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I have difficulty in understanding which of the following is correct:
Team cannot be fully discussed without considering two factors which are teams’ makeup and teams’ performance.
or
Team cannot be fully discussed without considering two factors , which are teams’ makeup and teams’ performance.
I was heard some years ago if we already introduce the noun of the sentence we do not need "," or something like that. I do not remember exactly that's why I asked this question.
The comma is placed there because in spoken English a native speaker would pause there. The pause signals that the following phrase helps to further explain the previous idea which could stand alone.
"Teams cannot be fully discussed without considering two factors." is a complete sentence. It is followed by a dependent clause that helps to further explain the idea, "Which are teams' makeup and teams' performance."
"Which are teams' makeup and teams' performance," would be a complete sentence except that it depends on the clause that came immediately before it. The dependent clause would not make sense on its own because the reader wouldn't know what 'Which' is referring too. However, it has a subject and a verb making it structured like a sentence.
If there was no pause the listener would have (slight) difficulty picking the two sentences apart.
The comma is not there to slow the reader down. That's not the point of a comma in English. Many think it is, but it is certainly not.
which are teams’ makeup and teams’ performance.
This is a dependent clause. This means it can't stand alone, because it doesn't express a complete thought.
This specific clause is an adjective clause. This means it describes something, which is what an adjective does.
Teams cannot be fully discussed without considering two factors, which are teams’ makeup and teams’ performance.
In this example, it's describing the two factors.
So, to answer your question, the comma is used before which because the which clause isn't important to the sentence. The sentence would make perfect sense if you were to say it like this:
Teams cannot be fully discussed without considering two factors.
You wouldn't know what the factors are, but the sentence does make sense.
A better way of writing this sentence would be to use a colon. The colon requires a full thought before it, which is exactly what is happening in your example.
Here it is with a colon:
Teams cannot be fully discussed without considering two factors: teams’ makeup and teams’ performance.
