James Harden and the NBA's Most Explosive Bench Scorers

Who are the most explosive bench scorers in the NBA? For that matter, how do you determine the most explosive bench scorers in the NBA?

There are three components to the question that need to be considered.

Obviously, the most crucial part is scoring. These aren't the most explosive players but the most explosive scorers. Some players might be explosive and great off the bench, but not scorers.

Second, it has to come from off the bench.

Some would remove the distinction between players who "start" and players who play "starter's minutes." I'm not worried about that. Players who don't start but play heavy minutes are doing it for a reason, and a lot of the time it's because they are explosive scorers who bring their scoring dynamic to the bench.

Third, they have to be explosive (i.e., produce points quickly).

Thus, to determine the most explosive bench scorers, I took the players who averaged at least 10 points per game off the bench and ranked them according to their scoring per 36 minutes, thereby satisfying all three of the aforementioned components.

I did not include data from starts. If a player had starts, all the stats from those starts were excluded. I'm only looking at their production off the bench. I used 10 points per game as a filter to establish that they were actually "scorers," and I used per 36 minute numbers to measure explosiveness.

Here are the 10 most explosive bench players in the NBA.

10. Manu Ginobili, 17.4

Manu Ginobili is one of the most versatile and underrated players in the game today. He plays both sides of the court at an All-Star level, and he's equally as effective starting or coming off the bench. His willingness to morph his game to any role asked of him is just another reason why the Spurs are competing for the NBA's best record.

In terms of his scoring, Ginobili is one millisecond from scoring at any given moment in time. He's so quick and unorthodox that, at any moment, he could go off with some crazy, borderline supernatural play that has you reaching for the remote to rewind the DVR.

Ginobili isn't just one of the most explosive bench players in the NBA. He's one of the most entertaining as well.

9. Jamal Crawford, 18.2

Crawford is having his worst season in years with the Portland Trail Blazers. Whether he bears blame for Portland's collapse or vice versa is a matter for debate elsewhere, though.

Crawford's placement here is mostly a matter of his volume scoring.

He shoots only 37.1 percent coming off the bench, which is the second-worst of any player with at least 500 field-goal attempts. But what Crawford lacks in quality he makes up for in quantity; he averages 16.7 field-goal attempts per 36 minutes—fifth-most among bench players in the NBA.

Before you ask why he's on this list, remember two things.

First, these are just objective rankings. He's on the list because he scores the ninth-most points per 36 minutes among all bench players who average 10 points per game.

Second, remember that this is a list of the most explosive scorers—not the most efficient scorers. The two don't have to be the same.

In Crawford's case, they assuredly are not.

8. Nick Young, 18.3

Nick Young's production has fallen off a bit since he was traded to the Los Angeles Clippers, but it's still enough to keep him in the top 10 most explosive bench scorers in the league.

What's more surprising than anything is not just that Young's scoring is down, but that his percentages are also down. While with the Wizards, Young shot 40.6 percent from the field and 35.1 percent from the arc. In Los Angeles he's been shooting 36.3 percent from the field and 29.2 from deep.

I expected those percentages to go up with Chris Paul distributing Young the ball. The Clippers' team field-goal percentage is 6.6 percent higher when Paul is on the court because he does such a great job of creating open shots for his teammates.

I thought maybe it was because he's coming off the bench, but that's not the case. Strangely enough, Young shoots eight percent better while Paul is on the bench. It may just be a matter of working out some chemistry between the two.

7. Gerald Green, 18.6

Gerald Green has been going ballistic for the New Jersey Nets since getting picked up from the D-League in February. In spite of the fact that he didn't play an NBA game this season until after the All-Star break, Green is 50th in total points off the bench.

His 12.5 points per game is 12th-best in the NBA in terms of bench scoring, and his 18.6 points per 36 minutes is seventh-best. Green is probably going to surprise some people being on this list, but he has earned his spot.

6. Michael Beasley, 18.9

Derrick Williams has started to eat into Michael Beasley's minutes, but Beasley has been scoring at roughly the same rate as he was before.

It will be interesting to see what happens to Beasley next year. He's a real scorer, but he has a lot of holes in his game elsewhere. He tends to take a lot of bad shots, and he makes mental mistakes.

Having said that, Beasley does score. This year, he has also improved his three-point shooting, hitting on 42.5 percent of his shots from deep.

Certainly there will be a lot of interest in Beasley, but how much is he worth? He's going to be a tough player to assess in terms of value.

5. Leandro Barbosa, 19.0

Leandro Barbosa is one of those players who isn't just explosive—he makes his team more explosive too. Barbosa is one of those guys who makes other players look like they're in slow motion or, even worse, stuck in cement. He darts around and just generally creates havoc for defenses.

Before he came to Indiana, the Pacers were averaging 95 points per game. Since Barbosa's arrival, they've been averaging 102 points per game. He has made them a much better offensive team, even if he's just playing 18 minutes per game.

4. Al Harrington, 19.0

Al Harrington is perhaps the most overlooked player in the Sixth Man of the Year talk.

Only two players have scored more points off the bench than Harrington: Louis Williams and James Harden.

Only one player, Udonis Haslem, has more rebounds in relief.

Perhaps it's because Harrington is not playing for a contender. Maybe it's that he's not playing in a major market.

More than likely it's that he's not doing either.

However, that doesn't make his production any less real. It's time to show Harrington some love.

3. Jordan Crawford, 19.3

I know what you're thinking—exactly what I was thinking when I sorted the data in my Excel spreadsheet.

Jordan Crawford?!

So why is he so high?

Because Crawford averages 19.3 points per 36 minutes, and again, these rankings are entirely objective.

Yeah, I know, stats don't mean everything, but Crawford scores 19.3 points per 36 minutes, and that counts for exactly how much it counts for.

Admittedly, much like his namesake Jamal (though no relation) it's a lot about volume shooting. In fact, it's all about volume shooting. No player takes more shots per 36 minutes off the bench than Jordan Crawford, who jacks up 17.7 shots per 36 minutes.

It just so happens that some of those go in.

There is no truth to the rumor of him saying if that were true he would eat his shirt, though.

2. James Harden, 19.3

James Harden is the leading scorer off the bench, but he's not the leading scorer per minute.

That's all right; he's going to win the Sixth Man of the Year award anyway.

If you want to know the difference between a truly amazing shooter and a truly voluminous shooter, compare Harden to Jordan Crawford, who both score 19.3 points per 36 minutes.

To acquire his points, Crawford takes 17.7 shots per 36 minutes; Harden takes 11.5 shots to get the same number of points.

Once again, though, it's most explosive, not most efficient. Neither Crawford nor Louis Williams, who is ahead of Harden on this list, is on the same planet as Harden when it comes to efficiency.

1. Louis Williams, 21.0

Louis Williams is at the top of the list, and before everyone dumps on him, let me point out something.

Williams has the highest point total per 36 minutes of any bench player in the NBA, which is why he's here. Williams is also the leading scorer on his team in terms of total points, points per game and points per 36 minutes.

Plus, he does this on a team without any truly "great" scorers.

So, while Harden has both Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant to divert attention from him, Williams doesn't really have that luxury.

Of course, the flip side of that is that Williams has the luxury of being able to take more shots, so it does kind of work both ways.

But my point here is, rather than just freak out and put down Williams, why not appreciate him a little bit? He's the most explosive bench scorer in the NBA statistically. There's something to be appreciated about that.