Poll: What is the most useless stat in hockey?

[ftyuv]

I believe the conspiracy theory that Christopher Marlowe wrote Shakespeare's works. I hold this belief not because I have any really good evidence for it, and in fact in spite of the fact that there's no good evidence for it. I believe it not because I have a good reason to do so, but rather because it's a fun theory and it doesn't actually matter, so I'm okay having fun even while knowing that I'm very probably wrong.

You may apply this allegory to discussions of the unbiased scientific validity of streakiness, clutchiness and several other ideas in the world of sports -- including, actually, that it makes any sense to root for any one team over any other.

This is exactly why we believe in jinxes and superstitions even though we know they're nonsense: it's fun.

No, those follow logically from the known (a priori) existence of Woofing Gods.

[Rita]

I would generally agree with you .... I just believe there are people who can rise to the occasion. Just from playing sports myself, I have seen players that wilt under pressure, and seen players who do better under it.  Does it play itself out enough in statistics to be noticed -- that's the question.  And I know Bill James et al says that it can all be explained through random fluctuation.  I get it.  I agree....

Anyway .... Jim's right .... the discussion was about "most useless" not totally useless.  So OK.  On that note, you win

I'm way too lazy to look it up, but someone actually did an analysis of "clutch" players and determined that, with one exception, none of the clutch performers were actually clutch at all. Statistically speaking, the clutch performances for players was within their normal range. I don't think anyone has done an "anti-clutch" analysis. Personally, I find it far easier to believe that some players consistently choke under pressure than that some players are basically mediocre and then consistently do heroic things when the pressure is high. I don't believe in clutch, and I see no evidence to support it, but I haven't seen any evidence about choking and it makes intuitive sense that it would happen.

So, there is no Mr. October?:-}

In fact, doesn't that prove the point?  Reggie Jackson is a HOF'er regardless of the month.  That he excelled in October is no surprise because he was an excellent power hitter normally.

I think the one thing I believe in that staunch Sabermetricians don't is "streakiness." Timing, muscle memory, and physical well-being can come in and out of sync, I've felt that feeling where the ball seems like a beach ball, or I know I'm hitting the sweet-spot every time.  I believe in "streakiness" more than I do "clutch."

Warning thread drift:

I bet there are several football coaches (Phillips, Wade; Turner, Norv) that might believe in "clutch" and that their kickers define the opposite of "clutch". What a time to go on a bad streak. Yikes.

[adamw]

I bet there are several football coaches (Phillips, Wade; Turner, Norv) that might believe in "clutch" and that their kickers define the opposite of "clutch". What a time to go on a bad streak. Yikes.

Well - I came here to say just that .... Try telling the San Diego Chargers there is no such thing as "choke" and "clutch" .... Nate Kaeding is the most accurate regular-season kicker in NFL history. In the postseason, he is something like 8-for-15, with 4 misses inside 40 yards ... where he otherwise has hit 67 in a row.

[adamw]

So what you are saying is that streakiness and clutch are religions. You can't prove them, nor can you disprove them, but all science and math goes against them. I personally hate the "you can't prove that it doesn't exist" position. It's up to the assert-er to prove their point it's not up to the opposition to disprove the point. Until someone can prove the point I chose to sit back and enjoy the moment and not worry about such silly stuff.

To Jim -- and to Tom Lento as well -- who both jumped on my back, completely unfairly, you really need to question your own absolutes.

KeithK said it best in a nutshell:

"Athletic performance over a large sample usually can be represented by a random variable. But the underlying activity is NOT a random variable. There are actual reasons for many of the fluctuations aside from pure statistical variabiliy."

I am someone who thoroughly believes in math ... and absolutely can't stand when people blindly use anecdotal evidence to support a claim ("The Metrodome is a homer haven" - is a famous one that Bill James easily shot down)

However -- just because something cannot be proven - yet - by math, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. "ALL" science and math once went against the theory of relativity too.  It doesn't mean that ALL anecdotal and personal observations are wrong.

To say that my contention is the equivalent of "religion" - is asinine.

Once again, I'll repeat ... there's no bigger proponent of shattering myths and using math than Bill James ... founder of Sabermetrics.  But he has long stated himself that he isn't suggesting "clutch" doesn't exist - just that the end result -- the season composite - looks the same.  That if you're playing a dice recreation - like Strat-o-Matic (something I've played, studied, and dissected infinitely) - that it's useless trying to account for clutch, because random variation matches reality.  That doesn't mean, however, that random variation is the CAUSE.  There's a big difference.

Defining when "the clutch" is, is difficult, and the same sizes are too small.  But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  Sorry.  Again - please tell that to Nate Kaeding.  I think "choke" and "clutch" are WAAAY overused.  WAAY. .... But if you don't think Nate Kaeding choked yesterday - again - then you just don't know sports. ... And if there's such a thing as "choke" - then there is such a thing as "clutch."

[adamw]

But you have to prove that something such as streaks occur, just saying it doesn't make it so. You say that sometimes you can't explain streaks by random variations, well show me the evidence. Come up with a streak that was somehow out of statistical variation. Then I'm willing to start believing. Otherwise it's just a belief, like religion. Now I know to some, sports is a religion, so it all makes sense.

First of all Jim - I was referring to "clutch" - not streaks.  And there is a difference.

However - your assertion that this conversation is akin to "religion" - really strikes me as way off the mark.

The fact that something is within statistical variation, does not necessarily speak to its cause.  They are not necessarily equivalent.  If the effect is the same - it doesn't mean the cause is the same.  That might be a useless distinction ... granted ... but it's not necessary to accuse others of just blindly believing in something.

Just from having played sports myself - there are certainly days and moments where I feel good, and where I don't.  My feelings may be within my physiological statistic norm .... and thus result in something that's within statistical norms ....  but they nevertheless contributed to my performance in that specific instance.

But again - this is separate from "clutch" ... which again, there's too small a sample size to judge mathematically, and it's too hard to define.  Therefore, it's perfectly reasonable to suggest that it exists - even though it can't be proven mathematically.  All great theories first came about from personal observation.

[Jim Hyla]

Adam, I sorry you think I jumped on your back. If you mean I disagreed with you, I did. However I sense from that comment that you feel I was somehow unfair to you. If so, please show me where and I'll apologize.

Now to get back to the points. I reread your first post and you're correct you referred to clutch. I should have only responded to that. However my belief is still the same. People who believe in clutch have to show me the science to prove it. Otherwise I'll leave you to your beliefs, and you can leave me to mine. Just don't try and say that you know it occurs based upon your observations. You believe it occurs based upon your observations.

I do think my reference to religion is fair. Religion is a belief that you can't prove. You can't disprove it either, but that in no way proves it. Just because Bill James doesn't say it doesn't exist has no relevance to the point. He has disproved some myths, is that a better word than religion?, but because he says he can't disprove clutch doesn't mean it exists.

Let me go back to the Mr. October example. you could try and prove it. If you look at a number of players who have a similar number of postseason appearances, some will have done better than their season results and some will have done worse. Now you may want to call all those who did better, clutch, and all those who did worse, choke; that is your option.

However to really prove Mr. October, you need to show that his performance is outside the statistical norm. In most biological sciences showing that there is less than a 5% chance that the result is by chance would get you started on proof. If his results could not be shown this way, then they aren't proof of clutch. After all, someone's results have to be better, just as someones results have to be worse. Label them clutch and choke if you want, but remember it's only a belief, not a fact.

Finally, if I were picking a baseball team, I'd still put ARod on it, even though prior to last season he was a choke.:-}

[Tom Lento]

To Jim -- and to Tom Lento as well -- who both jumped on my back, completely unfairly, you really need to question your own absolutes.

KeithK said it best in a nutshell:

"Athletic performance over a large sample usually can be represented by a random variable. But the underlying activity is NOT a random variable. There are actual reasons for many of the fluctuations aside from pure statistical variabiliy."

However -- just because something cannot be proven - yet - by math, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. "ALL" science and math once went against the theory of relativity too.  It doesn't mean that ALL anecdotal and personal observations are wrong.

Like Jim, I didn't feel like I jumped all over you, so I apologize if you felt that way. However, at the risk of sounding like I'm jumping all over you again, I'm going to repeat that anecdotal evidence and personal experience are TERRIBLE ways of evaluating a claim. That doesn't mean they're all wrong, it just means they're terrible ways of evaluating a claim.

Keith is right, but his comment is also more applicable to streaks than to clutch since streakiness is not affected by exogenous factors whereas clutch is defined by outside circumstances at the time of the performance. If there's something to clutch players, then they should be significantly better under the appropriate circumstances than they are under normal conditions.

I don't think I need to examine any absolutes at all. If anyone ever finds solid evidence that clutch players exist I'll happily admit I'm wrong. Until then, I'm not going to buy it, just as I would hope the scientific community would be skeptical of a theory challenging the fundamental basis of physics until someone found evidence to support it. You're welcome to claim that clutch players exist - I won't stop you - but until you show me some real evidence there's a chance I'll challenge you and your anecdotal assessments.

Why am I so opposed to clutch players? Because I don't think the mechanism is reasonable. Think about it - in order to really, truly be a clutch player you need to somehow elevate your game when the pressure is on. The most reasonable explanation for this phenomenon is that somehow the added pressure and importance of the situation sharpens your focus so much that you perform far better than you normally would. Yet when we examine the evidence we see that great players play just as great under pressure as not, and mediocre players play just as mediocre under pressure as not. Now, it's possible that there are clutch players, but based on the mechanism and the evidence at hand I'm going to claim that if they exist clutch players are actually talented guys who *lack* focus under normal conditions and only really sharpen up when the game is on the line. We typically call these guys perennial under-achievers, not clutch players, which just speaks to how subjective the whole concept is in the first place. Anyway, perennial under-achievers don't usually have the long, productive professional careers we need to examine their clutchitude, and I'm guessing they'll tend to have high-variance performances anyway so even their clutch achievements will fall in line with statistical variation. However, I doubt these guys ever make it to the top levels to begin with, and they probably don't merit much playing time at critical moments, so my position is that there's no such thing as a clutch player at all. I'm not likely to change my mind on this one based on anecdotes, since the only anecdotal evidence I've seen for the existence of clutch players is either a classic case of selective memory (see Boone, Aaron or Mazeroski, Bill) or all-around great players doing what they do (see Schilling, Curt or Jackson, Reggie).


Choke-artists should be the result of the same mechanism applied in reverse - the pressure and magnitude of the situation overwhelms the player and he basically falls apart. From my perspective (both as a spectator and as an athlete) this is eminently more believable than the mechanism behind clutchiness, and at some point I tried to find evidence that choke-artists really do exist. I didn't work hard at it, but I didn't come up with anything either, so I've decided I'm not going to buy it until someone shows me decent evidence that these guys are out there. Again, most of the anecdotal evidence I've seen so far is the result of small sample sizes (see Bonds, Barry), unreasonable expectations (see Roddick, Andy) or absolutely ridiculous cases of selective memory (see Rodriguez, Alex, who was a monster in the postseason in Seattle *and* in his first divisional series with the Yankees before going on a bad post-season run, and at the height of his chokiness was actually outperforming Captain Clutch in that particular postseason). Again, it's also possible that choke artists are out there but never make it to the highest levels so we can't track them - after all, high-school try-outs are high-pressure situations, so if you consistently choke under pressure you probably won't even make your high school team.



I think we can all agree that evidence for either will be hard to find, because top athletes are the best at what they do in part because they do it so consistently well.

[adamw]

OK Tom and Jim - I take back that you "jumped on me" -- but I still think calling it religion is unfair.  I'm as unreligious as they come, and I'm also a huge adherent to Bill James - and a self-proclaimed charter member of the math police .... And again, I agree that terms like "clutch" and "choke" are vastly overused ... Bonds, A-Rod, good examples.  And I'm fully aware of the concepts of variance, statistical norms, etc.... And I realize that, obviously, there will be some players whose postseason numbers are above their norm, and some below, and it doesn't necessarily mean anything.

However - again - I don't think if you've ever played sports at any sort of competitive level, that you couldn't personally feel, or tell, when yourself, or opponents, or teammates - could focus better, perform better, etc... under pressure ... and for some people, vice-versa. ... But my own personal experience gives me enough evidence to believe that such characteristics exist in human beings.  Whether that can be sufficiently proven from the numbers or not.

If that makes it akin to religion that I believe that, then so be it.  But I don't believe it's the same thing.  What I objected to mostly was the idea that it's easy for me to claim something exists without evidence, because it's impossible to disprove, just like religion. Since I can't stand religion - I object that my beliefs are being equated to it

Personal experience may be a horrible way to prove something ... I agree ... but since the numbers can't prove or disprove it, that's all I have to go on.  But I believe my observations are empirical in their own way -- and not just trying to after-the-fact create a reason for something (like with religion).

I also notice you conveniently left Nate Kaeding out of your response ... Someone please run the variance numbers on that one.

[adamw]

More food for thought ....

Here are some links - among the first hits when google searching for "does clutch exist" ... with the top links giving mathematical support for it. I didn't selectively grab links - just some were redundant, etc... so I didn't list them .... Feel free to do the same google search.

The most interesting is a direct response to Jim's assertion that my Bill James reference was meaningless. I meant to address that in my above post, but forgot.  James' assertions about clutch go far beyond what you are saying.  In fact, this article here cites a more recent James assertion that there could very well be something to clutch-ness, and it may be support-able...

http://www.sabr.org/cmsfiles/underestimating.PDF

Cramer was using random data as proof of nothingness—and I did the same, many times, and many other people also have done the same. But I'm saying now that's not right; random data proves nothing—and it cannot be used as proof of nothingness.

Why? Because whenever you do a study, if your study completely fails, you will get random data. Therefore, when you get random data, all you may conclude is that your study has failed. Cramer's study may have failed to identify clutch hitters because clutch hitters don't exist—as he concluded—or it may have failed to identify clutch hitters because the method doesn't work—as I now believe. We don't know. All we can say is that the study has failed.

Here's two more .... I won't bore you all beyond that ... feel free to google search

http://footballstatblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/does-clutch-exist-in-quarterbacks.html

http://www.tangotiger.net/clutch.html

[Tom Lento]

OK Tom and Jim - I take back that you "jumped on me" -- but I still think calling it religion is unfair.  I'm as unreligious as they come, and I'm also a huge adherent to Bill James - and a self-proclaimed charter member of the math police .... And again, I agree that terms like "clutch" and "choke" are vastly overused ... Bonds, A-Rod, good examples.  And I'm fully aware of the concepts of variance, statistical norms, etc.... And I realize that, obviously, there will be some players whose postseason numbers are above their norm, and some below, and it doesn't necessarily mean anything.

However - again - I don't think if you've ever played sports at any sort of competitive level, that you couldn't personally feel, or tell, when yourself, or opponents, or teammates - could focus better, perform better, etc... under pressure ... and for some people, vice-versa. ... But my own personal experience gives me enough evidence to believe that such characteristics exist in human beings.  Whether that can be sufficiently proven from the numbers or not.

If that makes it akin to religion that I believe that, then so be it.  But I don't believe it's the same thing.  What I objected to mostly was the idea that it's easy for me to claim something exists without evidence, because it's impossible to disprove, just like religion. Since I can't stand religion - I object that my beliefs are being equated to it

Personal experience may be a horrible way to prove something ... I agree ... but since the numbers can't prove or disprove it, that's all I have to go on.  But I believe my observations are empirical in their own way -- and not just trying to after-the-fact create a reason for something (like with religion).

I also notice you conveniently left Nate Kaeding out of your response ... Someone please run the variance numbers on that one.

I've played competitive sports at a reasonably high level, and I can't think of anyone who actually performed better under pressure. The only possible exceptions are guys who were basically talented and lazy and who only showed up when they felt the game counted - but that's not better performance under pressure, that's shitty performance in other conditions, and I believe that distinction is important. I have seen (and felt) negative effects of pressure in competition. I've also seen, and used, effective techniques to neutralize the negative effects of pressure, and I contend that most good athletes have their ways of dealing with pressure and performing at their normal levels regardless of the situation.

That said, I do believe pressure can get to an athlete and degrade performance, but based on what I've seen I believe that's strongest the first time you encounter it and then players adjust and perform as expected. Some players seem to handle that initial experience better than others, and in some sense that means they do a better job of delivering in the clutch, but things even out in the long run. Pressure situations may highlight a person's quality, or they may cause sub-par performance, but I don't see any support for the mechanism behind the concept of a clutch player, and I will admit that's part of the reason I take the "clutch doesn't exist" position in this debate. The almost total lack of evidence just affirms that position (fwiw, the football article you linked is fatally flawed since it uses quarterbacks and qb rating without any apparent controls for anything else, and I don't have the time to investigate the second one but something seems totally wonky in their methodology - even if it isn't, their evidence is minimal - it opens the door, but doesn't change my mind).

Personal experience is also why I spent some time trying to find evidence of choke-artistry - I believed it had to exist. I failed to find any evidence. Admittedly, this was a half-assed attempt one day when I was bored, but I decided that, in all probability, there aren't really choke artists at the professional level because they wouldn't get that far if they couldn't produce consistently. I didn't mention Keading because I suspect his playoff performance is such a small sample that it's not statistically meaningful. Again, that doesn't mean he isn't a choke artist, it just means he hasn't been a choke artist for long enough for it to mean anything statistically. Also, it would not at all surprise me if the pressure did get to him a little bit, and it would not surprise me to learn that he's making adjustments and finds a way to deal with it. Assuming, of course, that he has a job next year.


I agree with Bill James - the existing studies of clutch are flawed, but nobody can refute that there is limited evidence that clutch players even exist, and the best studies to date have not turned up anything compelling. So I take the available evidence and combine it with my assessment of the mechanism itself, which is that there's no good logical reason why clutch players should exist at all. There are great illogical reasons - because we want a joe average player to have some magical ability to be something greater than himself when it really counts, or because it makes a nice story, or because the world needs heroes, or whatever - but logically speaking I don't really see it. Maybe clutch players are out there, as statistical outliers on the fight-or-flight response curve, but this seems unlikely to me (at least in the context of baseball - I may have to re-assess for certain sports, like track).

[Jim Hyla]

Adam, I was using religion as the topmost belief without science example. Sorry if I hit a nerve with you. But you also obviously hit a nerve with me. The problem I have is well exampled by your footballstatblog example. In it he shows 3 quarterbacks who do better at the end of the game than during the rest and 11 who do worse. The rest, I gather, are the same. Then at the end he says "so now, the truth is out there. Clutch exists, and not everybody has it."

But really, I started to say "But my god" but figured that was a poor choice of words here, don't you expect some to be better and some worse and some the same? That proves nothing. That's what makes me upset.

edit: Thread drifts like this is why eLynah, and CU athletics in general, can be so much fun, win or lose.

[adamw]

Personal experience is also why I spent some time trying to find evidence of choke-artistry - I believed it had to exist. I failed to find any evidence. Admittedly, this was a half-assed attempt one day when I was bored, but I decided that, in all probability, there aren't really choke artists at the professional level because they wouldn't get that far if they couldn't produce consistently. I didn't mention Keading because I suspect his playoff performance is such a small sample that it's not statistically meaningful. Again, that doesn't mean he isn't a choke artist, it just means he hasn't been a choke artist for long enough for it to mean anything statistically. Also, it would not at all surprise me if the pressure did get to him a little bit, and it would not surprise me to learn that he's making adjustments and finds a way to deal with it. Assuming, of course, that he has a job next year.

The problem, Tom, is that there isn't ever enough sample size to prove it. There aren't enough situations, and it's also difficult to define.  But I'd say hitting 69 straight FGs from inside 40 yards, yet missing 4 times from that distance in the playoffs, is pretty darned out of whack.  But true, the sample size is small -- but the guy would never have a job long enough to get a high enough sample size.

I also agree it's possible that guys who are "clutch" were merely not playing up to their potential otherwise.  And I understand your distinction.  But that would still suggest that there is such a thing as a player's performance being different depending upon other circumstances.

And Jim - 99% of the time, I'd be right there with you on these kinds of arguments.  Well - 99% is an estimate - I haven't empirically validated that figure  

[Tom Lento]

Personal experience is also why I spent some time trying to find evidence of choke-artistry - I believed it had to exist. I failed to find any evidence. Admittedly, this was a half-assed attempt one day when I was bored, but I decided that, in all probability, there aren't really choke artists at the professional level because they wouldn't get that far if they couldn't produce consistently. I didn't mention Keading because I suspect his playoff performance is such a small sample that it's not statistically meaningful. Again, that doesn't mean he isn't a choke artist, it just means he hasn't been a choke artist for long enough for it to mean anything statistically. Also, it would not at all surprise me if the pressure did get to him a little bit, and it would not surprise me to learn that he's making adjustments and finds a way to deal with it. Assuming, of course, that he has a job next year.

The problem, Tom, is that there isn't ever enough sample size to prove it. There aren't enough situations, and it's also difficult to define.  But I'd say hitting 69 straight FGs from inside 40 yards, yet missing 4 times from that distance in the playoffs, is pretty darned out of whack.  But true, the sample size is small -- but the guy would never have a job long enough to get a high enough sample size.

I also agree it's possible that guys who are "clutch" were merely not playing up to their potential otherwise.  And I understand your distinction.  But that would still suggest that there is such a thing as a player's performance being different depending upon other circumstances.

And Jim - 99% of the time, I'd be right there with you on these kinds of arguments.  Well - 99% is an estimate - I haven't empirically validated that figure  

I just looked up Kaeding on Wikipedia, and I find it funny that his nickname in college was, apparently, "Big Game Nate." Of course, he was kicking for the University of Iowa, and they weren't exactly competing for the Rose Bowl at the time (Kaeding was a respectable, if unspectacular, 7-9 in 3 bowl games while he was there, so I guess Iowa was better than I thought during that time). I skimmed his college stats and the totality of his NFL career - regular season + playoffs - is pretty much in line with what he was doing in college so I think the jury's still out.

I don't think anyone would claim that player performance is the same under all conditions. After all they're human. But on average, across the course of a player's career, they tend to perform similarly across a variety of conditions. Well, maybe that's only true for the ones who are good enough to do it for a living, but that's who we track with all these fancy statistics.

Speaking of choking and unexpected outcomes, while it would be ridiculous for anyone to suggest that Roger Federer can't play under pressure he is in big trouble in the first round of the Australian Open right now.

[Robb]

I don't think anyone would claim that player performance is the same under all conditions. After all they're human. But on average, across the course of a player's career, they tend to perform similarly across a variety of conditions. Well, maybe that's only true for the ones who are good enough to do it for a living, but that's who we track with all these fancy statistics.

My $.02 from my personal experience (sorry Tom) is that there definitely have been times when I'm doing anything - playing sports, playing my violin, working on engineering problem sets - where I just feel "on."  And during those times, I really do perform better than at other times; everything slows down, the pieces just fall into place, and the end result is better.

The problem is that only *I* know how I'm really feeling in those moments, and there's no way to measure that emotion.  And of course, if you had a bunch of guys in lab coats asking me how I feel during those moments, then the measurements interfere with the experiments too significantly for the results to matter.  And it's no good asking after the fact, once I already know the results - if the results were bad, I'm going to say that I felt bad at the time, because the results would taint my recollection.

Over time, if I do the same activity enough, there are times when I'm on and times when I'm off, so there will be fluctuations in my performance that would lead someone to say, "oh, he's a 94% tonally-accurate violinist," and they'd be right.  I can't completely control when I'm on and when I'm off, so the next time I pick up my violin, there probably really is a 94%, essentially random, chance whether I'll play in tune.  Now, there are lots of factors that I *can* control, but when we're talking about professional athletes, they already do control all the factors that they can (getting enough sleep, timing their pre-game meals, etc), so all that's left are the parts they can't control - the randomness.  That doesn't mean that the on-and-off periods aren't real - just that they can't be predicted.

It's a very common fallacy for people to assume that things they can't predict are random.  If I tell you that there are some red balls and some green balls in a bin and ask someone to pick one out, a lot of people would assume that there is a 50/50 chance of getting a red or green.  But what if there are only 2 red balls an 1000 green ones?  So maybe I tell you there are 50 reds and 50 greens - now what's the probability - 50-50?  Well, what if I arranged it so that all the green balls are on the far side of the bin where you really can't reach very well?  Etc.  Before we pull out the ball, we don't know what we'll get, but that doesn't mean that what we do get is actually random.  Similarly, just because we can't predict whether a player will hit his next free throw does not prove that it's a random event.

[adamw]

It's a very common fallacy for people to assume that things they can't predict are random.  If I tell you that there are some red balls and some green balls in a bin and ask someone to pick one out, a lot of people would assume that there is a 50/50 chance of getting a red or green.  But what if there are only 2 red balls an 1000 green ones?  So maybe I tell you there are 50 reds and 50 greens - now what's the probability - 50-50?  Well, what if I arranged it so that all the green balls are on the far side of the bin where you really can't reach very well?  Etc.  Before we pull out the ball, we don't know what we'll get, but that doesn't mean that what we do get is actually random.  Similarly, just because we can't predict whether a player will hit his next free throw does not prove that it's a random event.

Thanks Robb ... you put it a lot more scientifically (and succinctly) than I was able to.  But that common fallacy is basically what I was trying to get at ... and Bill James as well, in his follow up paper that I linked.