Steph Curry has never hesitated to attempt an impossible shot. For his career, he’s put up 110 last-second heaves at the end of the quarter, making six, but the Baby-Faced Assassin still shoots them, unconcerned about the damage to his shooting percentage. Now, the NBA is changing their scorekeeping rules to reward boldness and shame some of the NBA’s most cowardly end-of-quarter shooters into actually trying to score.
A “heave” is a shot that a player releases from beyond half-court with three or fewer seconds on the clock, at the end of the first three quarters. There are some players who don’t hesitate to put up those long-range, low-percentage shots — three-time MVP Nikola Jokic led the NBA with 22 heaves last season, making two — but there are far more who pass up the shots, or intentionally release the ball a millisecond after the buzzer, saving themselves a miss. As Golden State Warriors fans know, Steph Curry is not one of those players.
It doesn’t make a huge difference in Curry’s career three-point percentage if you retroactively apply the new rule to his career. He goes from 42.3% for his career to 42.8%, which is both a testament to his relative success on heaves and his incredible three-point volume.
We want to praise those heroes who didn’t shy away from prayers. Kobe Bryant attempted 54 heaves in his career and only made one. New Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony never made a heave but he attempted 45 of them. Vince Carter went 2-for-52 and was still willing to attempt three heaves at age 42, the ultimate team player. J.R. Smith attempted 57 career heaves, an impressive number for a player who only started 40% of the time. Ricky Davis took 37 heaves in 736 career games and truly believed every one of them was going in (He made one).
But we also want to shame those cowardly stars who let the clock expire, passing up a chance at points to preserve their stats. As a colleague of mine instructed, paraphrasing Real Housewife of Beverly Hills legend Sutton Stracke, “Name ‘em!”
NBA Buzzer-Beater Cowards
James Harden: 18 heaves in 16 NBA seasons. He loves taking tons of shots, on the court or at a strip club, but not if it will hurt his percentages.
Russell Westbrook: 16 heaves in 17 seasons. And that was mostly before people started disrespecting his family by calling him “Westbrick.”
Kevin Durant: 9 heaves in 17 seasons. KD led the NBA in field-goal attempts in the 2009-10 and 2013-14 seasons. In each of those seasons, he attempted only a single buzzer-beating heave. I will probably be hearing from him about this on Twitter.
Kyrie Irving: 17 heaves in 14 seasons. We’re assuming he saw a YouTube video that explained that heaves were part of a Deep State conspiracy to lower players’ numbers. Or, just like with vaccines, Irving just avoids shots he believes are unnecessary.
Dirk Nowitzki: 22 heaves in 21 seasons. Nowitzki is 8th in field goal attempts on the all-time list. The German word for coward is “feigling.”
LeBron James: Early in his career, King James wouldn’t hesitate to put up a desperation shot, logging 31 heaves in his first 8 seasons. But since his first year with the Miami Heat, James has exercised his royal prerogative to let the shot clock expire and put up only six heaves in 14 seasons. He’s taking his talents to the box score!
The new rule should encourage many players to start attempting shots they’d normally eschew since it’s now a safe bet statistically, but at least one NBA observer hates that the guideline provides an amnesty for risk-averse stat-padders.
Zach Lowe is right. We should lionize Steph Curry even more than we already do at Golden State of Mind. And also Jordan Poole, who is well on his way to legendary heaver status with 23 in his short career, especially impressive since he played with Curry. Though this is not technically a heave, why not conclude this article by enjoying Poole going deep — thought not heave-deep — on the Memphis Grizzlies in 2022.
