[MicroBob]

Yes, I get that.


I'm responding to vhawk's statement:
"somehow in the heat of the moment make an absolutely retarded decision that is incredibly simple and very obvious and makes a HUGE difference in wins, especially compared to all the other plays and decisions they make?"


I guess my overall point is that what is easy for some of us to understand is, for whatever reason, very difficult for them to understand.
And what is incredibly difficult for us to understand is insanely and stupidly easy for them to understand.


Now to your question of why specifically conventional wisdom tells them to make the exact WRONG decision on some of these situations: I'm not exactly sure. But I don't think it comes from fear of the fans or reporters. I think it more comes from just being plain-old ignorant on this specific kind of math or whatever.

I truly believe that some coaches could "get it" if you sat them down and explained it to them. And if they DID "get it" then they would go for it in a heartbeat and wouldn't give a crap what the fans or reporters would whine about afterwards.
Some of these guys actually do have some kind of an intellectualness about them even if their math abilities are kind of sucky.

My hope and belief is that some of this 'playing the percentages' stuff will eventually find it's way to a few coaches sooner or later.
I would not have really understood this EV type argument before learning poker a bit more. If somebody as stupid as me can get it then surely some of the players, who may eventually become coaches, could get it also.

Some of these players do go to Duke or Stanford or Harvard or MIT. I mean, they all have teams, right?
I assume that some of them are actually pretty smart.