gesa2 wrote:Performance in the clutch one year has mostly poor predictability for the following year. It’s mostly shooting luck in fairly small samples. I might believe that the Heat perform better on average Year over year due to Spoelstra, but it’s not great evidence against WUJ.
I gotta be fair. You are totally right.
I looked at 21-22 #s, and guess what- the Wiz ranked #3 in the NBA in clutch winning percentage! They were 25-15, for a 62.5% win rate. Only Memphis and Phoenix were better.
Miami was #5 in 21-22, btw, with a 60.5% win rate on 38 clutch games. Their percentage in 21-22 was almost exactly the same as this year, while the Wiz obviously fell dramatically.
Boston stood out for their huge swing in clutch performance. They were second to last in clutch win % in 21-22, but bounced up to #2 this year. Pretty incredible difference.
The variability in clutch performance is really interesting, because the number of clutch games in a year is very significant. The Wiz were on the edge of making the playoffs this year before they decided to tank. A couple of wins could have made all the difference. Between last year and this, they ended up with 10 fewer wins than last year in clutch games. Does this say that for mediocre teams, it's all about luck?
There's got to be a way to find some "basketball alpha" with game-end management.