The Clutch GOAT...(it's not who you think).

it is the single most debated basketball topic ever that's the biggest clutch genan with the game on the line the best clutch money player fate of the Universe on the line or the Martians have the death beam pointed at Earth you better hit it commence primary [Music] ignition who is the most clutch player of all time clutch is a vague term and it's difficult to measure vagueness so let's start by defining it now the populace would Define clutch as a rare genetic trait one placed at the top of the athletic skill hierarchy a mythical force that only a select few possess now the NBA would Define clutch as shots made when the score is within five points or less with 5 minutes or less left in the game and this is undeniably a period of time when the stakes do increase but I don't think that's what most people think of when they hear the word clutch buzzer beaters game winners last second go-ahead step backs no story's ever been written about a layup with 450 left on the clock that won the game for this reason we are going to use what's called clutch squar this is a win probability model that Mike buo has been widely recognized for the basic concept is this how does a player's actions both positively and negatively impact the win probability for his team you might notice these swings just tracking the win probability following a game on your phone for example Steph knocking down a three early on might hardly alter the Warriors win probability but in just a few closing seconds it can launch them from 10 to 95% even certainty and clutch play is really associated with these needle swinging plays right it's the antithesis of garbage time or early game action so be eligible you had to take a minimum of 100 clutch squared shots and we ran this all the way back to 1996 so who is it who is the man in the arena the man with that rare clutch DNA strand fate of the Universe on the line death being pointed at Earth give us and Anthony D Davis Anthony Davis not Kobe not LeBron not MJ not Steph but the brow how Anthony has the highest effective field goal percentage in these clutch squared Moments by a wide margin we aren't looking solely at field goal percentage effective field goal percentage waits for three several of those in big moments it's going on here the brow is a great player nobody's denying that but in general centers have a high field goal percentage who has the highest of all time DeAndre Jordan maybe you anticipated this I mean positionally there's a clear Trend it's Anthony because Anthony is closer to the rim but Anthony doesn't have this high of an effective field goal percentage over his career his career average is worse than guys like Steph LeBron and many other shorter players on this graph so again what's going on here so the further right that we go with this the more we find guards and there's a reason for this post plays take a little longer to develop they might be hard to execute if you just have a few seconds left in the game as dominant as Shaq was you might not be able to just get him the ball and have him go create in the waning moments cards are attemped far more of these shots in fact if we look at the top 20 in terms of attempts only two were post players kg and Durk the most voluminous K's efficiency was pretty impressive when you consider his unparalleled volume he was better than LeBron he was better than KD he was better than MJ the man with the Ultimate Green Light get him Kobe was pretty good in these late game situations Kobe was great but as dangerous as Dame Dame checked in at 48.2% effective field goal percentage that was number one overall minimum 200 clutch squared shots Dame time is as advertised dos Durk emerges if we look at a minimum of 300 clutch squared shots taken and that makes sense like Kobe his game is seemingly built for these late game situations a stork like ability to balance on one foot and hit a fade away at any point Durk had no shortage of big moments and what about the dude with the shoes is air MJ was slightly above average now obviously this was a completely different era where defenses could play more aggressive in the 9s an effective field goal percentage was certainly lower overall than it is today but we also only got the last few seasons of MJ because our code has trouble tracking before 96 so only got the last few seasons still he was an impressive above average given his volume and percentage of those clutch squared shots that he took for his team at that point and who was antil clutch who fell at the time of pressure Baron Davis Tyreek Evans Derrick Rose Allan Iverson Dwayne Wade Russell Westbrook and Donovan Mitchell were some notables so how can we improve this measurement I mean we still don't have an answer for Mr Davis here how can we go further into the clutch playoffs Play Turn Up play it's about to go down playoff s are different than the regular season here's being clutch that's synonymous with playoffs so how do these rankings look if we control just for the playoffs the most crucial point of the year a Biblical player back out to [Applause] Al Ray Allen has been a literal savior in clutch moments the second coming lived up to his stage now Jesus Jesus Jesus shooting an absurd 68.97% in clutch playoff moments Hallelujah Jesus Hallelujah who's closer to Earth mck gets it in the middle for the win it's middle time second overall yeah you can dance Reggie off Jimmy looks to be out as we know him highly effective in the clutch Mike bbby phenomenal back to BBY has the open shot LeBron slightly above average Lillard above average KD average below the Event Horizon though oddly Kobe and MJ sinking further into the dark side James Harden Dwayne Wade and I hate to say it Westbrook yes you despite having the worst effective field goal percentage in our sample Russ might not be the biggest outlier checking in the greatest shooter of all time time Steph Curry Steph Curry is a measly 27% effective field goal percentage in clutch squared playoff shots and if we control a little further Curry is a staggering over 14 in go-ahead playoff shots the man with a laser guided freaking shooting system attached to his right shoulder has been horrendous in the playoff clutch one shouldn't discount the significance of this Steph has performed terribly in playoff situations but he has four rings that is a testament to the sport cast in the Bay Area this poor shooting has been addressed in the media before fate of the Universe on the line where the Martians have the death beam pointed at Earth you better hit it I want Iguodala but there's something incredibly shortsighted here that Max is skipping over something that might also help explain Anthony Davis I spoke with Seth part now about this who's a former bucks analyst and currently writes at the athletic consider the following Steph has taken 45 playoff clutch squared shots in our sample he's made 12.5 effectively keep in mind a three is worth 1.5 a two is worth one here had he made just four more threes he would be average among these stars and better than Kobe had he made seven more threes he would be elite in these playoff clutch squared moments while examining clutch playoff statistics is telling it's not gospel especially when we consider the playoff being such a small sample size again I'm not discounting the importance of clutch moments but if Ray and Steph two outliers in opposite directions are single digit makes and misses away from being statistically identical in these moments isn't that worth mentioning might this be part of the reason why Anthony is such an outlier his clutch shooting not just his unibrow so it's easier to see this the more shots that a player takes conveniently debate at the top in terms of volume we have LeBron and Kobe if we strip away the Glamour and narratives of clutch moments both are right around where a rational robot might expect them to be LeBron is above average Kobe is basically average when looking at the entirety of their career for Effective field goal percentage LeBron is above average Kobe is basically average as attempts increase overall accuracy on game-winning shots regresses heavily towards the mean towards expectations Max is an Ivy League educated individual imagining an ether where he doesn't know what small sample sizes are is difficult to comprehend calling for Iguodala over Curry borders on science fiction unfortunately there is a clear benefit in today's world to sensationalizing absolutist takes LeBron James was not born with a clutch LeBron's another example LeBron's not going to win the champion a period of time where fans and analysts were having a field day with his late game play how to win many oddly still do he wants to be a movie star but he's been a better shooter than Kobe in these playoff moments he's also hit the most prize clutch shot more than anyone gets it to LeBron for three for the win yes this is not just something that I believe this is what his actual happened yet somehow LeBron is still seen as a Padawan Kobe has been crystalized as a Jedi and of course being clutch doesn't mean just making clutch shots one can have a clutch rebound a clutch steel a clutch block a clutch assist or a clutch free throw thankfully Mike Buy has devised a ranking system that accounts for all of this this win probability added model takes into account the varying degrees of importance of different numbers in a data set for example hitting a shot is more important than a rebound but getting a rebound does affect win probability when jannis pulled off this spectacular block late in the fourth the Bucks win probability jumped by 133% by all accounts this was a clutch moment so when running this more holistic clutch tracker who do we find if we scroll all the Way to the Top here we find Chris Paul kind of surprising but wait a second that's LeBron that's everybody else that's insane uh the first time I looked at this I actually did not even see LeBron I'm going to show a screenshot of the text from Mike he was such an outlier I did not even see him he was quite literally off the chart you can say what you want about this metric but LeBron has been a clutch squared monster for a opposing teams now this is cumulative and obviously LeBron has played more playoff games than anyone since 2005 which is as far back as our tracking data can go so I wanted to run this for averages for a more fair comparison minimum 30 playoff games clutch moments and right at the top we see LeBron again roughly speaking this means that LeBron has improved his team's odds at winning a close playoff game by 7.8% this was run since 2005 minimum 30 playoff games now many of you might have looked at these two charts and noticed that there's someone missing is there anybody more clutch than that man this just wasn't something that I anticipated I mean I knew that Kobe wasn't the most efficient shooter of all time but not even cracking the top 15 for regular season and playoffs that was surprising to me and you might look at this in complete dismissal and think well those five championships speak for themselves and your gut is telling you that all this data all these stats these numbers it's just misleading this is ridiculous that is certainly a position you may take many former players have as well I mean for centuries people could just accuse their neighbor of Witchcraft simply because they felt a certain way about them and it worked wait a second does that mean our guts can be wrong about stuff Kobe made the most clutch shots but he also attempted the most clutch shots by far and maybe that's why I thought he'd rank higher just the sheer volume all these crazy shots he's made over the years but there's something we can learn from this not just about Kobe but about these late game clutch situations in general average clutch squared shooting is an abysmal 41% that is some combination of two possibilities better defense worse offense so throughout the game the offense has three advantages the defense doesn't know who will be taking that shot when it will occur and where it will happen at the end of the game the defense has a little bit better idea who is going to be taking that shot and they certainly have a better idea when it will happen take a look at this pivotal finals play Orlando Waits until the waning moments to send a double and they're so convinced that Kobe will take this shot they've abandoned three PR perimeter players this is the sin of predictability it's also partially unavoidable here the correct play is to run the clock down since it's tied but nothing says Kobe can't kick this out here I should state that I am a big Kobe fan if anything I was hoping to find the opposite fans of his raw courage might how that such criticism misses the point but the larger takeaway here should be that over time virtually all of these players are performing worse in clutch moments than in regular ones even the anointed king of clutch for any team this is an area worth considering you might be better served initiating a democracy rather than a dictatorship Stars may appear to be Supernatural but if given enough volume they're pretty much themselves from the stands a big clutch is Magic it's a force that we can all witness but only a select few can experience Daydreams on the black top or late at night even just walking to the laundry room a superlative moment between what could be and what is but this clock and this hero thought is misleading certain players may appear to levitate and that orange sphere may carry more than 8 PSI at certain moments but this is only due to the seemingly uneventful plays that proceeding hey Mike plays that we surely take for granted Michael you ready to get in there clutch isn't some rare DNA strand reserved for a Chosen Few clutches the appreciation of the Unseen timer that is the magic that's a force that any of us can harness hope you enjoyed this video make sure to 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Channel: Michael MacKelvie

Views: 263,494

Keywords: lebron james, kobe bryant, michael jordan, nba goat, nba, sports analytics, GOAT, CLUTCH, NBA DRAFT, NBA GOAT, NBA Playoffs, NBA Finals, NBA MVP, NBA Game Winners, Star Wars, Legos, Stop Motion, Lego Star Wars, NBA Lego, Steph Curry, Max Kellerman, ESPN, SportsCenter, First Take, Stephen A Smith, Lakers, Heat, Last Dance

Id: qjjW1l9KjXQ

Length: 18min 6sec (1086 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 29 2024