OKC Thunder's Cason Wallace Put In A Bid For Greatest Shot (Difficulty Wise) In NBA History Last Night

Obviously, when you talk "greatest shots in NBA history", you factor in the circumstances under which the shot was hit. Zero seconds left on the clock in Game 7 of the NBA Finals carries a little more weight than a meaningless pre-season basketball game on October 9th. But if we're talking greatest shots in the sense of "most difficult to execute"... Cason Wallace put in a damn good bid last night. Not only did he catch the ball mid-air and nail a high arching shot from the wrong side of the backboard. He did it with no time left on the shot clock. No time to think. Which does ironically help a bit in that situation. Shots of that nature are always easier (and usually only attempted) when the player has nothing to lose, and you know that nobody will be upset with you for taking it because you had no other choice. Still... basketball shots don't come at a much higher level of difficulty than that. 

But sometimes they do. Going through the YouTube archives of most impressive basketball shots, as it turns out, NBA players are capable of doing some pretty impressive things. 

It can be little difficult to determine the difference between a crazy impressive shot and a "lucky shot". There are plenty of lucky shots that would objectively be "more difficult" to make. But I don't think I can count some of these. Not that Cason Wallace's shot wasn't lucky in it's own right, but he was at least trying to do what he did. As opposed to shots like this one from Milwaukee Buck's Eric Murdock in 1995. 

Or Isaiah Rider's classic ball-save-into-hoop shot from 1994.

But again, I think you have to classify those as something different. 

When you get into the world of and-ones, and add in the element of contact, you'll find a million moments like this. 

I truly despise how in basketball an offensive player can go out of his way to create contact and be rewarded for it. I know it's an accepted part of the game, but I don't like counting those either. The and-ones that occur naturally though… you could pretty easily argue that a handful of these were more impressive than Cason Wallace's shot last night.

I know I'm going to end up leaving out some obvious ones, but just for fun, here's some more shots that have to be high up the ranks of most difficult shots in NBA history. Consider this full-court inbound pass that Ja Morant caught and shot mid-air along the baseline…

About a decade ago, Trevor Booker hit a backwards tap-the-pass-over-his-head shot on a ball inbounded with .2 seconds left on the shot clock.

Any end-of-game, or even halftime buzzer beater from across half court, or with a defender in the shooter's face, or both, would have to be a contender.

This next one isn't the NBA, or even college, but remember that Blake Hoffarber kid who won the high school state championship in Minnesota on a buzzer beater from his ass? He won an ESPY for it and everything. 

So maybe Cason Wallace's shot last night doesn't quite compete for toughest shot in basketball history. I could go on posting these crazy impressive shots forever. This next video alone might have 10 better ones. 

But you know what Cason Wallace has on all those other players? Not only did Cason make an all-time difficult shot in a pre-season basketball game vs the Hornets… he is also the winningest basketball player in NBA history… percentage wise…