5 NBA frontcourt players who improved their 3-point shooting over the years
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.
Brook Lopez buried four threes on Sunday to give him 176 in 2018-19, breaking Channing Frye's 2009-10 record for most in a season by a center. #FearTheDeer
📊 statm.us/e/m/ObWsp9lDM https://t.co/nNljamzPKi
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.