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People often believe that clutch players step up when it counts and perform better under stress. But economist Dan Ariely studied how NBA basketball players performed in the playoffs and found that “clutch” players scoring performance as a percentage was no different in the final five minutes of the game vs. any random five minutes of the game.
Ariely was interviewed by Marketplace host Ky Ryssdal:
Ariely: So first of all we asked people if they believed that there are clutch players, and people believe that there are clutch players. People also agree on who the clutch players are in the NBA, so everything seems fine. And when we look at how many points these people who are called clutch players score in the last five minutes of the game, compared to a randomly chosen five minutes of the game, they actually score better.
Ryssdal: So then the money that they get is money well spent by the team, yes?
Ariely: Well, that's not clear yet. Because remember that even if they get more points, there's two ways to get more points. One is to increase your percentage scoring, and the other one is just to try more. So we looked at their performance, not in terms of absolute scores but in terms of percentages. And what do you think happened now?
Ryssdal: I don't know. That's actually a good point. So LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and those guys, are they actually better percentage wise when the pressure is on? I don't actually know, that's a good question.
Ariely: And the answer is no. The answer is no. Their percentage keep the same. I mean they're all good players, by the way, they're the best players there are. But they don't seem to have any clutchness. And this goes both for field goals, and for free throws.
The key is that while the performance was no better, it was no different despite the high stakes. Consistency matters.
And then because they are consistent, other players on the team get them the ball more.
Ariely: And you can think about there's a group coordination mechanism, where these guys believe they are better, the coach believes they are better, the team believes they are better, so they get the ball more frequently, and they try more. They just don't succeed more. But there's kinda of an arrangement that says that they'll succeed more.
The story is available on July 6th edition of Marketplace, at about 18:07.
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Danny Westneat’s column in the Sunday Times is a must-read. He chronicles the journey he takes as a sports parent: - being screamed at by a mother when volunteering as an umpire for a softball game of 10-year olds
- watching a basketball game of 7-year-olds being stopped because of parents treatment of a referee
- him yelling at his 9-year daughter to hurry up between ballet and softball practice (with one ballet slipper and one softball cleat on)
- questioning his daughter for sitting on the bench
Does this sound familiar? Forget the kids. It's the parents who are losing it. In a 60-day period from mid-April to mid-June, my kids went to 104 out-of-school organized activities. Deliriously I toted them up the other day. Baseball, soccer, basketball and softball games. Practices for all of the above. Piano and ballet lessons. Recitals. Choir rehearsals and concerts. : The doctors and researchers and social workers have focused all along on the wrong party. We kids are all right. It's you parents who need a timeout.
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Washington State now has the nation’s strongest laws in protecting young athletes from severe brain injury. In October 2006, Zacn Lystedt, from Maple Valley, suffered a concussion in a middle-school football game and returned to the game without a medical evaluation. He took several more hits, and 60 seconds after the game ended, he collapsed. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, one that put him in a coma for months and requires extensive therapy more than two years later. The Zackery Lystedt Law, the first bill Gregoire signed Thursday morning, was proposed and passed to prevent injuries like Lystedt's — or worse, deaths from similar trauma. : The law requires that when an athlete has suffered an apparent brain injury — whether in a game or practice — he or she cannot return to play without the approval of a licensed medical professional, which includes certified athletic trainers. The Governor signed the bill on Thursday, May 14th. See http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2009221799_headinjuries15.html
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SportingNews talks about Dexter Pittman, who got his first start after attending Pete Newell's Big Men camp last summer. "He told me I was a beast," Pittman said. "He told me I was one of the biggest big men he had ever had through the camp." Pittman said Newell told him to keep improving his feel for where a defender is without looking at him.
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In the final game of her season, Western Oregon's Sara Tucholsky hit the only home run in her college career. She injured herself rounding first base, tearing her ACL. The rules say that no one from her own team could help her without changing the home run to a double. Central Washington's Mallory Holtman asked if opposing team members could help. Check out this amazing moment of sportsmanship in ESPN's video Touching Them All. 
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Dallas Maverick owner Mark Cuban posts frequently on basketball, technology, media, and business on his personal blog, BlogMaverick.com. His post on April 9th asks whether 18 or 19 year-olds are ready for the personal, financial, and business decisions that go along with their new career. From the perspective of an NBA owner, maturity is far harder to qualify than talent. Can he manage the personal side of his life ?
Can he deal with all the obligations that come with living on your own, and being in a job that requires you traveling more often than not ?
Does he have an understanding of financial principals ? To a 19 year old kid without financial training, a million dollar contract makes him a millionaire. There is no concept that 50pct goes to taxes and that by the time he pays his bills, he has a great job, that pays great money, but he isn't at a level that allows him to spend without limit. Unfortunately, there are far too many agents that won't have the tough love conversations with their clients until its too late. Read the full post here.
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 The Seattle Times has a story today on Seattle U's plans for a major fundraising campaign. Increases in the university's endowment will be used for new facilities including a new library and hi-tech classrooms, new scholarships, a fund for travel for religious study, and new fitness center and athletic facilities.
Seattle U leaders say that part of the challenge for the future is reaching out to students' secular interests — like basketball — while maintaining the college's religious roots... The push to rejoin NCAA Division I basketball, after Seattle U dropped out of the West Coast Conference in 1980, also remains a priority for [Seattle U President Rev. Stephen] Sundborg. That despite a setback last year when the member schools from the West Coast Conference said they weren't interested in expanding any time soon. Sundborg said it will just take more time. He plans to spend $1 million more on athletics each year in hopes of elevating Seattle U to a standard at which the school would be more welcomed in the division. There is also $20 million earmarked from the campaign for the new fitness center and to upgrade athletic facilities. The Time's editorial board expresses their support for the campaign here.
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The New York Times ran an article on March 10th talking about how parents have the expectations that high school sports and select teams will lead to a path to college. They are often disappointed, given that college scholarships only cover a portion of the full bill. “People run themselves ragged to play on three teams at once so they could always reach the next level,” said Margaret Barry of Laurel, Md., whose daughter is a scholarship swimmer at the University of Delaware. “They’re going to be disappointed when they learn that if they’re very lucky, they will get a scholarship worth 15 percent of the $40,000 college bill. What’s that? $6,000?” See the full article here.
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 Bob Knight, former coach at teams in Texas Tech and Indiana, introduced Coach Pete Newell at his induction into the Breitbard Hall of Fame in the San Diego Hall of Champions. He said "I don't know anyone that has contributed more to basketball over a longer period of time than Pete Newell has."
Video is available at http://video.nbcsandiego.com/player/?id=226045
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Sports Illustrated's Chris Ballard reports on the dunk in the NBA, asking the question is it just two points, or an important part of the game? Included is discussion of our "For the Love of the Game" exhibition, which raised the hoops to 11 feet.
Some in the hoops community don't share Kerr's admiration for the dunk. "It's very bad for the game," that most esteemed of basketball men, John Wooden, once said. "If I want to see fancy play, I'll go see the Globetrotters." This is the fate of the shot: alternately celebrated and derided and, at one time, banned (from 1967 to '76, by the NCAA). Perhaps we're now entering the jam's postmodern period, when the shot itself no longer evolves but our feelings about it do.
See http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/the_bonus/02/20/dunking0225/index.html
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Jerry Brewer writes a column in the January 20th edition of the Seattle Times discussing Tom Newell. Many of the stories are covered in Tom's blog, but also mentions some changes that happened before the season... Displaced in China, 5,000 miles from basketball civilization, Tom Newell listened as a Pancake told him he was fired. Newell hadn't even coached a game as the first American to lead a Chinese Basketball Association team, and here was Pancake, the 4-foot-8 translator whom Newell preferred to call Short Stack, giving him the strangest news ever. The mother of all rich-man whimsies felled Newell, a former Sonics assistant and basketball lifer. The owner of the Jilin Northeast Tigers abruptly fired his general manager, Chinese basketball legend Sun Jun, and then rehired a former coach to replace Newell. A day later, Pancake was sent to tell Newell the team still wanted him to lead practice. "WHAT?!?!" Newell asked. "Coach, this is China," Pancake explained. "We do things differently here." Brewer also details some more from Newell in his extra points blog.
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 In an interview today on KUOW's Weekday, sportswriter Frank Deford discusses his new novel The Entitled: A Tale of Modern Baseball.
He discusses how young athletes "gain a sense of entitlement, because it comes so early to them... At an early age, people are giving them things, people are cheating for them. They come to understand this is part of the package of being good. There are now lists of the best 8th grade basketball players in the country. It's so ridiculous, it goes without saying. It starts at that exceptionally early age." This sets the stage for athletes and celebrities that feel even more entitlted and expect everything, including the book's main character Jay Alcazar. Listen at www.kuow.org or click here. Technorati tags: Frank Deford, The Entitled
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 From the June 25th Issue:
The ratings for the Spurs' NBA Finals sweep suggest otherwise, but former NBA assistant coach Tom Newell beleives there are people who want to watch fundamentally sound, team-based basketball. That's why last Saturday in Seattle, Newell staged a game with rims raised to 11 feet. The idea: Foot-higher baskets would cut down on dunking and three-pointers, leading to more passing. Says Newell, who called in 20 college and overseas players. "The game has been distorted so players don't use skills other than jumping."
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Seattle Times sports columnist Jerry Brewer analyzes the "For the Love of the Game" exposition...  To be a purist now, you have to be a futurist. To show people the right way, you have to accept they'll first consider it wrong.
Newell scared the dunks right out of basketball with his higher rims, and it was boring at first glance. To be honest, it was boring at second and third and fourth glance, too. But after thinking it over, the purpose of this day outshined my pre-programmed beliefs. Players who had practiced together for about 10 hours were sharing the ball. Fans were cheering passes. Big men were getting the ball during an exhibition game! It took only one hand to count the number of bad shots. Yes, the dunk was missed. At halftime, I was hoping Nate Robinson and Josh Smith would magically appear and put on an impromptu dunk contest at 11 feet. It didn't happen. Oh, well. At least players weren't tossing up foolish fadeaway jumpers all game. "If you did see any fadeaways, they were short," joked forward Ryan Rourke, a Bothell native who scored 11 points. When asked if the height of the goal made the players take better shots, Rourke said: "You don't second guess yourself as you take shots, but it's in the back of your mind. You're more focused on getting good looks. I don't think players were shooting the ball just to shoot it." It's weird watching 6-foot-8 players not be able to elevate and dunk. You start thinking it's gimmick basketball. But upon reflection, you realize the game was never meant for great athletes to cheat it. That's the problem with United States hoops right now. The U.S. doesn't thrive in international competition, even with NBA stars, because it values individual brilliance over crafty team play. For the last few years, those who love American basketball have pondered one question: How do we change? Read the full story here and additional commentary in Jerry's blog. Jerry originally started to write his column about how he missed the dunk. He eventually concluded "I really think raising the goal to 11-feet is a good idea that I'd like to see more of."
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Bob Condotta's article in Sunday's Seattle Times article complained about the lack of drama of the game, but does discuss the quick adjustment required to the raised rim... [UW Men's Basketball Coach Lorenzo] Romar was curious enough to shoot around himself for a while and said, "If you practice long enough, it's not that big of a change. You could adjust to it if you are a shooter. If you are not a shooter, it's going to become more evident that you are not a shooter. "I think the shots around the basket require more of an adjustment. People say it takes the athlete out of the game, but I disagree. I think if you are an athlete, you are still going to be faster and quicker to the ball than other guys." The game's stats yielded some mixed results. Newell said he thought the rule changes would mean more passing and teamwork to get the ball inside. Former Husky Brandon Burmeister, a member of the Black team, said that did indeed occur. "There was more of an emphasis to get it in there," he said. : "It's definitely been an interesting experience," Burmeister said. "I think we'd have to see some NBA players test it out over a longer period of time. I think if you experiment with them, it would be a better gauge if this is the right thing to do." Read the full article here...
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