Who are the Greatest NBA Players that werent good Closers?

yao ming

 

I wouldn't be confident, but that would hold for any player in the league right now or anyone who has ever played the game. And anyone who argues otherwise is simply thinking with their heart and not their brain, because there isn't a player in history who has shot a good career percentage in those kinds of situations.

The problem with "clutch" is that it is so biased towards memorable moments. Everyone remembers big shots but people forget big misses. Horry was famous for his game winners (probably less than 10 total) but who really remembers the big ones he missed (eg the shot that ended the 4-peat hopes in 2003?) And what about all of the non-game winners in critical situations, like the last few minutes? Did you know that this season Kobe is one of the worst players in crunchtime? Does that make him suddenly a choker? Of course not. More likely the loss of athleticism is more of a factor in the 4th when defenses can key in on him more so his percentage declines. It has nothing to with "clutch", which is a made-up mental state.

The funny thing is that "clutch" is something that is actually easy to measure with stats. You either make the big shots or you don't. And no one is consistently bad or consistently good over a career. They are all worse than they are in non-clutch situations.

 

chris paul is the most effortlessly in control player at the end of a game,r egardless of the opposition i've seen, and it probably explains the ridiculous efficiency NO has in the clutch.

 

He may make some clutch plays, but he's also the worst among the notable players fg% wise in clutch time.

http://www.82games.com/1011/CSORT11.HTM
.333 on mostly drives, that's pathetic and he's the reason Heat were losing those games.

 

It's a shame you are claiming your "theory" like it's a fact. How's Kobe "one of the worst players in crunchtime"? http://www.82games.com/1011/CSORT11.HTM
The number says he scores most points in clutch time.

 

Take a look at the "Last update" in your link there. That is last year's stats. This year he has been horrible. That is my whole point-- the stat is meaningless and changes dramatically every year.

 

The links says "2010-2011 NBA Season Stats". I know you are pretty bad at English but I didn't know you could't read numbers either.

You always amaze me.

 

You are right. The stats are for this year. They have the wrong info for their "last update".

From the link you gave, it has Kobe shooting 38% in "crunchtime" with a -10 +/- ... how is this helping your case again? Seems like it's just saying he takes a much higher volume of shots than anyone else and misses most of them. So he's a chucker... we needed advanced stats to tell us this?

 

how is +/- related to clutch shooting? Lakers just couldn't defend well in clutch time and that's why they're bad at +/-. Yes, Kobe's not shooting a high % but it's way higher than LeBron and he scored many more points. Adding the fact that he couldn't buy a whistle when 2 guys slammed him to the ground the other day, 38% isn't bad.

 

+/- is related to clutch performance because, since Kobe is taking all of the shots (pretty obvious given the high volume and low shooting percentage), it means that he's operating out of the offense and the team isn't winning.

But the data sample is small, way too small to make any determination. You have LeBron shooting 33% and Kobe shooting 38% .. it is most likely a one or two basket difference. It means nothing.

And LOL at Kobe not getting calls. Take that **** to Lakersground because it is a joke. http://www.82games.com/1011/CSORT9.HTM sorted by FTA in crunchtime. What a shock to see who is #1 there.

 

I like how every thread where Kobe and Lebron are mentioned are hijacked by you guys.

Maybe we should sticky a Kobe vs Lebron thread...

This is getting outta control, its like ATW and Muslims in the D&D

 

Yeah, I apologize. Douchebug has a way of getting on my nerves because he is such a stereotypical Kobe fanboi and we have zillions of those here in So Cal. They don't judge the games on their own merits so they just buy into the propoganda that the homer announcers spout, the ESPN highlights & hype, and so forth.

I am not even a LeBron "fan" but it is so obvious that he is the best player in the NBA (and has been for years), just as it was obvious that Shaq was the best player for the years before that. People want to downplay his accomplishments by pulling up the "no rings" thing but that is idiotic since rings are a team accomplishment. If he has "no rings" in three years yeah, then it's a fair argument.

 

Problem there is, Shaq's years as the best coincided with 3 titles, mj's 6, hakeem's 2, magic's 5, larry's 3 (had dr j played in the nba and not the aba at his peak, he probably would have won more than 1) and so forth.

 

MJ was the best player in the league years before he won a title and Dr. J was only 26 years old when he started playing in the NBA (i.e., just entering his prime).

 

um yea i would be confident. the best player on the planet has the ball, why wouldn't you be confident. he has been clutch in a bunch of games this year.

the problem is his "unclutch" moments get magnified b/c he's lebron james.

do you really want to watch every laker game and see how kobe has done in the clutch this year?

the point is more people dissect every lebron game than any other player in this L by far

 

lol funny how you bring up that stat THIS YEAR. lebron was #1 LAST YEAR in most categories last year man.

but looking t the page you posted, kobe shoots 38.5% and he leads in points. tells you he jacks up A TON of shots in crunch time, and don't make enough.

dirk is mad clutch from those stats, contrary to popular belief.

 

magic johnson won 3 of the 4 mvp awards before jordan won his first title, no he certainly wasn't.

 

people thought MJ was the best player though, if you watched some of the old day documentaries. but magic was on the lakers winning rings. jordan's teams barely won 40 games.

 

What jordan was in his early career was the first marketing phenom of basketball. his first 3 years, bird wins 3 mvps, 2 nba titles, 1 finals loss, in his next 4 years magic wins 3 mvps, 2 nba titles, 1 finals loss, it was only from 91 onwards that people started considering jordan the genuinely best player in the league (in the meantime the aforementioned 2 were at the end of their careers)

 

people thought that because honestly, they're stupid and believe what marketers tell them (lol my gf is one of them, as will my sister be shortly), hence why tv ads sell for so much money, and hence why so many people buy into the "kobe is as good as mj" marketing used to create interest in the now, because saying "well he'll never be close" certainly wouldn't encourage much interest.

Those 2 comparisons are actually eerily similar.