One of the biggest factors to consider a player a true star or just a good player is the clutch shots. Those shots that can tie, win, or lose a game. That is the hottest moment of the game and you have to be cold-blooded to not miss them and take your team to the promised land.
Over the last 10 years, we have seen plenty of players try these shots, some with more success than others. Moreover, there are players who have been just bad in crunch time. Those who have tried and tried to make meaningful shots for their teams and have mightily failed. One Reddit user that goes by the name “Trollfailbot” did some research and found out that Russell Westbrook, DeMar DeRozan and Kemba Walker have missed the most clutch field goals from 2010 through 2020.
Via Reddit:
The criterion is the last 5 minutes of games where the team is leading or trailing by 5 points. For you stricklers.
And as for efficiency, he was surprisingly bad, as in the top 10 of FGA, he was tied 2nd worst out for eFG% of players like Damian Lillard, James Harden, Carmelo Anthony, John Wall, Kemba Walker, etc. With 43.6% eFG.
Westbrook tops that list with 655 clutch field goals. Brodie has always been criticized for his decisions in crunch time and how he can affect his team with them. Now his shots are making things worse, as he has over 100 more missed shots than the second player on the list.
That is DeMar DeRozan, another player who has been criticized for his inability to win and the fact that he seems to disappear in important games. It happened with the Toronto Raptors and so far with the San Antonio Spurs, where he’s been unable to actually compete to play in the Finals. DeRozan has 511 missed clutch field goals.
In third place, we find Kemba Walker. Kemba is curiously another player criticized for being unable to take his team to compete in big stages. It happened with the Charlotte Hornets, which is understandable. However, he’s also disappeared in some games during his stay with the Boston Celtics. Kemba is a great talent but it seems like he’s missing that clutch gene that other players have. He missed 484 clutch field goals from 2010 through 2020.
Damian Lillard (4th – 470), Kevin Durant (5th -463), LeBron James (6th – 448), James Harden (7th – 444), Carmelo Anthony (8th – 414), Kyrie Irving (9th – 405) and John Wall (10th – 405) close the top 10 on Basketball-Reference.
This is very interesting but it’s nothing new for a lot of people. Russ has never been known for being a clutch player and even though he did a lot for the Oklahoma City Thunder during his time there, he also earned a lot of bad comments for his poor decisions when the game was on the line. It was the same for DeRozan, who couldn’t get past LeBron James in the Eastern Conference and Kemba never had the chance to really show his talent until he landed in Boston.
