ARE YOU PAYING TOO MUCH ATTENTION TO YOUR STATS???

Rob, a 7-footer who is in his sophomore (2^nd) year had a great early-season game, netting 6 points ,12 rebounds and three blocked shots After limited playing time in his first year, this was a real boost to his confidence, and after the game he was very pleased with the results.

When I mentioned to him that his great game was, in my opinion, demonstrated in more than just the box-score stats – things like the number of shots he prevented apart from the three he blocked, and the great screens he set that kept the offense flowing and led to teammates scoring – he said “Yes, but the stats are what count. The stats are what are going to get me more playing time.”

It is likely that his coach, along with so many others in the profession, are driven by stats because, in the end, it is their win-loss record that will get them either a contract extension or let go.

Also, let's not forget that the very essence of sports is to have more points than the other team.

That being said, however, I believe that an over-emphasis on the stats can often be a destructive force.

I will just mention in passing, for example, how it often creates a me-first kind of thinking. I remember a friend of mine whose son was on his national team's U20 squad. She told me that one year after every game the players would first thing look to see their individual numbers, and cared more about that than how the team did as a whole. The impact on the team's overall performance that year was undeniable.

But what I really want to address here is how the heightened focus on stats can serve to stymie an athlete's best effort.

Every athletes performs at his optimal level with a certain amount of pressure on him. Knowing that a game is important can increase one's motivation. But when that optimal level of stress is exceeded, the player's performance will typically take a downward turn. So more often than not, when a player puts pressure on himself to achieve a certain level of stats, this will turn against him.

Related to this is the fact that the athlete will direct more focus to things over which he has no control rather than those factors which are under his control. In basketball, to give an example, the things a player can control include his decision making and shot selection, how he squares his body for the shot, if he is not too tight, how bold (rather than tentative) his moves are. But in the end, he can't control if the shot will actually go in (how giving is the rim, did an opponent have an opportunity to block it).

So the percentages lie with the player who is focused on the quality of his play rather than the results of his efforts. Ironically, by NOT worrying so much about the stats per se, he may end up with better stats.

As I mentioned before, not all things that contribute to the final score are even measured in the stats (like deflected shots).

I said to this young player that I really liked the comptitive intensity that he brought to the game and I thought that really played a part in the kind of results he obtained. But by overly focusing on the stats he might compromise the QUALITY of his play (i.e., that intensity and drive) and perhaps the enjoyment he seemed to be having out there.

It is hard to picture someone who is concerned with his stats having fun!!

Another player who plays professionally in Europe told me that because of expectations placed on him, he thought he should be getting 20 points and 10 assists per game. After a missed shot or two he would start to feel an additional burden when he thought to himself “I still have to make my 'quota' and now there is even less time on the clock for me to get the job done”

Ironically, it is by relaxing and letting go a bit of that expectation that he stands the best chance of actually producing those kind of stats.

Following a game in his rookie season when he wasn't shooting particularly well, New York Knicks player Kristaps Porzingis commented on how valuable it was for him that the coaching staff was allowing him to play through his mistakes, and the confidence this gave him on the court (and not having to worry about his stats).

After another game when the Spurs held off the Knicks in a 106-98 win, Patty Mills had 10 key points for the Spurs in the 4th quarter. Afterwards teammate Pau Gasol noted that Mills "is not the kind of player who thinks a lot about his stats."

There is another aspect to this undue emphasis on stats. Rob shared with me that after his game where he got 12 rebounds, the coach came down on one of the star players for the fact that he didn't have so many rebounds in that game. “His play in this game allowed me to get more rebounds,” Rob told me. Our coach is looking at individual effort rather than how we are playing as a team.

Finally, I think that such a coach may compromise the development of his players, and his team, by focusing exclusively on stats/results and not on the quality of play and learning that takes place.