The Clippers' Bench - Historically Bad

I need to begin this piece with a retraction. In the preview for the Denver game, I included this little tidbit about Ryan Gomes' performance in Utah Wednesday night:

Gomes played 21 minutes and recorded no points, no rebounds and no assists. The only positive stat he registered was a steal (and that ball more or less just came to him). It is the only time, at least since 1946, that an NBA player has been on the floor for over 20 minutes without getting a point or a rebound.

That last little bit -- the part in italics -- not true. Not true at all, very, very not true. You might even say it is false. Many of you were flabbergasted by it and noted your disbelief in the comments section, thinking it seemed wrong or dumb or at least hyperbolic. You were right and I was wrong. But I will say that it was an honest mistake. Here's what happened.

Wednesday night after the game, I wondered to myself how many others had compiled such zero filled statistical lines, and who had done so in the most minutes. So I went to the 'Play Index' section of basketball-reference (one of my favorite things in the whole wide world to do) to check. Much to my surprise, when I looked for players with over 20 minutes of playing time to register zero points and zero rebounds, I received back no results! Now, B-R updates it's database with game data overnight, so it made sense that Gomes' game wasn't there, so the only conclusion was that his was the first in history. I even tweaked the query to look for 15 minutes or more, and sure enough there were three of those. So Gomes' game seemed to be a first.

Unfortunately, it turns out I had clicked on the wrong CATEGORY to begin with. Wednesday night, I was looking at SEASONS with zero points and zero rebounds, not individual games. Oops. That's my bad.

So apologies to Ryan, his game was not record-setting in it's lack of productivity... it was just really, really bad.

It turns out that since 85-86 (the first season for which game data is available electronically), 34 NBA players have logged 20 or more minutes, while not picking up a point, a rebound or an assist (the three most common positive stats). When you consider how many player games there have been in those 26 years, that's still some pretty elitely bad company. But here's what I didn't know before: Gomes is one of only four NBA players to have accomplished the feat TWICE. When he was with the T-Wolves in 2010, he once played 20 minutes without any positive stats -- at least he got a steal on Wednesday! (So in retrospect, maybe the front office should have seen this coming I guess.)

[Make sure you are set to Wide View in the upper right side bar to see these tables.]

The list itself is fascinating. Derek Fisher holds the record since 1985 for most minutes played without a point, rebound or assist, logging 34 invisible minutes in November 2009 -- but he did get two steals. Joel Anthony may have the distinction of having the least productive game in history, a 29 minute appearance in which he registered not a single positive stat - no points, rebounds, assists, steals or blocked shots. He didn't even attempt a shot. He did however turn the ball over once and commit four fouls, so there's that. Or maybe the worst game ever belongs to Morris Peterson, who had goose eggs for points, rebounds and assists in 25 minutes while missing seven shots!

While Gomes is in contention for the worst game ever, Brian Cook is quietly putting together what could be the worst season ever. Believe it or not, in the shot clock era (since the 54-55 season) only eight players in NBA history have shot worse than 20% while being allowed to take as many as 35 shots. That's the key, right? Usually, if you miss so many shots, coaches won't let you keep taking them. Cook is currently fourth on the list -- only one miss away from a tie for first place all time! One more 0 for 4 game like last night and he'll be all alone.

The Clippers began the season with Gomes and Cook as their first two forwards off the bench. So yeah, let's hope Kenyon Martin gets cleared to play soon.