Kobe's not clutch?
Henry Abbott is one of my favorite NBA writers. Part of his claim to fame is his research on the crazy belief that Kobe isn’t clutch. This got started earlier this season when he made the point
He followed this up recently with
- Kobe isn’t clutch in the playoffs. Kobe isn’t Jordan? (Full list of his shots here)
- Kobe Bryant has taken 21370 shots in the regular season and 4198 shots in the postseason.
- His clutch shots taken in the post season comprise less than 1% of his total playoff shots.
- His clutch shots taken in the regular season comprise less than 0.5% of his total regular season shots.
- In the regular season Kobe has averaged a TS% of 0.556
- In the post season Kobe has averaged a TS% of 0.542
In short Kobe is actually a pretty decent shooter (I didn’t say great and don’t even try and compare him to Michael) and he some times misses shots with 24 seconds left and the game on the line. That said, games a) with 24 seconds left, b) the game on the line, and c) Kobe taking a shot are rare. Kobe Byrant has amassed more blocks in the playoffs than clutch shots taken in both the regular season and the playoffs! When trying to analyze how good a player is why would we focus on something that accounts for less than 1% of one part of their job?
A final note is Abbott uses a very thin line to describe clutch – 24 seconds left and a game tying or winning shot taken. 82 Games defines clutch stats as:
- In the fourth quarter or overtime and the game within five points.
In the last four years the top player in terms of clutch minutes has never gone over 250 minutes of clutch time play. Barring his rookie season, Kobe has never played less than 2,000 minutes a season (adjusting the 1999 to an 82 game length). If Kobe somehow had the top clutch minutes every season it would have accounted for only 1.25% of his play time.
Players being clutch or not clutch is a very popular theme. In fact to be a winner or MVP candidate many writers will claim clutch is needed. The problem, though, is even when analyzing players that always take the shot when the game is on the line, such as Kobe, it turns out these shots make up very little of what the players do. Even Michael Jordan, who was a killer in the playoffs, only managed to muster up 18 clutch shots in 179 playoff games and almost 7,500 minutes of postseason play. Kobe may not be clutch, but he is a very good player. And it turns out you don’t really need to be clutch to be a good player.
The Lakers have overcome Kobe's glaring weaknesses.
-Dre
(Editor Arturo Note- I have to respectfully disagree . Seriously, now I need another shower)
Wages of Wins Journal 
Wayne Crimi
July 13, 2011
The reason “clutch play” is considered so important is that many games come down to the last few possessions, (Editor’s Note: Wayne do you have stats for what “many” is?) During those last few possessions, defenses tend to give 100% effort. During those clamp down periods, it takes very gifted offensive players to either crack the heightened defense or make the tough shots that are the only ones available .
Players simply CANNOT and DO NOT play defense at 100% for a full game – even with substitutions. That’s the misunderstanding. People assume that players are giving 100% on defense all the time, but they aren’t. They may be working hard (at least some of them) much of the time, but they are still pacing themselves. The energy expenditure kind of flows up and down depending on the score, randomly, due to random streaks that create psychological momentum, due to players being tired because of travel and schedule etc…
The clutch players carry the load when the defense clamps down and the inferior offense players either cannot get off a good shot, cannot make a tough shot, or are unwilling to put themselves on the line and fail. You might say that 90% of the game is often just a warm up for the last few minutes where the clutch players determine who will win.
Dre
July 13, 2011
Wayne,
Interesting take but the two things I’d take away from this are 1) If defense clamps down during clutch time and most “offensively gifted” players get worse then isn’t true clutch play defense? 2) You’re saying 90% of the game is just a warm up for the 10% where clutch matters. The problem with that argument is not every game has that 10% where the score is close and the points scored in the first 90% count just as much as those scored in the last 10%.
Parker Flowers
July 14, 2011
I’ve always wondered about the role of chance in Kobe’s anti-clutchness, so this post inspired me to do some very basic number crunching. Kobe made 36 out of 115 clutch shots. Obviously, this is a small sample size, but it is still clealy worse than his career shooting percentage of 45%. What is the probability of a solid 45% shooter like Kobe shooting 31% or worse in any random sampling of 115 shots? If you do a chi-square analysis you can figure this out pretty quickly. The answer is that luck alone would produce these results about 6 out of every 100 times. That’s pretty bad, however, it should be noted that most scientist-types wouldn’t even consider this clutch-shooting slump significant. That is, his poor crunch-time shooting falls within the normal range of variation that one would expect from a 45% shooter– it’s not convincing that he is suddenly terrible or has some psychological problems. And this isn’t even taking into account the fact that his clutch data are skewed more heavily towards 3-point shooting than his career data. This reiterates the point about sample size. The data are far too scarce (at least these 82games clutch data) to make any definitive statement about ANY individual player being clutch or not with any real statistical confidence. Kobe clearly takes a lot of clutch-time shots–so he likely has little faith in his teammates and/or is glory hungry– and his clutch time statistics certainly aren’t good. Nonetheless, given the small sample size, he isn’t really a convincingly worse player in clutch time either.
Wayne Crimi
July 14, 2011
Dre,
The stats I’ve seen suggest that most players become less efficient on offense in those tough clutch situations. I think that supports my contention that defenses do “clamp down” for short periods of time. I think unquestionably, that ability to really clamp down on defense is critical part of being “clutch “also.
I think this phenomenon is the reason why so many players and fans believe that “defense” wins championships even though if you look at all the champions, they tend to be very good offensive teams also. In those tough close games, the defense tends to get the upper hand. However, since a team does have to score in those situations (even if at a reduced rate), the guys that dominate the ball and get decent shots off and make the tough ones get a lot of credit because their skill is somewhat unique.
Wayne Crimi
July 14, 2011
Dre,
One other thing, I agree that many games are not close enough for this to matter, but over the course of the season it happens often enough to determine your place in the standings. Secondly, it happens a higher percentage of the time in the playoffs because the teams are more closely matched.
Parker,
Having experienced both “choking’ and “clutch” play, you can usually tell if a player simply “missed” or “choked” just by looking at him. A player’s body language both before and after a big shot is very revealing because in their hearts “they know” which it was.
Parker Flowers
July 14, 2011
Obviously, close big games are exciting, and we remember them for years afterwards. The consequence is that we often form our entire perceptions of certain players on these clutch performances. Without a doubt, Kobe takes and misses too many shots at clutch time. I think this is due to some sort of personality quirk. I was simply arguing that there isn’t even enough data to say that he is significantly worse than normal in clutch situations. The article is arguing that he is still a good player, even if he is overrated.
I won’t disagree that the dynamics of a game are different at the end of a close one, and I agree that some players keep their cool better than others in such situations. However, I think that a viewer often calls a player clutch by virtue of the fact he was lucky. He made a few shots that happened to go in.
No one is a perfect three point shooter, some just shoot with a higher percentage than others. The physics of basketball and the imprecision of the cerebellum guarantee that even the best shooter is going to miss a large percentage of open three point shots. Wayne, it seems you would argue that if a player misses an open three it was because of some sort of weakness of heart.
There are better explanation than heart as to why body language is important in your perception of someone’s clutchiness. You don’t see players ostentatiously extending their arms before big misses because AFTER THEY SHOOT they are using visual and proprioceptive information to predict whether the shot is going in. It easy and annoying to say, “You could just tell that he was going to make that shot before he took it.” I bet you have that feeling all the time, you just don’t announce it after a miss. That is the equivalent of winning some money at the track and saying, “I just knew I was going to win today because I was wearing my lucky shoelaces.”
Dre
July 14, 2011
Parker,
Loving your comments! They really back up my original point. Kobe has been THE clutch shooter for years now. By that I mean he is the player to take the clutch shot and is played during clutch time. Whether that’s good or bad is debatable. The point is if the top (in terms of minutes and shots) clutch player can’t even gain enough data to be significant then is clutch even a stat worth arguing? Kobe’s done tons of other things we can actually test and verify more reliably and sadly he’s actually good by those tests :)