Let’s quickly look at clutchness.
If you believe that offensive efficiency in the last five minutes with the score within five points is considered a good indicator of clutch then I have some news for you: Mo Williams is the clutchest player in the league with a rating of 129.8 in those situations.
DeMar DeRozan, on that scale is 71st with a rating of 102. Amongst shooting guards, that’s good enough for 36th in the league. Note that this only considers players who have played at least 25 games this season.
There’s also a belief that he takes too many long jumpers. Let’s examine that a little further. Below are his overall shot distributions and ones only for the the above-defined “clutch” situations, which if hearsay is to be believed, would suggest that DeRozan opts for too many springers with the game hanging in the balance.
Note that I can’t figure out how to subtract his clutch shot chart from his overall visually, but that doesn’t detract from the point. Click on the image to see the bigger version.
Overall
Clutch
What do we notice?
- He shoots more shots at the rim in clutch situations than he does otherwise
- He shoots fewer long-twos in clutch situations
- He shoots below league average in clutch situations (blue areas are above-league average)
Conclusions? None, really, except maybe that we have a distorted sense of just how many jumpers this guy takes. It’s almost like for every jumper he takes in a tight game registers as three jumpers in our minds. His overall performance in clutch situations, though, is disappointing. Lowry, by comparison, has a 104 offensive rating which is good for 61st in the league, and 30th amongst guards.
