking about a specific subset of 5 minute intervals of game time, i.e., only clutch minutes.

So, are you really going to entertain the possibility that Jordan took 24% of his FTs within the last 5 minutes of only a subset of games?

2. I think the sample size problem persists irrespective of the 1990-1992 subset. MJ played 179 PS games. If half of his games included clutch time, we're talking about 90 games * 5 minutes, which is 450 minutes of clutch time. MJ played 7,500 minutes over his entire PS career, which means we're talking about extrapolating useful information from ~6% of his entire playing time in the PS.

Have you actually looked at the math on this? It's really not that crazy at all. By these #s MJ averaged 2.4 FTAs per game in clutch time. I don't find that hard to believe. In fact it's probably about what I'd expect.

That's not much more than one trip to the line per game in crunch time. I'm sure when I get the chance to watch a few of these I'll find games where MJ had 4 FTs at the end of a close game simply from the other team fouling to stop the clock.

Given that he's team won a high percentage of those games it doesn't seem that crazy.

You are correct that clutch time for most players is a small portion of their overall career.... if you think the stats are meaningless anyways that's fine. I'm not sure how much/little they matter myself.... I mean if you care how someone does at the end of close games then they are probably interesting.

[freethedevil]

So now we have people questioning the integrity of another posted simply because they don't like the conclusions the numbers draw. I think I'll adopt the same tactic whenever ElGee numbers are cited as gospel around here. "Why should we trust him?"

Because he's shown his math and his metrics have been tested. Show yours

[bledredwine]

I’m just going to say this -

There are many players that I’d choose over Lebron in the last 10 seconds of the game

Harsh, but this is an example of the many times he didn’t step it up over the last two golden state series in the 4th. http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=472282

[Bidofo]

Didn't step up? He literally put his team in position to have two free throws from an 80% shooter, or a layup otherwise. He reads the play like a genius, Green completely ignores his guy, Hill makes a good cut, and Klay is forced to foul because if he's helping too much, you'd best believe LeBron is finding Korver for a wide open corner 3. People are so obsessed with taking the last shot for who knows why. And let's not act like with 5 seconds if there was no other option LeBron couldn't create for himself lol, please.

Then again we out here posting stuff from ISH. That OP seems to be a joke over there too, what does that make the person posting his totally insightful and non-biased post here on RGM?

[bledredwine]

Didn't step up? He literally put his team in position to have two free throws from an 80% shooter, or a layup otherwise. He reads the play like a genius, Green completely ignores his guy, Hill makes a good cut, and Klay is forced to foul because if he's helping too much, you'd best believe LeBron is finding Korver for a wide open corner 3. People are so obsessed with taking the last shot for who knows why. And let's not act like with 5 seconds if there was no other option LeBron couldn't create for himself lol, please.

Then again we out here posting stuff from ISH. That OP seems to be a joke over there too, what does that make the person posting his totally insightful and non-biased post here on RGM?

I literally just posted direct footage of terrible last 10 second clutch play from the finals.

But I’m biased because of it, and you’re talking about a pair of free throws lol

I’m sorry man. Durant happened twice. You can’t just erase that and the stats posted from reality. Bias? It’s EVIDENCE

[bledredwine]

Didn't step up? He literally put his team in position to have two free throws from an 80% shooter, or a layup otherwise. He reads the play like a genius, Green completely ignores his guy, Hill makes a good cut, and Klay is forced to foul because if he's helping too much, you'd best believe LeBron is finding Korver for a wide open corner 3. People are so obsessed with taking the last shot for who knows why. And let's not act like with 5 seconds if there was no other option LeBron couldn't create for himself lol, please.

Then again we out here posting stuff from ISH. That OP seems to be a joke over there too, what does that make the person posting his totally insightful and non-biased post here on RGM?

And additionally, all of the great clutch players have been lights out shooters.

Seriously, can you name another clutch player who has a free throw percentage as low as lebron’s? A midrange game as inconsistent?

Two of the only finals games I remember him having an impressive midrange are his 50 point game and the one where popovic purposefully left him open. The others have generally been mediocre to poor efficiency. Because of his shaky shooting, he’s never been the man to take last shots to win the game. And he usually passes on them. It makes sense. During the spurs finals, he was in the 20 percentile from midrange and has since made it to the 30’s somewhere (forgot exact stat). Regardless, it’s not very good.

Lebron’s generally been a great fourth quarter player since his Cavs stint, but I definitely don’t want him over others in the last couple minutes of the game, especially to take the last possession or make a gamewinner.

[DatAsh]

Yeah, but where did Dipper get his numbers from?

He watched all the games himself. (Pretty much every playoff game is on youtube).

And why should we trust Dipper?

To be fair, Dipper is arguably the least biased and most trustworthy guy on this board. Wish he still posted.

[mcraft]

Didn't step up? He literally put his team in position to have two free throws from an 80% shooter, or a layup otherwise. He reads the play like a genius, Green completely ignores his guy, Hill makes a good cut, and Klay is forced to foul because if he's helping too much, you'd best believe LeBron is finding Korver for a wide open corner 3. People are so obsessed with taking the last shot for who knows why. And let's not act like with 5 seconds if there was no other option LeBron couldn't create for himself lol, please.

Then again we out here posting stuff from ISH. That OP seems to be a joke over there too, what does that make the person posting his totally insightful and non-biased post here on RGM?

Well obviously according to that guy Lebron should have gotten into a three point stance and took a shot himself.
His take is unfortunately all too common.

[Bidofo]

I literally just posted direct footage of terrible last 10 second clutch play from the finals.

But I’m biased because of it, and you’re talking about a pair of free throws lol

I’m sorry man. Durant happened twice. You can’t just erase that and the stats posted from reality. Bias? It’s EVIDENCE

Wtf???? You do know George Hill was fouled on that play right???? That he shot two free throws right after???? Why would I not talk about that when LeBron directly led to that? His gravity distracts the defense -> has great vision -> exploits the lapse -> his team has a very high chance to score and tie the game. You're acting like he turned it over or something lol which would be embarrassing to say the least. In no way was that terrible.

Also no you didn't literally just post a game ending play. You posted an OP with a clear agenda using biased language who frankly sounds like a high schooler. And then he compares what he thinks is a terrible play to only the best plays of Michael Jordan. It does not take a rocket scientist to see how intellectually dishonest that post is, but you're willing to let that go because Jordan on top above all else. You posted no stats whatsoever lol talm bout evidence.

It wouldn't surprise me if that OP was your alt on that account. You're basically the 3balla of the PC board.

And additionally, all of the great clutch players have been lights out shooters.

Seriously, can you name another clutch player who has a free throw percentage as low as lebron’s? A midrange game as inconsistent?

Two of the only finals games I remember him having an impressive midrange are his 50 point game and the one where popovic purposefully left him open. The others have generally been mediocre to poor efficiency. Because of his shaky shooting, he’s never been the man to take last shots to win the game. And he usually passes on them. It makes sense. During the spurs finals, he was in the 20 percentile from midrange and has since made it to the 30’s somewhere (forgot exact stat). Regardless, it’s not very good.

Is that so? I must have missed how Bill freaking Russell was a lights out shooter. Your perception of clutch play (and the goodness of players in general) seem to always be on the offensive side of things. You can be clutch without being a knock down shooter. You can be a clutch passer, clutch defender, clutch scorer irregardless of shooting. Is Hakeem not clutch? I guess his game saving block on Starks in game 6 of the '94 Finals was a nothing play to be lost in history, yes? Same with LeBron's '16 block? Not to mention clutch also doesn't need to mean last X seconds of the game. LeBron is the greatest elimination game performer in history.

Thanks for letting the world know you didn't watch games 5 and 6 of the 2016 NBA Finals, cuz his midrange was money those two games. Also shame on him for passing to get better looks for his team!!

And then here comes the Spurs series. Even though his jumper abandoned him early and he wasn't scoring too well, he was still contributing in other ways. And eventually he DID get his jumper going and won. You value winning above all else, so why care how he got there? He hit his shots in the last two games did he not? LeBron has some of the greatest finals performances ever, he has shown in 2012 that even with a broken jump shot he can absolutely dominate a team, but sure go off on midrange percentages, only because Jordan is the GOAT in that regard.

[Baski]

Kobe isn't a better shot creator...he just took shots he couldn't make. If you take a heavily contested fade away jumper that doesn't go in then you didn't really create a shot.

This has me dying. Well said. I remember an earlier argument I had with a Kobe stan about this. Kobe may be a great shot creator over the course of the game, but in the clutch he's nothing special in area. This may shock some people, but heavily contested fadeaways and triple-pump-fake-to-off-balance-contested-fadeaway sequences are not primo examples of good shot creation and footwork.

[uberhikari]

Ok, you haven't even followed the discussion. Emenince specifically brought up the 1990-1992 subsample - which is what I did some checking on last night. Those aren't the numbers I was using - I was looking at MJs overall career clutch numbers. It would be silly to cherry pick 3 seasons of MJs clutch stats and then use that to claim he's insane in the clutch - and that's not what me or anyone else was doing. In any case if the FT distribution is correct (24% coming during clutch minutes) Dipper's numbers actually look pretty plausible for the subsample. If I get some time I can look at the entire sample - it's 97 games so checking the box scores will take longer.

1. You can't be serious. I would bet dollars to donuts that Dipper's FT distribution is incorrect. Think about what you're implying for Christ's sake. The last 5 minutes of an NBA game is only 10.42% of the entire game (48 mins). If someone suggested that a player took 24% of all their FTs within the last 10.42% of a game I would be suspicious. But your suggestion is even more absurd, because we're only talking about a specific subset of 5 minute intervals of game time, i.e., only clutch minutes.

So, are you really going to entertain the possibility that Jordan took 24% of his FTs within the last 5 minutes of only a subset of games?

2. I think the sample size problem persists irrespective of the 1990-1992 subset. MJ played 179 PS games. If half of his games included clutch time, we're talking about 90 games * 5 minutes, which is 450 minutes of clutch time. MJ played 7,500 minutes over his entire PS career, which means we're talking about extrapolating useful information from ~6% of his entire playing time in the PS.

Have you actually looked at the math on this? It's really not that crazy at all. By these #s MJ averaged 2.4 FTAs per game in clutch time. I don't find that hard to believe. In fact it's probably about what I'd expect.

That's not much more than one trip to the line per game in crunch time. I'm sure when I get the chance to watch a few of these I'll find games where MJ had 4 FTs at the end of a close game simply from the other team fouling to stop the clock.

Given that he's team won a high percentage of those games it doesn't seem that crazy.

You are correct that clutch time for most players is a small portion of their overall career.... if you think the stats are meaningless anyways that's fine. I'm not sure how much/little they matter myself.... I mean if you care how someone does at the end of close games then they are probably interesting.

It just occured to me that we might not be talking about the same thing. Are you saying Michael Jordan took 24% of his total free throw attempts in a PS run in clutch time? Or are you saying that in games with clutch scenarios Jordan took 24% of his free throws in that specific time frame?

The former is obviously implausible, while the latter may not be.

[LKN]

1. You can't be serious. I would bet dollars to donuts that Dipper's FT distribution is incorrect. Think about what you're implying for Christ's sake. The last 5 minutes of an NBA game is only 10.42% of the entire game (48 mins). If someone suggested that a player took 24% of all their FTs within the last 10.42% of a game I would be suspicious. But your suggestion is even more absurd, because we're only talking about a specific subset of 5 minute intervals of game time, i.e., only clutch minutes.

So, are you really going to entertain the possibility that Jordan took 24% of his FTs within the last 5 minutes of only a subset of games?

2. I think the sample size problem persists irrespective of the 1990-1992 subset. MJ played 179 PS games. If half of his games included clutch time, we're talking about 90 games * 5 minutes, which is 450 minutes of clutch time. MJ played 7,500 minutes over his entire PS career, which means we're talking about extrapolating useful information from ~6% of his entire playing time in the PS.

Have you actually looked at the math on this? It's really not that crazy at all. By these #s MJ averaged 2.4 FTAs per game in clutch time. I don't find that hard to believe. In fact it's probably about what I'd expect.

That's not much more than one trip to the line per game in crunch time. I'm sure when I get the chance to watch a few of these I'll find games where MJ had 4 FTs at the end of a close game simply from the other team fouling to stop the clock.

Given that he's team won a high percentage of those games it doesn't seem that crazy.

You are correct that clutch time for most players is a small portion of their overall career.... if you think the stats are meaningless anyways that's fine. I'm not sure how much/little they matter myself.... I mean if you care how someone does at the end of close games then they are probably interesting.

It just occured to me that we might not be talking about the same thing. Are you saying Michael Jordan took 24% of his total free throw attempts in a PS run in clutch time? Or are you saying that in games with clutch scenarios Jordan took 24% of his free throws in that specific time frame?

The former is obviously implausible, while the latter may not be.

The latter.... only games with clutch minutes were considered. I agree that 24% overall in clutch time doesn't seem plausible.

Edit - The clutch time FTs from Dipper's sample were 11.7% (58 out of 496) of all FTs MJ shot in the postseason over that 3 year period (which seems fairly reasonable to me). Also - according to dipper 24 of the 55 total playoff games MJ played over those 3 seasons had clutch minutes.

To provide a comparison - LBJ's FTr for his career is MUCH higher in the clutch as well (and all these stats are from NBA.com)

Lebron has a career playoff FTr of .438
His career playoff clutch time FTr is .606

MJ has a career playoff FTr of .393
His (according to Dipper) career playoff clutch time FTr is .683

Just to provide one more reference point:

Kobe has a career playoff FTr of .359
Kobe's career playoff clutch FTr is .663


MJ's bump in FTr is a bit more than LBJ's, but seems right in line with Kobe's (Kobe actually had a bit of a bigger boost). I'd say that the FT #s at least pass the sanity test.

[LKN]

I've actually enjoyed digging into Dipper's #s a bit (and if I ever have time I might try to spot check some of these games visually).... but let's get back to LBJ himself.

I see people are still arguing that Kobe is better in the clutch due to his better shooting or whatever. I don't see really see anything in the data to support that (other than Kobe being a bit better at getting to the line)

(clutch time - per 48)

Lebron
43.8 PTS , 31 FGA, 41.9% FG, 9.3 3P FGA, 37.1% 3PFG, 18.8 FTA, 75.9% FT, 1.8 Blocks, 1.9 Steals, 10.1 Rebounds, 7.5 Assists, 4.6 TOV

47.5% eFG, 55.7% TS


Kobe
43.3 PTS , 30.9 FGA, 39.6% FG, 7.3 3P FGA, 23.4% 3PFG, 20.5 FTA, 83.2% FT, 0.6 Blocks, 1.3 Steals, 5.8 Rebounds, 4.7 Assists, 2.9 TOV

42.4% eFG, 54.2% TS


If I am being generous I might say that Kobe is a bit better at scoring in the clutch given that a lot of his clutch minutes came during the toughest defensive era in the NBA (so that 54.2 TS might be relatively better than LBJ's 55.7 TS). If I need a 3 LBJ for sure looks like the better choice.

AST/TOV is about the same for both... so I'd give LBJ the edge there since he has the volume edge. LBJ looks clearly better on defense (granted all we have are steals and blocks) as well

[Franco]

I’m just going to say this -

There are many players that I’d choose over Lebron in the last 10 seconds of the game

Harsh, but this is an example of the many times he didn’t step it up over the last two golden state series in the 4th. http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=472282

When exactly did Curry shrink to 6 feet? Huh.

[eminence]

The simple explanation is that LeBron is really really good all the time and that extends into the clutch. The number of players who meaningfully over/underperform their own expectations regularly in the clutch is overblown. LeBron is at worst not in that underperforming group. Extremely tough to quantify samples this small (especially if we believe in something like clutch D - Russell was either the luckiest man alive or had something going for him there).

And more good stuff from LKN.

[LKN]

The simple explanation is that LeBron is really really good all the time and that extends into the clutch. The number of players who meaningfully over/underperform their own expectations regularly in the clutch is overblown. LeBron is at worst not in that underperforming group. Extremely tough to quantify samples this small (especially if we believe in something like clutch D - Russell was either the luckiest man alive or had something going for him there).

And more good stuff from LKN.

I think the point about the samples being small is definitely valid. I think it's certainly interesting to see how guys did late in close games... but is it really instructive?

I mean when MJ came out and blew Portland off the floor in the first half of the 92 finals is that not also a form of being clutch? (and Lebron and other ATGs also have similar performances).

What would be interesting to look at is how many games in the playoffs actually have clutch time. According to Dipper's study - 97 out of 179 of MJs career playoff games (54.2%) had clutch time.... so even if we take Dipper's numbers at face value, MJ's monster clutch minutes only impacted a little over half of his career playoff games. Could that be a big plus for his team? Sure...but the other games still matter also.

I definitely think there is something to clutch though..... when I watched MJ vs Karl Malone in the 97 and 98 finals it was very obvious that MJ was better in high pressure situations (even when Malone was better in earlier periods of the game). I think we've all noticed similar things... there are guys who are just better under pressure than others (but it's definitely hard to measure/quantify).


I took a look at the official clutch stats we do have for MJ (97-98) and he really did ramp things up in the clutch even in those years.

He shot a .535 TS in the playoffs his last two years... but he was at .574 in the clutch. He shot 47.2% from the field in the clutch vs 45.9% overall. Granted - the clutch sample is small... but keep in mind he also ramped his volume WAY up in the clutch.

Overall he scored 42.9 pts/100 in the playoffs... in clutch time he scored an insane 63.1 pts/100 (I was too lazy to do this from totals and just averaged it... so it's probably not exact... the raw data is 66.3 in 1997 and 59.8 in 1998). In per 48 terms this is 61.2/48 in 1997 and 56.3/48 in 1998.

I think there's something to that... even as an old guy - MJ was able to basically ramp his scoring rate up about 50% at the end of close games while also INCREASING his efficiency (both raw FG% and TS%).

As another note according to NBA.com his clutch time +/- was +32 in 1997 (+35.6 per 48) and + 19 in 1998 (+14.1 per 48)

1997 the Bulls were 9-2 in these games
1998 the Bulls were 8-6 in these games

Overall record was 17 - 8 - or a 68% win rate. The total +/- for MJ in the clutch was 51 in these games (too lazy to figure out the per 48).

Gotta be honest - there's no substitute for checking the games visually... but Dipper's numbers are looking more and more plausible the more I dig into this.

As an addendum - while MJ has arguably better overall numbers in 1998 his clutch numbers from 1997 are clearly better and it appears that had a real impact on his team's winning % in close games...... it's hard to draw any definite conclusions - but there's a least a little evidence here that his great clutch play in 1997 did have a pretty significant impact on the results.

[DatAsh]

The simple explanation is that LeBron is really really good all the time and that extends into the clutch. The number of players who meaningfully over/underperform their own expectations regularly in the clutch is overblown. LeBron is at worst not in that underperforming group. Extremely tough to quantify samples this small (especially if we believe in something like clutch D - Russell was either the luckiest man alive or had something going for him there).

And more good stuff from LKN.

I think the point about the samples being small is definitely valid. I think it's certainly interesting to see how guys did late in close games... but is it really instructive?

I mean when MJ came out and blew Portland off the floor in the first half of the 92 finals is that not also a form of being clutch? (and Lebron and other ATGs also have similar performances).

What would be interesting to look at is how many games in the playoffs actually have clutch time. According to Dipper's study - 97 out of 179 of MJs career playoff games (54.2%) had clutch time.... so even if we take Dipper's numbers at face value, MJ's monster clutch minutes only impacted a little over half of his career playoff games. Could that be a big plus for his team? Sure...but the other games still matter also.

I definitely think there is something to clutch though..... when I watched MJ vs Karl Malone in the 97 and 98 finals it was very obvious that MJ was better in high pressure situations (even when Malone was better in earlier periods of the game). I think we've all noticed similar things... there are guys who are just better under pressure than others (but it's definitely hard to measure/quantify).


I took a look at the official clutch stats we do have for MJ (97-98) and he really did ramp things up in the clutch even in those years.

He shot a .535 TS in the playoffs his last two years... but he was at .574 in the clutch. He shot 47.2% from the field in the clutch vs 45.9% overall. Granted - the clutch sample is small... but keep in mind he also ramped his volume WAY up in the clutch.

Overall he scored 42.9 pts/100 in the playoffs... in clutch time he scored an insane 63.1 pts/100 (I was too lazy to do this from totals and just averaged it... so it's probably not exact... the raw data is 66.3 in 1997 and 59.8 in 1998). In per 48 terms this is 61.2/48 in 1997 and 56.3/48 in 1998.

I think there's something to that... even as an old guy - MJ was able to basically ramp his scoring rate up about 50% at the end of close games while also INCREASING his efficiency (both raw FG% and TS%).

As another note according to NBA.com his clutch time +/- was +32 in 1997 (+35.6 per 48) and + 19 in 1998 (+14.1 per 48)

1997 the Bulls were 9-2 in these games
1998 the Bulls were 8-6 in these games

Overall record was 17 - 8 - or a 68% win rate. The total +/- for MJ in the clutch was 51 in these games (too lazy to figure out the per 48).

Gotta be honest - there's no substitute for checking the games visually... but Dipper's numbers are looking more and more plausible the more I dig into this.

As an addendum - while MJ has arguably better overall numbers in 1998 his clutch numbers from 1997 are clearly better and it appears that had a real impact on his team's winning % in close games...... it's hard to draw any definite conclusions - but there's a least a little evidence here that his great clutch play in 1997 did have a pretty significant impact on the results.

I’m definitely in the camp that trusts Dipper’s numbers, mainly because of how honest and unbiased he came across as a poster; at least the box scores stuff. On/off would be hard to track manually and I wouldn’t be surprised if mistakes were made.

On the clutchness vs just general goodness thing that eminence brought up, I do think there may be a competitiveness thing at play. I mean everyone in the NBA is competitive, but there are definitely those that stand out from the rest. At the end of games, everyone is running on fumes. Maybe those ultra super competitive “there’s no way we’re losing this guys” can use that fire to simply push through that physical exhaustion better than everyone else around them, especially when everyone else around them is in a super diminished state.