Russell Westbrook, DeMarcus Cousins Headline B/R's 2015-16 All-Choke Artist Team
Hearts pound, sweat pours out in buckets and hands shake during the final moments of tightly contested NBA games. Some players skillfully suppress nerves and produce when it matters most.
Others do not.
We have a name for these jumper-missing, ball-fumbling, poor-defending athletes: choke artists. They're costing their coaches sleep, their teams wins and their fans heartache.
And these are not scrubs. Players who fail to produce in normal situations and continue providing negative value in the clutch aren't relevant here.
We're eyeing the typical studs who fade away at the end of close contests.
Point Guard: Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder
As fantastic as Russell Westbrook has been while racking up triple-doubles and leading the Oklahoma City Thunder to one of the Western Conference's best records, his woes in clutch situations have prevented his squad from winning a few games. The Thunder have a significant crunch-time problem, and the point guard's inexplicably poor shooting is a primary culprit.
During the last five minutes of contests separated by no more than five points, Westbrook is averaging 28.8 points, 9.3 rebounds and 7.5 assists per 36 minutes, as shown by NBA.com's statistical databases. That sounds great until you realize the production is accompanied by 4.8 turnovers and horrific shooting percentages:
This isn't the result of a prohibitively small sample.
Even during that final situation, in which the Thunder are ahead or behind by no more than three points in the final minute of a game, Westbrook has logged 25 minutes and has taken 23 shots. He's made only eight of them—the result of an entirely predictable mentality.
With the game on the line, we know he's going to shoot. He loves nothing more than attacking the basket with ferocity, but his attempts to draw contact or create easy opportunities around the rim allow defenses to compress around him and deter his shots.
Unfortunately for the Thunder, he's also prone to pulling up for ill-advised jumpers.
Take a March 2 game against the Los Angeles Clippers as an example. After the Thunder finally stopped the L.A. offense and had the ball down three points with 12 seconds left, Westbrook drove toward the left wing and launched a running, leaning triple in the face of two defenders with just over eight seconds remaining. It found nothing but backboard, leaving everyone wondering why he didn't use the extra time to seek out a better shot.
Is it any wonder that, as Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes recently explained, the Thunder basically stop passing in clutch situations?
"Through March 8, only 41.5 percent of the Thunder's clutch field goals came via assists—the league's fifth-lowest figure. That number stands out starkly against their overall assisted field-goal rate of 55.4 percent, though teams always see assist rates drop in the clutch. In addition to turnovers and some shaky defense, the Thunder's pass-free offense has been killing them in close games.
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When Westbrook plays the part of pass-first point guard, OKC has been able to stave off late collapses. That's not to say he should play that way throughout the first 43 minutes—he has been this season's second-best player, after all—but just to suggest his late-game stylings are in need of dramatic alterations.
Shooting Guard: Rodney Hood, Utah Jazz
Per NBA.com, every member of the Utah Jazz other than Joe Ingles, Raul Neto and Tibor Pleiss has produced a negative plus/minus in clutch situations, but Rodney Hood's presence has been especially unfortunate. Throughout the entire league, only four players have produced worse scores:
- Isaiah Canaan, Philadelphia 76ers: minus-82
- P.J. Tucker, Phoenix Suns: minus-78
- Robert Covington, Philadelphia 76ers: minus-78
- Gordon Hayward, Utah Jazz: minus-76
- Rodney Hood, Utah Jazz: minus-75
It shouldn't be surprising that members of the bottom-feeding Sixers and Suns are holding down the worst spots. But the Jazz have outscored their opponents by 0.9 points per 100 possessions this season, so having two key members on the above list is problematic.
Gordon Hayward deserves much of the blame for Utah's late-game struggles, but Hood has been that much worse.
In clutch situations, he's averaged 18.5 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.4 assists per 36 minutes while shooting 39.7 percent from the field and 28.6 percent from beyond the arc. Oftentimes, it seems as if the basket has shrunk to the size of a thimble while the ball simultaneously expands.
Though he's been able to reverse the narrative during a few opportune moments—most notably with a clutch trey against the Dallas Mavericks on Feb. 9 that forced overtime—it's the overall efforts that drag him down. We're not just talking about offense but rather the sheer porosity of his defense in big moments.
Utah as a whole has been a sieve during crunch time, allowing a putrid 123.2 defensive rating that beats only the Los Angeles Lakers (124.7), Philadelphia 76ers (126.9) and Phoenix Suns (129.4). Divvying out blame isn't difficult, since there's plenty to go around.
But it's telling that Hood has the worst individual defensive rating of any key player on the team.
If you want to beat the Jazz in a close game, give the ball to whomever Hood is guarding and then attempt to force him into a field-goal attempt on the other side of the floor. When that's a legitimate strategy, you know the 2-guard isn't coming up big in key situations.
Small Forward: Nicolas Batum, Charlotte Hornets
Versatile wing Nicolas Batum has enjoyed a fine season. He's shooting 41.7 percent from the field, knocking down 34.3 percent of his three-point attempts and helping his squad's net rating improve by 2.9 points when he's on the court.
Sadly, that's not holding true in crunch time.
In the last five minutes of games separated by no more than five points, Batum has taken 45 shots. He's made just 10 of them for a nauseating 22.2 field-goal percentage. And his work from beyond the arc has been even worse—4-of-27 or just 14.8 percent.
With the game on the line, the French forward's shot has dried up.
In the last two minutes of one-possession games, Batum has taken 18 shots this season. Fifteen of them were from downtown, and only two found twine. Yes, that means he's hitting 11.1 percent of his field-goal attempts and 13.3 percent of his treys in that even-more-crucial situation.
During the final minute of games with a three-point margin or less, he's gone 1-of-11 from the field. In the last 30 seconds? Just 0-of-7.
The above trend can serve as a perfect visual representation of a choke artist.
Power Forward: Pau Gasol, Chicago Bulls
The Chicago Bulls have figured out how to use Pau Gasol almost perfectly during the normal flow of the game. Head coach Fred Hoiberg knows his veteran big man possesses limited mobility, so he designs schemes that allow Gasol to cover a smaller area.
In that box, Gasol has thrived.
His defensive box plus/minus of 3.6 is the No. 7 mark in the league, trailing only Tim Duncan, Rudy Gobert, Hassan Whiteside, Draymond Green, Paul Millsap and DeAndre Jordan. ESPN.com's defensive real plus/minus also indicates that Gasol has been a top-10 defender. Chicago has even allowed 0.9 fewer points per 100 possessions when he's been on the floor.
However, that all changes in crunch time. Aggressive offensive players are attacking him with fervor, and the result is an individual defensive rating that jumps from 102.5 over the course of a game to 107.3 in clutch situations, per NBA.com.
To be fair, almost every member of the Chicago roster has been worse in those crucial defensive moments. But Gasol's rating rises disproportionately:
Tony Snell doesn't have a large enough role with the Bulls to be considered, and it's not like he's been a stud during non-clutch action, either. Doug McDermott is disqualified from contention because he's shot 50 percent from the field and 40 percent from three-point range in crunch time.
But Gasol has struggled on defense and hasn't made up for it with his typical scoring acumen. That has trended in the wrong direction too, since clutch situations have seen him average just 16.2 points per 36 minutes while knocking down a pitiful 36.5 percent of his field-goal attempts.
Center: DeMarcus Cousins, Sacramento Kings
During the 2015-16 season, DeMarcus Cousins has averaged 28.3 points, 11.8 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.4 blocks per 36 minutes. In crucial moments for the Sacramento Kings, those numbers have held steady.
When operating in the final five minutes of a close game, the big man has posted 27.7 points, 13.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.0 steals and 1.7 blocks per 36 minutes. But there's just one problem: He's been horribly inefficient, using far too many possessions to post those marks.
Cousins is turning the ball over 5.7 times per 36 minutes in the clutch, and he's also finding iron instead of the net quite often. Not only is he knocking down just 36.2 percent of his shots from the field, but he's been successful on just one of his eight three-point attempts.
At this point, we have to hold the Kings superstar to a high standard. He is, after all, one of the league's best big men, and you can make a convincing argument no center in the game is better.
But that standard is one he's simply not meeting during the biggest moments of a game.
When you're absorbing a team-high 39.3 percent of your squad's clutch offensive possessions, you have to produce far more efficiently.
Adam Fromal covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @fromal09.
All stats, unless otherwise indicated, are from Basketball-Reference.com, NBA.com or Adam's own databases and accurate through games played on March 15.
