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The modern NBA game has seen a heavy reliance by teams on three-point shots. In the 2000-01 NBA season, teams averaged 1124 shot attempts from downtown. That number has gone up significantly as teams averaged close to 2500 attempts from long range in 2020-21.
The biggest impact of this growing emphasis on three-point shooting has been on the big men in the game. From depending heavily on getting their points close to the basket, and operating mostly in the low post, they have increasingly been expected to add the three-point shot to their repertoire. As the space-and-pace game became more important, perish or evolve became the new mantra for these frontcourt players.
A lot of these ballers have added three-point shots to their game consequently. They have embraced change, which has in-turn benefitted their own careers. From not having long range shots in their arsenal, they have adapted and proved that they still belong in this league. We look at five such players who best embody this shift of big men increasingly making a living from beyond the three-point line.
#1 Brook Lopez
A 10th overall pick in the 2008 Draft, Brook Lopez is Exhibit A in this increasing emphasis on centers also shooting the three-ball. In his first eight seasons in the league, Lopez attempted only 31 shots from downtown. He made only three of these shots, going 0-for-7 from downtown in his first six years in the league.
But Lopez turned the corner in 2016-17. That season alone, Lopez made a 134 triples. He hit his peak with 187 threes from 512 long range attempts in his first season at Milwaukee in 2018-19. Over the last five NBA seasons, Lopez has made 630 of his career 633 three-point shots. Although his career three-point shot attempts average stand at 2.2 over his 13 seasons in the NBA, Lopez has averaged nearly five three-point attempts over the last five NBA seasons.
#2 Al Horford
Al Horford has a reputation for being a versatile big man who can play on both ends of the floor. He was ideally suited to play the power forward position, but has found himself playing center in the second half of his NBA career. And because Horford has found himself playing the stretch five so often, he has added a three-point shot to his game.
Horford attempted only 65 triples in his first eight NBA seasons, making only 21 in the process. But from 2015-16 Horford showed a massive spurt from beyond the three-point line, splashing out 88-of-256 threes that season. In the last six NBA seasons alone, Horford has nailed 499 long-range shots while registering as many as 1362 attempts from downtown.
#3 Karl-Anthony Towns
Although his college coach forbid him from taking three-point shots in his lone season at Kentucky, Karl-Anthony Towns always had the shooting skills to make a living from downtown. Perhaps KAT experienced some leftover effects from that diktat as he played out his rookie season in the NBA. Towns attempted only 1.1 three-point shot attempts in 2015-16, making 30 of the 88 triples he tried.
But since then KAT has been on fire from long range. He has attempted a minimum of 250 three-point shots in each of his last five NBA seasons. In fact, in the 2019-20 season, Towns played only 35 games, but averaged 7.9 shot attempts, a seven-fold increase from his rookie season average, from long range.
Towns’ best showing from downtown has been in the 2018-19 season when he made 142 threes from his career-best 355 attempts. With 629 career triples, Towns is also the Timberwolves’ franchise leader for making three-pointers.
#4 Nikola Jokic
The 2020-21 league MVP has made a steady improvement from behind the three-point line. In his inaugural NBA season in 2015-16, Jokic attempted only 84 triples, making 28 of them. In his second NBA season, Jokic improved his per-game three-point shot attempts from 1.1 to 1.9.
In the last four NBA seasons, Jokic has attempted a minimum of 230 triples every season. And he has made a minimum of 80 threes in each of these four seasons, with the 2017-18 season where he made 111 threes from 280 attempts (39.6% efficiency) being his best showing. Jokic is now averaging nearly 3.5 three-point shot attempts in his last four NBA seasons, as against a career average of 2.8.
#5 Anthony Davis
The LA Lakers superstar’s trajectory from behind the three-point line is in some ways similar to Brook Lopez and Al Horford. In his first three NBA seasons, Davis was a reluctant long range shooter, attempting only 27 long range shots and making just three of them. But then Davis went ballistic, knocking down 35-of-108 attempts from downtown in 2015-16.
Over the course of his next four NBA seasons, between 2016 and 2020, Davis attempted a minimum of 134 three-point shots (2016-17), going up to as many as 218 attempts in 2019-20. Even in his injury-riddled 2020-21 season, Davis attempted 100 threes, knocking down 26 of them. The year the Lakers were crowned champions, in the 2020 Orlando bubble, Davis splashed 23-of-60 triples in 21 playoff games as opposed to 8-of-35 over the rest of his playoff career (18 games).
