Kobe Bryant and the 11 Best Tough Shot-Makers in the NBA

There are some players that are worth at least one "How did he do that?" shot every game. These are the ones where you glad you have the DVR age here. The two or three replays they show you in slow motion don't do them justice. 

These are the shots that are impossible to defend. 

Here are the 11 toughest shot-makers in the NBA. 

Monta Ellis

OK, yes, you can argue that Ellis is a just a "pure scorer," but one thing you can't argue with is that he sure can score. 

He's worth at least one ridiculous shot per game. The one above is almost routine for Ellis, who has an incredible ability to get the ball to the rim through traffic and make shots that shouldn't be taken. 

Chris Paul

Chris Paul is not one of the league's elite scorers, but that's just because he chooses to be the league's elite passer instead.

One thing that is amazing about Paul is how quickly he can go from getting the ball in his hand to getting it through the net from almost anywhere on the court. He couldn't even get cell phone coverage from where he hit this one, and the ball barely even passed through his hands.

Manu Ginobili

Manu Ginobili is just one of the most insane athletes in the world. Some of the things he does are just impossible.

He contorts himself in so many ways that sometimes you picture Gumby at home, going, "Now that's just ridiculous!" 

Ray Allen

Sometimes we think of tough shots as being the ridiculously athletic kind, but there's another kind of tough shot. That's the ability to make a shot while guarded. You can have Ray Allen perfectly guarded and he'll make it anyway. Witness the video above. 

How do you defend that fadeaway? You just don't.

Dwyane Wade

Dwyane Wade doesn't have great three-point range, but pretty much anywhere from 15 feet in, he's utterly lethal. His combination of speed and jumping ability makes him one of the hardest players to guard in the NBA. Even when you have him guarded, he finds a way to get the shot to go in. 

Derrick Rose

When Derrick Rose decides to get to the rim, he does. No one in the NBA has his ability to carve through traffic, and then make the shot. He makes shots that we haven't seen since the Jordan era, as evidenced by the one above. 

Really Derrick? Really? 

Jeff Van Gundy says it best: "I think on plays like this, the game should stop, and we should honor him at midcourt." 

The thing about Rose is these sorts of things happen every game.

LeBron James

I think people spend so much time harping on LeBron James' negatives that they define him almost exclusively by them. To some people, you're not allowed to acknowledge his tremendous talents because he took them to South Beach, nor can you acknowledge any of his clutch-time performances because of the NBA Finals. 

James is a player that, if he decided to lead the NBA in scoring, he would. He has the ability to get to the rim virtually at will, but he also has the ability to do things like this for those who say he has no jump shot. 

Dirk Nowitzki

How do you know you have an amazing fadeaway? When they do a Sports Science bit on it. 

Catch this at the end. If you have Yao Ming's height with Derrick Rose's vertical, you still could not block Dirk Nowitzki's shot. 

What makes Nowitzki such a tough shot-maker is that he has as close to a perfect jump shot as there will ever be and so while they don't look tough, it's because of the beauty and perfection of what he does in making the shot. 

Kevin Durant

Kevin Durant has the potential to be one of the two or three greatest offensive players in the history of the game. Durant is an amazing force with the ball. Whether the ball is in his hand or not, whether he's guarded or not, there's always the threat that he can score. 

One thing about Durant is that makes the ridiculous look easy. He's so long and so smooth that he's like a punchline on 30 Rock—about a minute after it happens, you're thinking, "Wow! That was an amazing shot."

Carmelo Anthony

Carmelo Anthony is a great offensive talent. There's probably not a basketball shot he can't make, and if there is, he's working on it. 

The most impressive thing about 'Melo is his ability to score when he's double-, triple- or quadruple-teamed. There are times where, really, he just should not be legally allowed to score, and he still finds a way. 

Anthony is surely one of the great offensive talents in the history of the game. 

Kobe Bryant

Too old, huh? Four straight 40 point games put an end to that talk. 

Kobe Bryant has worked on literally every known way there is to score, and then invented about five more. He may very well possess the best mid-range game ever.

He can get to the rim and finish with the best.

He can sink the ball from virtually anywhere on the court (when he doesn't have a torn ligament in his wrist).

He can sink the shot with virtually the other team, the bench and the coach draped around him.

Kobe is the toughest shot-maker in the NBA.