Kobe Bryant only needed 13 shots today to break the all time record for most missed shots in NBA history.
Miss No. 13 came on Tuesday night against the Memphis Grizzlies when the 19-year veteran Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard launched this jumper:
https://vine.co/v/OiDMdbAWbPF
Per SBNation, here's the leaderboard for missed shots all time:
1. Kobe Bryant, 13,418 (and counting)
2. John Havlicek, 13,417
3. Elvin Hayes, 13,296
4. Karl Malone, 12,682
5. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 12,470
6. Michael Jordan, 12,345
Kobe has been so good at missing shots during his career, that if you just take his misses, he'll rank 88th all time for the most shots attempted in NBA history.
In all seriousness, though, this shouldn't truly define the Black Mamba's career though he is known for being quite the chucker.
SBNation gives a nice view on the manner, as well as showing who can contend for the record:
And Kobe is a different type of player than the ones in his stratus of field goal attempts. Kareem and Malone were big men who shot high percentages around the hoop. Havlicek played before the three-point shot. Jordan took threes, but never made it a major part of his game.
Kobe has taken nearly 5,000 threes. And he still shot a better percentage overall from the field than Havlicek, who only played 16 seasons and had no incentive to take the 25-footers Kobe regularly hits.
Kobe should hold onto this record for a long time. There's no active player in Kobe's vicinity. Vince Carter is in second place amongst active players, with 11,655 misses. Even if Kobe stopped playing now, we doubt Vince will play long enough with a large enough role to hit Kobe's current mark. Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen all have between 10,000 and 11,000 misses and are also all in the twilight of their careers.
I know what you're wondering: Could LeBron catch Kobe? It seems possible. In LeBron's 12th year in the league, he's missed 8,492 shots. Entering this year, he'd missed an average of 767 shots per year. If he keeps up that pace for another seven years without major injuries -- seems possible, right? -- he'd catch Kobe's current mark. That said, LeBron has somehow managed to raise his field goal percentage every year he's been in the league besides one to the point that he shot an incredible 56.7 percent last year, so his missing rate has gone down.
Carmelo Anthony is also a contender -- he's missed 8,565 shots int he same amount of time as LeBron, and is only a year older. So if he keeps up his pace, he'd catch Kobe too, although we find it harder to imagine a 40-year-old Melo convincing somebody to give him 20 shots a game than LeBron.
That said, whether somebody catches Kobe is up to Kobe. Kobe isn't done chucking. He currently leads the NBA in field goal attempts as he attempts to carry the Los Angeles Lakers on his back. His contract runs through next year, and rumors are he may be interested in playing past that. We could see him hit 15,000 misses in his career.
When Kobe retires, we'll talk about all his incredible accomplishments -- his five rings, his 81-point game, his legacy with the Lakers.
We won't talk about his miss record. But in an odd way, it tells us more about Kobe's wonderful career than anything else about Kobe.
Well said.
