For most players, what you see in highlights and the totality of what actually happens during the games are two very different things. No one ever showed you all the countless shots that Allen Iverson bricked over his career; you had to seek that forbidden footage out for yourself, or be content with consuming endless reels of him crossing people up and making swaggy jumpers.
But for Brandon Clarke, what you see in his videos is fairly close to reality. Closer than almost any other player besides, like, Rudy Gobert. Because Clarke basically NEVER misses. You can watch entire Grizzlies games where he literally does not miss a shot, or maybe you’ll get lucky and catch him missing one or two. He’s fifth in the league in field goal percentage, second in effective field goal percentage (which is apparently different), and first in true shooting percentage (again, another different stat for what seems to be the same concept). He makes shots, and he makes his fair share of threes (shooting 50 percent before this game) and free throws. He makes everything. If it involves directing the ball into the hole, he can do it.
And those league rankings in efficiency are from before tonight, who knows where he is now after going a cool 13-for-19 and 1-for-1 from the line. It goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway in case your perspective is distorted by the James Hardenses and Giannis Antetokounmpos of the world: 13 buckets is a LOT of buckets. It’s especially a lot of buckets for a rookie, and even more especially a lot of buckets for a rookie drafted in the late first round.
And it’s not like he’s just getting easy dunks around the rim and doing nothing else. He has FINESSE. He has TOUCH. His floater game (as disgusting as it is for a bigman to be shooting floaters) is second-to-none. He can shoot all sorts of jumpers, and he can finish in a variety of ways. He’s too good. Just too god-damn good.