The Suns are taking teamwork to a new level.
This season, they are keeping track of high-fives, hoping it will create more camaraderie and a better atmosphere around the team.
“We have a high-five stat,” Suns coach Earl Watson told NBA.com. “This is true. So we want to keep track of how many high-fives we get per game to each other.”
There is actually science behind it.
Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at Cal-Berkeley, documented all the fist bumps, embraces and high fives in one game for each NBA team in 2015. He found the teams that embrace the most were the most successful: Those teams helped each other more on defense, set more screens and played more cohesively on offense.
“Not only did they win more games, but there’s really nice basketball statistics of how selfless the play is,” Keltner said.
The Suns need every extra win they can get: They replaced Jeff Hornacek — who eventually landed with the Knicks — midway through last season with Watson, and wound up with the fourth-worst record in the NBA at 23-59.