Was Kobe Bryant the Most Clutch Player of his Era?

Credit: Keith Allison - Flickr

 
When I see things like "Kobe Bryant is the Most Clutch Player Ever", I get an itch in the back of my brain and feel compelled to dig deeper.  SO, here you can find the most "clutch" player each year spanning from 1996 to 2016 (every year Bryant played).  How exactly is this measured, you ask.  Terrific question!  I simply used nba.com's Clutch filter (last 5 minutes of a game, point differential of 5 or less) and the Player Impact Estimator.  Without further ado..


The most clutch NBA player per year by PIE (min. 30 instances)

  • 1996 - grant hill
  • 1997 - david robinson
  • 1998 - jason kidd
  • 1999 - kevin garnett
  • 2000 - kobe bryant
  • 2001 - ray allen
  • 2002 - kevin garnett
  • 2003 - carlos boozer
  • 2004 - jason kidd
  • 2005 - dirk nowitzki
  • 2006 - dirk nowitzki
  • 2007 - lebron james
  • 2008 - lebron james
  • 2009 - lebron james
  • 2010 - kevin durant
  • 2011 - lebron james
  • 2012 - lebron james
  • 2013 - james harden
  • 2014 - anthony davis
  • 2015 - reggie jackson
  • 2016 - russell westbrook

Summation:
Though Kobe did show up on this list (once), he by no means dominated it.  There is MAYBE an argument to be made that he is the 2nd most clutch player during these years (he showed up 2nd or 3rd a couple times), but he's got nothing on LeBron during this stretch.

Leaders:  

LeBron James - 5x
Dirk Nowitzki - 2x
Kevin Garnett - 2x
Jason Kidd - 2x
11 other players - 1x


UPDATE (8/25/21)

I realized that by "clutch", some people think more about the last-possession type of situation.  With that in mind, I re-ran the numbers but changed the filters so that the point differential was no more than 3 with no more than 30 seconds left.  The player's usage had to be a minimum of 30%, with a minimum of 15 instances.  These were the PIE leaders, per year.


  • 1996 - Tim Hardaway
  • 1997 - Sam Cassell
  • 1998 - Darrell Armstrong
  • 1999 - Reggie Miller
  • 2000 - Tim Hardaway
  • 2001 - Reggie Miller
  • 2002 - Chauncy Billups
  • 2003 - Vince Carter
  • 2004 - Steve Francis
  • 2005 - Chris Paul
  • 2006 - Dirk Nowitzki
  • 2007 - Manu Ginobili
  • 2008 - Deron Williams
  • 2009 - Derrick Rose
  • 2010 - Dirk Nowitzki
  • 2011 - Joe Johnson
  • 2012 - Stephen Curry
  • 2013 - Chris Paul
  • 2014 - Jeff Teague
  • 2015 - Jeff Teague
  • 2016 - Kawhi Leonard

Leaders:

Reggie Miller: x2
Tim Hardaway: x2
Chris Paul: x2
Dirk Nowitzki: x2
Jeff Teague: x2 (?!)

To me, the most interesting takeaway from these numbers is the lack of LeBron.  It's clear that he dominates the end of games, but interesting to note that not necessarily the last possession.  Which begs the question...

Time winding down...if you could have any player in their prime, who would you want with the ball?

Jeff Teague is obviously the only answer.

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