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Some people are assuming that if "bad" events happen, there's no way the team can win.
Well surely there's no way the Lakers can win the NBA championship without their MVP center Kareem and having to start Magic, a rookie point guard, at center?
Surely there's no way Michael Jordan, who can barely walk to the timeouts because he's so sick with the flu, can win a finals game on his own back?
Surely Tiger Woods, with a ruptured ACL and multiple stress fractures in his leg can't win an 18 hole playoff?
The against all odds victory is what makes sport memorable. Nobody remembers the superior team steamrolling, except perhaps fans of the team. The overcoming adversity to triumph anyway is the ongoing theme of many a memorable sports story.
Besides, I don't think people realise how much real life sport can be viewed like a RNG.
Take the 85% chance being talked about: that's what a very good NBA free throw shooter shoots. If he's fouled at the end of a game and has to shoot two free throws to win, it's basically luck whether they go in or not. 72% of the time they do, the other 28% of the time they don't. Shooting free throws is very much like a hit or miss melee roll: sure, you can practice and get better at it (like you can add more +hit to your gear), but ultimately a game may come down to a single crunch moment, and then it's basically dumb luck. You don't get infinite chances in sport for you to even out your performance to your average level.
Statistical analysis supports this view of real sport. Close games are essentially random. Certainly in basketball and baseball (and maybe in other sports) it's been shown your previous season's point differential correlates more closely to your season's wins and losses than your wins and losses for the previous season. Fans make up stories about clutch play or being cool in the crisis to explain it, but the evidence shows the best teams win a lot because they rarely play close games, not because they're any better at winning close games.
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