The Sixteenth Technical

So . . . thank goodness Amare Stoudemire was allowed to play for my beloved Knicks last night, so that he could be party to the embarrassing they received at the hands of the woeful Indiana Pacers.  You see, he was supposed to sit out that game, having received his sixteenth technical foul of the season, and there is an automatic one-game suspension triggered when a player receives their sixteenth.  Thankfully, that tech was rescinded by the league, because it wasn't really a technical foul (received during the Knicks' drubbing at the hands of the not-so-woeful Dallas Mavericks).  But would the foul have been reviewed or rescinded if it were the fifteenth?  This matters more than you might think.

I see a similar situation occur often here at the university.  Several professors have a policy that should a certain number of classes be missed (let's say six), the student automatically fails the course.   You can bet that the best excuses get trotted out for that sixth absence, but really the fact that this absence is the sixth is immaterial; it is only by chance that it is the sixth.  If this absence is excusable, why not fight for the previous five?  Just like the sixteenth technical foul, the point of the rule is to punish cumulative transgressions, not decide the punishment based on the merits (or lack thereof) of one. 

(Aside: Amare also had three other techs rescinded this season, which means either he is particularly prone to bad tech calls, or refs overcall technicals; if 20% of his technical fouls are invalid, I would guess that it is a referee problem). 

But this is often how we measure things, particularly in sports.  The last shot, the last swing of the bat, the last putt - this is how we measure greatness.  The Toronto Raptors came within one Vince Carter shot of the conference finals in 2001, but he missed.  For that, he is viewed as a playoff failure (a title which he consistently lives up to), but summing the whole game up in one shot is unfair - both teams had 48 minutes to put as many points up on the board as they could, and in that instance the 76ers bested the Raptors, irrespective of who had the last shot.

I know, I know, the truly great players rise to the moment and display toughness and grit, and all that junk.  Being "clutch" is a discussion for another post, but let's just say for now I have big problems with the notion of clutchness and think there is a dimension to the concept that often gets ignored.  Maybe later in the week I'll tackle that one.

Sports contests are generally cumulative affairs, and it is wrong to simplify the entire game into a single moment.  If a team wins by one point, any point scored is the game-winner.  If a team loses by one point, any missed opportunity, not just the last one, is to blame.  Considering that the degree-of-difficulty for last shots tends to be higher due to time-pressure, earlier, less pressured missed shots are actually 'more' to blame.  In other words, anyone on the winning team is a hero (though if you go 6 for 24 in a deciding game, awarding the MVP is a stretch, Kobe) and anyone on the losing team is a goat.