When basketball players post at least one message between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., their stats are worse in games the next day.
As the NBA season finale has just started in the United States, between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers (the title is played in four winning games), the results of a study carried out at Stony University Brook (State of New York, United States) falls as a small warning for players.
By analyzing the time of American League basketball players’ tweets, and linking them to their performance stats the next day, the researchers identified a pattern: basketballers are worse off if they post a late post. night !
One point less per game
To get these results which will be published in the journal Sleep, they used nearly 30,000 tweets from the official accounts of 112 NBA players between 2009 and 2016, only counted when the basketball players had to play at home the next day. The effect of travel and jet lag – the United States has four time zones – during away games are therefore not included in the statistics.
When posts were posted between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., players averaged one point less (8.2 vs. 9.2), their shooting success percentage was 5 points lower (36% vs. 41 %), Bounces, Interceptions and Blocks stats are also lower. Figures generally down that the coaches seem to notice: they gave these players two minutes less play per game, on average.
Sleep and performance
These original results, which required the use of roundabout means, are nonetheless interesting for the general public. “They are relevant beyond scientific research on sport,” said one of the study’s authors, Lauren Hale, professor of public health and preventive medicine at Stony Brook University. They show a larger phenomenon: to be at the top of its performance, it is important to have a full night’s sleep. “
In the meantime, the star players involved in these finals do not seem to be fans of Twitter, judging by their activity on the social network: LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kyrie Irving or Kevin Durant are surprisingly little present there, even absent, for a few weeks, day and night. Personal focus or instruction from coaches? Guy Roux, the ubiquitous football coach in the private lives of his players, would undoubtedly have had his say …
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