Basketball Free For All

Legends are born the same way fortunes are made in basketball: through clutch late game heroics. Among active NBA players, Hedo Turkoglu has a reputation for being a late game assassin who will take and make big shots. After all, his nickname is the Michael Jordan of Turkey as a homage to the League’s undisputed king of clutch.

Since winning the Most Improved Player Award for the 2007-08 season, Turk’s stock has risen steadily, culminating in last season’s deep post-season run complete with an NBA Finals appearance. Along the way, Hedo has steadily become known for being a guy that can be relied upon to hit the big shot.

Shots like that game winner against the Celtics last season stick in our collective memory banks further reinforcing Turk’s mythical clutch status. They also helped Hedo get a nice payday from the Toronto Raptors, who paid a premium (over $50 million over five years) to obtain the six-foot-ten forward’s services.

Take a look at the following quote that was taken from a post from Hoop Doctors, as it is fairly representative of Hedo’s Turk perceived status as a clutch shooter. The post lists the NBA’s most clutch shooters and has Turk ranked fifth overall, ahead of truly clutch players such as Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony (neither of which make the list’s top fifteen clutch shooters).

Last season, Turk probably hit more clutch shots than anyone, but with a new home and a new team this season, it will be interesting if he still gets those same opportunities to be a game-saver. In the ’09 playoffs, Turkoglu showed he understands the moment by increasing his free throw, field goal, and 3-point percentages.

With that in mind, let’s first examine Turk’s shooting efficiency numbers.

Hedo’s shooting statistics are important because clutch shooting doesn’t only occur in the fourth quarter when the game is on the line. On the contrary, there are a number of important moments throughout a game that can be considered clutch. Coming out of a timeout in a must-score scenario involves clutch play whether in the first quarter of fourth. In fact, considering how precious each and every possession is in a basketball game, each play is rather significant and affects the outcome of the game.

So what do Hedo’s shooting statistics tell us about Hedo the shooter?

A lot actually.

In general, Hedo is not an elite shooter, no matter how you slice and dice the numbers. Looking at the raw shooting statistics, Turk is actually a below average shooter from the field, shooting .439 from the field this season this season and .413 last season. From deep, Turk is a fairly average shooter relative to all players that play over 30 minutes a game, shooting .398 this season and .356 last season. The raw numbers don’t look so hot but couldn’t that be a function of Hedo taking a large number of threes (4.6 three point attempts this season and 4.9 attempts in 2008-09)?

To control for three point attempts when considering shooting efficiency, consider effective field goal percentage. Effective field goal percentage compensates three pointers by weighting them according to their value (1.5 times a normal field goal). This season, Turk’s effective field goal percentage is slightly higher than the league average for players playing over 30 minutes a night (.523 versus average of .501). Last season, Turk was slightly below average (.478 versus an average of .506). Nothing mind blowing here and Hedo can probably be considered an average shooter amongst NBA starters.

If you divide the NBA shooters loosely into tiers, Turkoglu would not qualify for elite status. For comparison’s sake, let’s take a look at two of the league’s leading shooters this season to have a benchmark for what elite shooting statistics look like. When talking about great shooters, there is no better poster child than two time MVP Steve Nash. The Canadian Kid’s raw shooting statistics this season are .529/.431/.942 percent shooting. He is on track to join the extremely selective 50/40/90 club (again). If you consider effective field goal percentage, Nash’s shooting looks even more impressive at .595 percent. For a more recent member to join the top tier of shooters in the NBA this season, look no further than sophomore swingman Anthony Morrow. Morrow’s raw statistics are extremely impressive at .529/.514/.885 percent. His ridiculous three point percentage is the main driver of his equally ludicrous .641 eFG%. Compared to top tier shooters, Turk pales in comparison.

So he may not be an elite shooter but what about Hedo the clutch shooter?

With that in mind, let’s boil Turk’s down to the most clutch of all moments: fourth quarter/overtime scenarios when the game is on the line. Using 82 Games’ clutch criterion, clutch play is furthered narrowed down to the last five minutes when neither team is ahead by more than five points. These plays are the essence of clutch and provide an objective way of sorting fact from fiction.

The data from 82 Games has not been updated for this season so we can only go off of last year’s data. Much of the data is provided in per-48 minute form, meaning the statistics are scaled to 48 minutes of clutch time (as defined earlier). In these 48 minutes of clutch time (based off of a sample size of 134 minutes for Turk), Hedo averaged 26.6 points, which was good for 51st overall. Not terrible, but certainly not elite. More damningly, however, is Turk’s efficiency from the field during clutch time (.357), which was significantly worse than his season average and was good for 156th overall.

Compare these clutch numbers to a player like Lebron James and the contrast is startling. In his 48 minutes (compiled from a sample size of 111 minutes), James averaged 55.9 points on .556 percent shooting from the field, which represents a marked improvement upon his normal field goal percentage of .489. A truly clutch player rises to the occasion and elevates their performance to another level when the game is on the line. Turkoglu’s statistical track record just doesn’t mesh with people’s percetptions of Hedo the fourth quarter assassin.

It appears Hedo’s clutch shooting might have been a bit overblown. How can you explain that?

At risk of getting too philosophical, the problem lies within each of our minds as humans (don’t say I didn’t warn you). People have selective memories where we remember events that coincide with our preexisting beliefs and ignore events that contradict our beliefs. When we see Turk hit a buzzer beater on Sports Center it reinforces the idea that he is a clutch shooter. When we see Hedo miss a clutch three, it goes down as a non-event because it doesn’t gel with our preexisting perception that Turk is a clutch shooter.

For a real life example, check out the following quote from the New York Times that was written during the 2008-09 NBA Finals.

The line between success and setback blurred again for Turkoglu, who has developed into a clutch shooter for the Magic. With little time left in the game, Turkoglu has come up big for the Magic. His résumé includes a game-winning shot in the first round against the Philadelphia 76ers and several game-winners the past two regular seasons.

On Sunday Turkoglu delivered everything but the win.

“I saw an opening and threw it up,” Turkoglu said of his inbounds floater to Lee. “It would have been great for us because we played good.”

In this quote, you’ll notice that the author is paying homage to Turk’s reputation as a clutch shooter in a game that Turk didn’t even hit the game winner. In fact, the final shot wasn’t even put into his hands. Instead, the play was drawn up for Courtney Lee who infamously missed the wide open alley-oop. If Hedo was the clutch shooter as advertised, you can guarantee Coach Van Gundy would have drawn up the final play for Turk to shoot and not pass.

In the end, a lot of the blame for Turk’s inflated reputation as a clutch shooter lies with the media, who glorifies his late-game heroics (event) but ignores his failures (non-event). Once designated clutch, the media picks up the story and runs with it, creating a feedback loop. It parallels the talk from before this season’s draft, which had fans, announcers, coaches, players and everyone in between talking about what a weak draft pool it was. With Brandon Jennings increasingly the next anointed superstar, Tyreke Evans putting the Kings franchise on his back and first pick overall Blake Griffin having not even played a single minute yet this season, it is clear that the draft class of 2009 had bona fide superstars in its midst despite the media writing the entire class off as weak.

Before declaring Turkoglu one of the top five clutch shooters in the NBA based upon glowing accounts in the media, analyze the empirical evidence and make your own informed decision.