So . . . the NBA playoffs are in full swing, with round two set to wrap up soon, and I haven't written word one about them yet. I'm sure that most of my loyal readers are remarking to themselves "gee, I didn't really notice" or "thank god, I hate that sports stuff." Sorry, but there is a much-discussed issue in sports that gets a lot of airtime and, in my opinion, not much thought. This is the notion of the clutch player.
Clutch players are believed to exist in all sports. The funny thing about it, though, is that there is no way to tell if a player is "clutch" until he does something clutchy. In other words, there are no traits that tip us off to clutchiness prior to a clutch performance. This reminds me a bit of the idea that the team who "wants it more" wins; of course, we have no way of knowing which team wants it more until they win.
A recent example was Lebron James's performance at the end of the final game of the Miami-Boston series. Lebron scored the last 10 points of the game all on his own, including two three-pointers (of which he is not usually a tremendous shooter). The commentators insisted that he was shedding his "non-clutch" label. The truth is that he was very, very lucky to hit both. Of course, even hitting one would have made a difference, but he was somewhat lucky there too. What really won the game was Boston's two crucial turnovers in the final minute, which afforded James the opportunity to score.
I know many people, sports fans, who believe they can tell when a player is "in the groove" or rising to meet a big challenge. But this is a curious belief. It is either based on a) a sequence of positive events, or b) just a hunch. In either case, I suspect that once the event happens (e.g. the shot is taken, the pitch is thrown, etc.), if success is attained, then the belief is confirmed and the idea that we can spot clutch players is supported. If the player fails in that moment, we forget our original prediction and move on to others. Confirmation bias at its finest.
I strongly believe that there is no such thing as rising to the occasion. A player can be more aggressive, take more risks, or push the limits of the rules, but they can't enhance their talent or ability just because the moment requires it. The rewards are so great for top performers that it is unthinkable that all players keep a "fifth gear" in reserve for only when it is needed. Take shooting percentage in basketball for example: if the best a player can shoot is with 40% accuracy, they can't will that percentage to be higher when they need it.
That said, I also strongly believe that players can shrink from the occasion. So if being "clutch" is the ability to maintain your regular performance level, I can live with that. But that's not how we typically define clutchiness. We like symmetry: if you can fail in the big moment, you must also be able to thrive in it (and not just 'not-fail'). But performance is not about symmetry. It takes a lot of concentration and effort to do a big jigsaw puzzle, but none at all to tear it apart.
Curiously, two of the most prolific and successful three-point shooters in the history of the game, Ray Allen and Reggie Miller, always claimed they didn't think about how they had been shooting that day or in the previous few minutes, or the importance of the moment, but rather just shot the way they always did. Sometimes it went in, sometimes it didn't. That's a fair way of looking at it. Because you can't claim clutchiness when success strikes if you don't claim its opposite when it doesn't.
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