Basketball Statistics Blog

Friday Press Clippings:
Miami Heat’s recent losses troubling, but hardly conclusive By Dan Le Batard

From Miami Herald
By Dan Le Batard
Download source here: ' Miami Heat’s recent losses troubling, but hardly conclusive ' By Dan Le Batard

"... I’m a sports agnostic. I’m not much of a believer in the unseen, in things like intangibles. But I’m not an atheist about them, either.

I just believe that odd things happen all the time in sports, a single bounce or call or game changing everything, and I usually don’t see that as proof of anything unseen except randomness, ..."

"... But I understand why people would wonder now about the Miami Heat’s mental toughness as inexplicable losses stack up, the locker room weeps and the national narrative from a laughing America becomes about an inability to win close games. ..."

"... “Yeah, but he’s like your grandfather,” one NBA player told me. “Your grandfather sees you once in a while. He spoils you. He enjoys you.

Then he gives you back to Daddy, and that’s who has to discipline you and get your respect daily. How can Spoelstra teach them how to get to success if he’s never had it?” ..."

"... Three healthy and motivated stars, trying very hard to be unselfish, are losing close games at home to decent but not great teams. New York, Orlando and Chicago are all second tier. Losing at home when you have the more talented team doesn’t happen that way that much in the star-powered NBA meritocracy, though it happened to the defending champion Lakers just a few months ago.

The media feeds then, and it engulfs the players in questions inside and outside the locker room, everything from “Is this team a fraud?” to James himself having to wonder quietly, “What have I done with my career? Did I make a mistake joining up with these guys?” ..."

"... One of the oddest statistics in sports last year was that the Packers never trailed by more than one touchdown. One-score games tend to be pretty random – sometimes the Dolphins beat the Super Bowl Packers by a field goal in overtime, sometimes they lose to the Super Bowl Steelers because the refs blew a call – but our need for explanations is forever assigning character traits to winners and losers in small sample sizes based on random results.

It doesn’t make good television if Trent Dilfer, paid and asked to explain, shrugs his shoulders and says, “I don’t know.” So instead he said, when the Packers were struggling with injuries and losses earlier in this year, that the team had no soul. ..."

"... Can formed and great players be as effective and efficient when asked to change?

Riley laughed when I asked him the question. He has never had to ask a great player to change. Why would he? But what he has before him now, what he built, doesn’t have a lot of precedent.

I asked Riley — genius, mastermind, legend — how you get a formed player to change.

And his response was the honest and correct answer to a lot of the toughest questions in sports.

“I don’t know,” he said. ..."

Read more articles in Miami Herald.

To read today's 'Press Clippings' in Spanish,
click this week above on the 'Español' tab or afterwards click here:
' Automaismos vs Lectura '
by Xavier Garcia.

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Friday Video Clippings:
A Player Meeting with his Coach !

A Player Meeting with his Coach !

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' Alma ' por Rodrigo Blaas .

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tags:  basketball  ~  statistician's digest   ~  basketball analysis  ~  NBA  ~  Miami Heat  ~  Miami Herald  ~  Dan Le Batard
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