Who Should Take The Last Shot? LeBron vs. Wade vs. Dirk

Great timing. This postseason has been something of a reincarnation for Dirk Nowitzki, and last night he did his best to rip up the biggest stereotypes the basketball world has used again him in his career: shrinking in big moments and not being tough. Dallas’ comeback wasn’t possible without Dirk’s lefty layup on a torn tendon with three seconds left.

Still, let’s not forget what LeBron did this season, starting summer for two championship-caliber teams in Boston and Chicago while his teammate Dwyane Wade might be the best one-on-one player in the league. All three have characteristics that make them perfect candidates for this argument. All three have game-winners under their belts.

So with one possession for the game, who would you want taking the shot? LeBron or D-Wade or Dirk? We argue. You decide.

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LeBron James

Who could you possibly want taking the last shot in a game instead of LeBron James? LeBron haters all over the globe argue that he isn’t clutch. Yet, they have little to no proof to support their argument. As a LeBron fan, my biggest pet peeve is hearing someone say, “LeBron isn’t a clutch player.” If you ask me, it’s pure blasphemy. Whenever someone says LeBron isn’t clutch, they usually give poor examples of regular season misses that have very little meaning. But somehow, they catch amnesia, and forget all about the takeover in Detroit and the shot in Orlando (both were in the Eastern Conference Finals).

Typical Kobe fans are subject to this ignorance. They always want to credit Kobe by saying, “He had the most game-winners last season.” That’s great and everything, but frankly, Kobe & the Lakers put themselves in position where the game-winner is needed way too often. In Cleveland, LeBron kind of got used to riding the pine in the fourth quarter. Just because he never really had opportunities to hit game-winners during the regular season doesn’t mean he isn’t clutch.

In the regular season, a win is a win and a loss is a loss, regardless of the point differential. It’s not the end of the world if you lose a regular season game because it’s only one game. Every time LeBron misses a game-winner during the regular season, everyone wants to criticize him for not being clutch. Yet in the playoffs, when the stakes are raised and every game is important, LeBron has never let his team down at the end of a game. In fact, he’s always risen to the occasion. This past season for the Heat, LeBron was put in several game-winning situations and came up short most of those times. Being on a new team, he wasn’t able to sit those fourth quarters like he used to. Miami played a lot of close games, and LeBron was called upon for the game-winner in most of those opportunities (which was somewhat new to him). However once playoff time came, a new monster was unleashed.

What makes LeBron so great is that when he has the ball at the end of games, you have no idea what he’s going to do. His defender is usually a step back of arms length, just to make sure that if he chooses to go off the dribble, they can attempt to keep up. This leaves him with the opportunity to pull up for an open jumper any time he pleases. When LeBron has the ball with the clock ticking to the buzzer, the uncertainty of his defender makes him more of a dangerous option than any other player in the league.

Now that that’s understood, it’s clear to see that it’s easier for LeBron James to get one basket than it is for any other player in the league. He always has the option of either going to the basket for a layup against a smaller defender, or getting the bigger/slower defender off-balance and pulling up for the J. With all that said, I’ve yet to mention that his combination of size, speed and pure basketball talent are unique to any player that’s ever touched the hardwood. If you ask me who I want taking the last shot, it’s a no-brainer.
-JAIMIE CANTERBURY

Dwyane Wade

Let me get a few things straight. This argument isn’t about “clutch” stats. It’s not about creating in the final five minutes of a close game. It’s about one possession. And it isn’t about LeBron or Dirk. It’s Dwyane Wade. Flash. D-Wade. The most overlooked one-on-one player in the NBA. The one guy in the league who can get to the rim whenever he pleases. The one guy in the league that can make Boston’s playoff bulldog defense look like Silly Putty.

Why is Wade the guy I want to have the ball? He’s really the only one I completely trust. He can hit shots. He can pull-up from midrange. He can get all the way to the rim, and can finish as well as anyone in the league. He also makes free throws and has the same killer instinct West, Jordan and Kobe had.

You’re down one with 10 seconds left. Quick, race through three scenarios. The first features a down screen for your small forward. He catches and holds. And holds. Then with about three seconds left, he takes a dribble or two to one side and lofts up an unbalanced jumper. It clanks off the back rim. The second scenario, you run a screen-and-roll at the top of the key before lofting the ball back to your seven-foot, jump-shooting German. He goes right, spins back and is about to put up a J. Too bad he’s double-teamed because the defense knew exactly what was coming and cut him off from the blind side.

Then, there’s the last scenario. Get it to your two guard, the former Finals MVP and the man with perhaps the greatest Finals individual showcase ever. He faces up, catches his rhythm with the dribble. Then from here, he…well he can step back, he can get all the way to rim and draw contact, he can pump fake, he can split a double-team, he can just pull-up…Point is that he has options. With the game on the line, I want the player with options.

Need examples? His game-winning three-point runner in 2009 against Chicago came off his defense. He used a crossover to get into his buzzer-beating three against New Jersey in 2009. He used a pump fake on his jumper to once beat Utah at the end. Or how about the time he wetted a J off his step-back in the Garden? Wade’s been a killer since his first playoff series, when he nearly dropped Baron Davis with a pull-back dribble, hitting a floater in the lane. Nearly every one of his game-winners is a different type of shot, a headache for any defense.

Finally, Wade is a monster on the pick-n-roll and his unique use of it (he goes away from the screen 25% of the time, the third-highest number in the whole league).

Plus, according to NBA.com’s StatsCube, during the regular season, over 51% of Wade’s end-game shots came at the rim or in the paint. For Nowitzki, that same number was barely 30% while the German shot a ridiculous 58% of his clutch shots from mid-range. And whereas LeBron took nearly the same percentage at the rim as Wade did, his mid-range frequency was less. Dirk is a jump shooter; LeBron either gets all the way to the rim or pulls up from three. Wade can do both, but has the mid-range game to complete his arsenal. In the playoffs, with advanced scouting reports, that’s so important.

Dirk has been the surprise of this playoff run. LeBron is redeeming his legacy. For those reasons, people have forgotten about D-Wade.

If I have one shot at a basket, I’m going with the guy who not only has proven it at the highest level, but has the most complete and unpredictable offensive game.
-SEAN SWEENEY

Dirk Nowitzki

Judging a player’s ability to put the ball in the hoop during a close game’s final seconds comes down to two things: How versatile a player is in a pure scoring sense, and how easily can that player get a shot off, especially if good defense is being played against him.

When it comes down to this year’s NBA Finals and its three superstars, Dirk Nowitzki holds the advantage simply because he can get a shot off over anyone at any time. He’s 7-feet tall for goodness sake. Plus, between LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Nowitzki, there’s no doubt the German is the best pure shooter of the three.

I know what you’re saying: James can blow by a defender and get to the rim or, like we’ve seen time and time again this postseason, he’ll fire a jumper with a defender in his grill and hit the bottom of the cup anyway. And Wade? He won the Finals MVP for good reason in 2006, leading the Miami Heat back from a 0-2 series deficit.

But out of the three superstars in the Finals, it’s Dirk who has the most trustworthy jump shot. According to HoopData.com, Nowitzki holds the best 2011 true shooting percentage out of the three (61.2%) with James coming in at second (59.4%) and Wade at third (58.1%). Dirk also has the ability to get to the basket to score or draw fouls, taking 155 free throws this postseason – that’s eight more than Wade and 13 more than James – and making a whopping 94 percent of them.

If James is guarding Nowitzki in crunch time and limiting the German to the perimeter, that’s not a problem either. Nowitzki has also proved to be unguardable outside the paint because of his body control and patented one-footed jump shot. That can earn him a clean look, even against LeBron’s solid defense.

While we won’t forget last night, if you doubt Nowitzki based on past playoff performances, don’t think that trend will continue either.

While his go-ahead three-pointer with 1:14 left in Game 5 of the West Finals came as Oklahoma City’s defense was scrambled and out of position, it’s a single moment that goes to show that this matured Nowitzki will do anything to avoid any more collapses by his team. If Dirk is anything at this juncture in his career, it’s driven.

“We’ve got one of those trophies already,” Nowitzki told the Associated Press after clinching a trip to the NBA Finals. “This is nice for a day, but we set our goals in October to win it all. We haven’t done it yet.”

He wants to take the last shot of the game, and the percentages say there’s a good chance he’ll make it.
-KEVIN ZIMMERMAN