Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Big Shot

The book opens up with Greg reminiscing about old sports and how it has made him retire from them. He then explains about going to the gym with his father Frank but they get kicked out when Greg makes noise.

Greg's school hosts a Field Day competition for a day off but it is a disaster when teachers trade their students, students pay each other to fail, and eventually, when the janitors are put in charge of lunch, the school is forced to give everyone the day off. Greg's mom Susan urges him to give sports one more chance, and Greg reluctantly signs up for basketball. The tryouts are a mess, but Greg unexpectedly gets put on a team (made by the school's best athlete Preet Patel's dad Mr. Patel after Preet couldn't come to tryouts and making sure the kids who were cut could still play). After the season begins, Greg's team struggles through practice after practice, as their court is in very bad condition and is rented out by another club. Preet breaks his ankle during practice and is unable to play. The team's chances of winning just one game are incredibly slim. The team loses to more and more other teams and finishes the season having won no games. Susan tells Greg's coach about a "Second Chance Tournament" hosted at the local prison but Coach Patel refuses to coach Greg's team again, making Susan the new coach.

The team struggles to quickly adapt to a completely different style of coaching. In the second tournament, Greg's team loses every game, but in the final game to decide the worst team in the state, the other team almost forfeits after one of their players is injured. Susan makes Greg switch teams in order to have a fair game. In the final game, Greg scores the winning basket, and his new team win the game and become the second-worst team in the state, proving that his old team is the worst team in the state.

Big Shot was first teased by Jeff Kinney in April of 2020 through Twitter. In a response to a fan letter, he confirmed that he was writing both a fifteenth and sixteenth book.[3] The title and cover were later revealed on May 27, 2021.[4][5][6]

The cover of Big Shot depicts Greg with mismatched equipment from multiple different sports. According to Kinney, this was a design choice to communicate that the story was about sports in general, rather than only basketball.[7]