Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 144-107 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers from Jazz guest writer Riley Gisseman.
1. James Harden and hot hand theory
First of all, James Harden is still a fantastic basketball player. He scored or assisted on 28 of the Clippers first quarter points, put the Clippers up by over 20 early, and the game was practically shut-and-sealed before we even reached the end of the first half. He finished with 41 points on Monday in just 17 field goal attempts.
There’s no other way to say it: Harden got hot.
I have a number of thoughts on his performance. First, you can count me as a firm believer that the hot hand is real. Nearly 50 years ago, a group of behavioral scientists conducted a natural experiment on NBA data proving the existence of the streaky shooting. Since then, there have been numerous attempts to discredit the argument, each bringing their own levels of validity.
The most commonly cited arguments attempting to prove the existence of the hot hand take aim at how the original data was collected - first, was the fact that Tversky, Gilovich, and Vallone failed to control for the shot difficulty when players got hot; with the assumption that players attempt more difficult shots as they heat up. “Heat checks,” if you will.
Another recent analysis was performed by Joshua B. Miller and Adam Sanjurjo. In their paper, Miller and Sanjurjo prove that controlling for a player’s game-specific field goal percentage significantly overestimates their ability to score after misses. Think of it this way, if a player goes ¾ from the field, they must have made the one shot that they attempted after their miss. Using heads and tails as a substitute:
Repeating coin flips, like repeating basketball shots.
When Miller and Sanjurjo controlled for this sampling bias, they found “significant evidence of streak shooting, with large effect sizes”.
Here’s my thoughts: While I don’t believe in the original study’s findings, I’m not totally convinced of Miller and Sanjurjo’s methodology either. They’re correct to have found the sampling bias, yet there’s still a chance of both miss or make after any shot. Adding another flip to HHH could result in both HHHT and HHHH.
Still, there’s something to be said for the anecdotal aspect of the argument. A Samford University article highlighted that 91% of basketball fans believe in the hot hand.
From watching Stephen Curry nail 105 consecutive three pointers, to Craig Hodges making all of his first 19 attempts in the 1991 three point contest, to Klay Thompson’s 37 points in a single quarter, the anecdotal evidence seems insurmountable. My opinion against the hot hand finally collapsed when Terance Mann led the Clippers to an improbable comeback against the Jazz, making 15 of 21 shots in a pivotal Game 6, which was 5 more makes than he’d ever had in a game before.
Ultimately, I believe that while Kahneman, Tversky, & Co. were certainly ahead of their time, their experiment fell victim to sampling biases. For instance, there’s an odd irregularity in coin flip simulations that a heads followed by a tails actually happens to occur more often in a specified amount of time than a heads followed by a heads. Not because the probabilities themselves are different, but because a tails “resets the game”, which gives less opportunities for multiple heads to stack up.
Data is weird, and for as many biases as we’re able to identify in ourselves, we may not pay enough attention to the biases in our data. I think that the more we respect our intuition, the more we’ll find quirks that might be skewing our analytics.
2. Pull-up shooting and Keyonte George
Throughout his career, James Harden has been under scrutiny. Despite this, Harden’s been the engine fueling some of the greatest offenses of the past decade.
In those seasons, of course, Harden is leading the league in isolation possessions. What makes his isolation so deadly? Let’s take a look.
First of all, there’s virtually no chance of turning the ball over before the shot. Including passes, Harden only turns the ball over on 6% of his isolation possessions.
Next, Harden’s held firm at roughly 37% from behind the arc when shooting pull-up jumpers for about a decade now.
On these isolation possessions, Harden goes to the free throw line 13% of the time. Let’s run through that math: 87% of the time, the shot is worth 1.11 points per possession. But 13% of the time, the shot is worth 2.27 free throws, which he makes at 88%. Meaning a James Harden isolation possession is effectively worth, and I’ll do the math for you, 1.22 points per possession! This is identical to the best offense in the NBA today, which is Boston at 1.22.
Unsurprisingly, this translates directly to the efficiency of Harden’s teams when he’s been on the court. Despite the insanity in Houston, the insanity in Brooklyn, and then the insanity in Philadelphia, offenses with Harden on the court have totaled a 118.7 offensive rating since 2020. He’s just a phenomenal basketball player.
Let’s relate this back to the Jazz. Keyonte George is struggling in his second year, and his first year wasn’t particularly encouraging either. What gives me hope? Pull-up three point shooting.
Last year, Keyonte was in the upper-echelon for three point shooters off the dribble. He made just under 36% of his attempts as a rookie, and did so on high volume. The efficiency has been more of a slump in his sophomore season, but it’s still held at an above-average percentage at 31%, and shot making data is extremely unstable. Including college, he has a career average of 35% on roughly 400 attempts, which leads me to believe that something legitimate is there.
As evidenced by Harden, pull-up shooting is an extremely viable way to make a living as a creator in the league, it may well be George’s.
3. The NBA’s role in accountability
So Kevin Porter Jr.’s back in the NBA. He played 26 minutes Monday for the Clippers.
Porter Jr., after having a career year in Houston in 2022-23, was traded and cut after being accused of domestic violence. Police reports specify that Kysre Gondrezick, Porter’s then-girlfriend, alleged Porter Jr. wrapped his hands around her neck and strangled her, causing her a loss of motion of her left arm.
Josh Primo similarly joined the Clippers roster last year after being outed from the league for sexual abuse towards a female staff member of the San Antonio Spurs.
Miles Bridges is back in the league, with Charlotte, after a plea of no contest to three felony charges and two counts of child abuse.
I believe the precedent set is clear. When it comes to serious allegations of domestic violence or sexual misconduct, the actions of the NBA to allow these players to play seem to undermine player accountability. The league’s decision to allow players like Porter Jr., Primo, and Bridges to reintegrate into NBA play sets a precedent that hurts survivors and discourages others from speaking up.
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