With the Jerry West Clutch POTY Award only being two seasons old, I thought it’d be interesting to figure out the best clutch players of seasons past. Thanks to the work at inpredictable.com, we have some really great ways to measure clutch performance. Mike Buoy, who runs Inpredictable, created a Clutch Win Probably Added metric that goes back to the 1996-97 NBA season. Here’s more of an explanation from inpredictable.com:
NBA.com has a “Player Clutch” section in which they define clutch as the last five minutes of a game in which the point differential is 5 or less. While this is a straightforward and reasonable definition of clutch situations, it can clearly be improved. A three point basket with your team down by two and five seconds to play is far more clutch than a two pointer with 3:50 on the clock and up by three.
Let’s take one of the most famous clutch shots in recent memory: Ray Allen’s game tying three pointer from game 6 of the 2013 Finals. That shot was worth +35% in win probability added. On average, three point shots are worth +4.6% in WPA. So, one way to breakdown Ray Allen’s WPA for that shot is that about 5% is “normal basketball” WPA and 30% is “clutch WPA”.
I can breakdown a player’s WPA contributions into three numbers:
expected WPA (eWPA): the win probability added one would expect from just looking at a player’s box score stats
clutch WPA (clWPA): excess WPA (either plus or minus) due to WPA contributions during crucial game situations
garbage time WPA (gbWPA): WPA a player would have been credited with had their contributions come at more meaningful points in the game
And here is the equation:
WPA = eWPA + clWPA - gbWPA
The win probability difference between the two potential outcomes, the “swing” factor, tells you how important the shot is. A shot as time expires when trailing by one will leave the team with a win probability of 100% if successful, and 0% if unsuccessful - a maximum swing of 100%.
The table below summarizes how the four situational categories are defined in terms of win probability swing:
|| || ||Win probability swing|| |situation|2 Point Shot|3 Point Shot|% of Shots| |garbage time|>=0% and <2%|>=0% and <3%|15.5%| |normal basketball|>=2% and <7%|>=3% and <11%|75.7%| |Clutch situations|>=7% and <18%|>=11% and <32%|7.9%| |Clutch squared|>=18%|>=32%|0.9%|
The main stats I’ll be looking at are:
Clutch FG WPA: Win Probability Added due to clutch shooting (makes and misses)
Total Clutch %: eFG% on all clutch shots
Clutch% vs Normal%: eFG% on Clutch shots minus eFG% on Normal shots
Clutch shot attempts/game
% of team clutch shots taken by player (% Tm Clutch)
Clutch2 (clutch squared): Clutch shots that are in the top 1% of potential win probability added
Here are my top 3 for each season with numbers I thought were especially impressive in bold. You can also take an interactive look at these numbers on a career and single season basis using this report.
1997
1998
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018-2024 and Other notable seasons in comments.
Top 3 appearances
1. LeBron James (6)
2. Stephen Curry (5)
3. Damian Lillard (4)
4. Kobe Bryant (4)
5. Ray Allen (4)
6. Steve Nash (3)
7. DeMar DeRozan (3)
8. Shaquille O’Neal (3)
9. Giannis Antetokounmpo (3)
10. Anthony Davis (2)
11. James Harden (2)
12. Jason Terry (2)
13. Kevin Durant (2)
14. Shawn Marion (2)
15. Nikola Jokic (2)
16. Paul Pierce (2)
17. Dirk Nowitzki (2)
18. Kevin Garnett (2)
19. Manu Ginobili (2)
Any qualms with my picks? Anything else you’re interested in seeing?
Yeah his percentages are the most consistently great. I will say, it’s on not very many attempts and most of the actual attempts are dunks and layups. It’s not usually what you think of when you think of a clutch player.