How do you low-key miss 35 shots in a row as a professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association? This is the story of Kevin Burleson.
Kevin Burleson (KB) played one year of NBA ball with the Charlotte Bobcats during the 2005-06 season. He came off the bench in all but one of his 39 active games averaging 8 minutes and 42 seconds of playing time and 2.3 shots per game. This comes to a total of 88 career shot attempts of which 35 in a row somehow failed to splash nylon. This is simply absurd. If we assume Burleson’s true field goal percentage is a league average 45%, the odds of him missing 35 shots in a row in 88 attempts by chance is precisely 0.000004 percent; or 22,641,861:1. This is roughly 730 times LESS likely than getting a royal flush in a single hand of Texas Hold-em.
Listen, you can’t even go to LA Fitness and see 35 missed shots in a row. You probably think with odds like this the reality is that KB just wasn’t good at basketball.
But was he really this bad? I mean, there’s no way an NBA team whiffs this hard on a prospect, right? In looking back at his college career at Minnesota, Burleson averaged 37% from the field over his four years, which is not great, but also not Michael Scott territory, so it appears this poor NBA hopeful really did just hit the Powerfailball before he had a chance to establish himself as a pro. To put some perspective on how rare missing 35 consecutive shots in the NBA is, think about this: Shaquille O’Neal – the NBA’s most renowned bad free throw shooter – only missed 12 consecutive free throws across his career (at least since my data goes back to 1996). A lesser renowned, but way worse free throw shooter, Ben Wallace, only ever managed to miss 13 free throws in a row.
At this point, you probably don’t even believe someone could miss 35 consecutive shots in a single game: and you’d be right. My play-by-play data only goes back to the 1996-97 season and Allen Iverson holds this record at 18 consecutive misses. But Burleson didn’t achieve this historic feat in one game. He didn’t just have an off night; he had an off 18 nights. Over a stretch of 32 Charlotte Bobcat games from January 14th to March 21st, Burleson was active and stepped on the court in 18 to miss all 31 shots he took. Add his final two shots from the game prior and first two shots the game after this 18-game streak to make 35 total misses in a row, including exactly six missed lay-ups. And nobody ever noticed.
Let’s graph out how this all went down:
Graph Notes: green = made shot; red = missed shot (ex: KB went 1/6 in game 0); blank = DNP
Here we have all 32 Charlotte Bobcat games in which Burleson’s streak occurred. The green portion on the first bar on the left illustrates the lay-up he sunk before missing his final two shots of the game to start the streak. Any missing bar means he did not play that game and games he played but didn’t shoot are marked as such. Finally, we see the game ending the spell (right-most bar) in which he missed his first two shots before ending his 35 shot misery by boldly shooting and miraculously draining a deep 1-foot layup.
Any decent graph should tell a story and I see quite the tale in the above simple graph of bars. Allow me a moment to paint my take on how I feel this all went down:
- After missing two shots in game 1 and 2, coach decided six missed shots in a row might be remedied from a needed game 3 off.
- This didn’t help as KB missed his only attempt in each of the next three games before coach Bernie Bickerstaff – yes, Bernie Bickerstaff, threw caution to the wind and allowed KB two attempts in game 7 and 8 of the streak.
- After just one attempt in game 9, KB went on a bender with a rare four attempt effort in game 10.
- This didn’t work either, so KB gave up hope and played in game 11 without attempting a shot. Coach Bickerstaff didn’t appreciate the lack of effort so KB was benched in game 12 as punishment. But KB defied coach Bickerstaff in game 13 by again taking zero field goal attempts.
- This led to a another predictable benching in game 14. At this point, Bickerstaff and KB had a heart-to-heart to work out their beef. Whatever that conversation entailed, it led coach double-B to put his full trust in KB by rewarding him with his first and only NBA start of his career (game 15). He couldn’t have picked a better game to boost KB’s confidence either as they faced a pathetic Toronto Raptors team that ended the season at 25-57. With a fresh outlook and full vote of confidence from his coach, Burleson took a career-high six shots from the field and splashed the bottom of the net on exactly zero of them. The Toronto Raptors won the game.
- KB improved in game 16 by going 0-4.
- In game 28, and after an 11-game load management break, coach Bickerstaff likely forgot who Burleson even was before being immediately reminded after KB took and missed his only shot. Back to the bench he went.
- Finally, after missing two shots in game 33, the misery ended on a statement 1-foot layup ending a streak that, quite possibly, Burleson himself was entirely unaware of.
OK, enough of the fan fiction. I’m still having trouble wrapping my brain around how this is possible. Kobe Bryant shot over 30,000 shots in his career and hundreds of others chucked at least 5,000. You would think that even though players with more shots are naturally better that they would be more likely to run into bad streaks. I counted 1,490 players that shot at least 88 career shots in the NBA since 1999. This includes 4.8 million total shots. Only 88 of these shots belong to Kevin Burleson, and he’s the only one that managed to miss 35 in a row.
Listen, thinking about a professional athlete spending a majority of his free living time practicing his craft hours a day, sacrificing family, friends, blood, sweat, and tears for the chance to make it in the NBA only to run into this slight cooler and never playing NBA ball again just makes me sad. What really makes me wonder though is if Kevin Burleson is even aware himself that this ever occurred. I really hope he isn’t and I hope he never stumbles across this silly article. But if he does, I want to end this story by standing up for him and making a case that he deserved a second chance. Here me out. KB only played 340 combined minutes of NBA ball: equivalent to seven full games. And as strange as it might sound, he was fantastic at the free throw line, shooting 16/17 in his… “career” – a higher percentage than even Ray Allen. And if we remove his 35-consecutive missed shots, KB maintained a 41 percent average from the field before the streak started and a league average 45 percent after.
I really do believe in my heart of hearts that Kevin Burleson deserved another chance in the NBA. It could happen too. As of June, 2020, Bernie Bickerstaff is currently working as an executive for the Cleveland Cavaliers and they’ve been a bottom feeder ever since LeBron’s departure. Why not take a flyer on the guy and give him a second chance? Who cares if he’s 41? Maybe Burleson just needed 14 years’ worth of load management to recover from unloading brick after brick after benching after brick.
So pick up the phone and make something happen coach double-B! Besides, if Burleson can be counted on for something, that call has a 0/35 chance of dropping.
Proof I’m not full of shit
Here’s a link to prove the veracity of this story. KB went 1/6 in this game and if you look at the box score for the next 32 games, you’ll see him either not play or miss all his shots until game 33 after two missed shots to start the game:
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200601130CHA.html
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