Everybody knows that size matters in the NBA. Short guys are often overlooked because their scoring almost never makes up for the extreme size disadvantage that makes effective defense an impossibility. You know this is a real issue for short guys because I myself am 5’9″ (roughly) and my defense is awful. The blame falls squarely on my height and not my extreme skinniness (my BMI is in the mid teens) or my poor instincts (the only coach I ever had was NBA 2K).
Since 2000, there have only been 7 players who played actual NBA game minutes while being 5’9″ or shorter:
-Isaiah Thomas
-Nate Robinson
-Muggsy Bogues (who knew he was still playing at age 36?)
-Earl Boykins
-Chris Clemons
-Kay Felder
-Yuta Tabuse
There are some success stories on that list (Isaiah Thomas was legit an MVP candidate for a season there) and some not-success stories (Yuta Tabuse: the original meme Japanese player). It’s hard to say whether Chris Clemons, the focus of today’s bucketilation upload, is a success story or not. In some sense, just making an NBA roster at all while being a midget (relatively speaking) is a success story. Scoring twenty points per 36 minutes is a success story. Getting only nine minutes per game in 29 games, on the other hand, is not a success story.
Clemons led the NCAA in scoring his senior year, dropping 30 PPG for a college called “Campbell”, which I’ve never heard of but could very well be located in Pennsylvania or Guam. On the surface, that would seem to point to a high likelihood of an effective NBA career, except for the fact that bigtime NCAA scorers don’t always translate. Remember Erick Green? You don’t, but he scored 25 PPG for Virginia Tech and then barely sniffed the NBA. A guy named Marcus Keene scored 30 PPG for Central Michigan (I’ve also never heard of that college, but I bet it’s in Michigan) and he found himself in China after his college career ended. Some dude named Mike Daum dominated the Summit conference for four years at South Dakota State (shades of Nate Wolters) and went on to play in Spain. Another guy on our list of shorties, Kay Felder, scored 24 PPG for Oakland (I looked this one up and it’s in Michigan…so is Central Michigan college actually in the Bay Area, then?) and only just managed to latch on to the scraggly scrotum hairs of some cruddy NBA rosters before falling off. Tyler Haws, who was a real life Mormon (mission trips and all), was top five in NCAA scoring for three straight seasons, but I don’t think he even got an NBA camp invite. I would have heard about somebody like him getting a camp invite because everybody would have been screaming “Jimmer 2.0”.
There’s a trend here. Big scorers at little schools are not guaranteed to even play in the NBA, much less establish themselves. Especially when the “big” scorer is actually a “little” scorer.
All that being said, Chris Clemons showed some stuff in the NBA. His three-point shot was wet and if there were any concerns about him having NBA range, well, just check out where he’s bombing from in this video. Damian Lillard would be proud. We also get some crafty finishes at the rim (us short guys know what it takes to make layups when surrounded by giants [except I don’t actually know because I have no finishing ability even when playing against people my size]). Hell, he even caught an alley-oop, so he’s got hops to go with his sweet shooting stroke. I feel like all those things add up to a player who should be able to stick where other short guys weren’t able to.
And if he doesn’t stick, well, there are teams in China that are looking for their next American-born 50 PPG scorer.