Do high-fives help a team win? The Phoenix Suns want to find out.
“We have a high-five stat,” coach Earl Watson said earlier this week. “I’m being honest with you. This is true. So we want to keep track of how many high-fives we get per game to each other.”
On the surface it seems a little crazy to track high-fives, but it kind of makes sense. Having teammates that constantly support one another should help camaraderie and team chemistry. But at the end of the day, this is a league that cares about wins, so will this help lead to dubs?
Possibly.
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A study conducted by professors at University of California, Berkeley in 2010 found that physical touch improved play among NBA players. Their research included more physical touch than just high fives, such as chest-bumping, fist-pumps, head grabs, half hugs, and much more.
Here, in part, is what they determined:
In this ethnological study of physical touch during NBA games, we have demonstrated that touch is crucial for predicting performance in competitive group settings. Consistent with expectation, touch was associated with sophisticated metrics of higher performance at the individual and group level, and this touch to performance relationship held when accounting for player status, preseason expectations, and early season performance during the game in which touch was assessed.
High fives and fist bumps, seemingly small dramatic demonstrations during group interactions, have a lot to say about the cooperative workings of a team, and whether that team wins or loses.
How the team will gather its intelligence on high-fives will be questionable, but it's interesting to see the Suns make such a big deal out of it.
