In July 1979, the NBA Board of Governors voted to add three-point shots to the rules as an experiment for one year. The voices went so close that one member of the commission remarked: “One straw was enough for the scales to lean in the other direction.” If you look back, you understand that the leadership of the league did not want innovations, but understood the need for any action. Professional basketball was in a deep crisis. Television networks were not interested in him. Attendance did not grow. The American Basketball Association was on the brink of ruin.
The discussion looked like this:
Supporters: “This will give the lagging teams the opportunity to catch up with their opponents faster ... the game will move to the center of the court and the crowding near the basket will decrease.”
Opponents: “A basket is a basket, and distance should not be taken into account.”
Today, the arguments of opponents seem stupid. But conservatives always have a big influence, and only after high-profile protests of such an NBA giant as Red Auerbach, the association decided to try to introduce a new three-pointer line for one year.
There were very few long-range attacks in the first year. The first sniper shot was made by Chris Ford, but he had almost no followers. The best NBA snipers of that time did not seek to take them into service. World Bee Free, famous for long-range shots from anywhere, when they cost only two points, scored a total of 25 three-pointer points for the whole year. Calvin Murphy, considered one of the top scorers, also made 25 attempts, but only one was successful. Teams performed on average less than three long shots per game, of which only 28% were realized. The experiment seemed a failure.
Fans liked the three-point shots (especially since they were rare), so the NBA decided to leave them. However, the players were not interested. Over the next four seasons, less was scored than in the first year. There were almost no attempts. From 1980 to 1984, teams carried out two long-range attacks per game, and the effectiveness was less than 25%. In the era of high-speed basketball with quick attacks and light defense, the three-point line seemed too far from the basket.
Of course, there were several so-called three-point shot specialists, including the best NBA playoff snipers: Darrell Griffith, Joe Hasset and Don Buse, who could throw three times from the long line three times per game. However, even Larry Bird threw from a great distance less than once per game and in those four seasons he sold only 25.7% of them. Such attacks were still rare.
But over time, the teams gradually began to include them in their game tactics. Bird played a key role in this.
Around 1984, he realized that three-point shots are a good opportunity. As a result, he (almost alone) turned them from exotic into a powerful weapon. Between 1984-1994, the number of long-range attacks in NBA games quadrupled.
Then another event occurred - the NBA reduced the distance to the three-point line for the 1994-95 season. The distance was now 22 feet around the perimeter, and not as before - 22 feet in the corners and 23 feet 6 inches in the middle.
The percentage of sniper shots jumped. At that time, the NBA's best three-point snipers were John Starks, who became the first player to drop 600 times a season, and George McCloud, breaking Starks' record, with 678 attacks. This record is still valid.
When the NBA decided to move the line back, players and coaches already felt the potential of ranged attacks. Last year, nearly half of the NBA teams completed more than 2,000 such throws. In the new season, their number will be even greater.
All of the above is just an introduction to the main theme. Who are they, the best NBA snipers in the history of basketball?
Assessment technology is not perfect, but at least it is quite simple. The basis is “sniper points”, which are calculated in two stages:
1. Of all three-point shots, more than 33% should be realized.
2. Of all free throws must be realized more than 75%.
Everything is very simple. If a player realizes exactly 33% of three-point and 75% of free throws, he gets 0 sniper points. Only balls above these baselines count as points.
Below you will find a list of the ten best NBA snipers calculated using this algorithm.
Larry Bird is a pioneer in this field, but he does not fall into the top ten because he played in a different era. He was the best NBA sniper of his time, ahead of Reggie Miller, Mark Price and Dale Ellis. There is no doubt that Byrd, like Price, can be called the best snipers of the last forty years. However, they did not score enough points. Craig Hodges and Dale Ellis are also noteworthy. But do not complicate the system by adding time periods and the like.
10. Paul Pierce, 1155 points
It has long seemed to fans that Paul Pierce is not a basketball player, but a Jedi Knight. We are talking about old Jedi like Obi Wan Kenobi: battered, tired, grouchy, dressed in a strange cloak with a hood, but very dangerous. After all, in this life they saw everything and know what no one else knows. Paul Pierce is just that. Nobody claims that Pierce is a pure sniper, but he is the fourth in the total number of abandoned three-pointer and the author of some of the most memorable of them.
9. Glen Rice, 1185 points
Rice was especially productive when the NBA decided to reduce the distance to the three-point line. In those three years, Rice sold 44% of shots in this range, and in 1996-97 he threw 440 times, of which 207 goals fell into the basket. He also won the three-point shot competition. For the rest of his career, Rice's score was 38%, which is also excellent, but not at all.
8. Peja Stoyakovich, 1294 points
One fan once told a story about watching Stoyakovich’s game. He could easily make 30 or 40 sniper shots in a row, and if he didn’t get at least once, he would look at the ring in disbelief, as if asking: “Who turned on the fan while the ball was in the air?”. He spent about 500 matches and on average during his career he sold 40% of three-pointer and 90% of penalties - one of three players in the history of the NBA with such indicators. The other two are Steve Nash and Mark Price, whose results are much less than Stoyakovich’s.
7. Stephen Curry, 1353 points
This is a career rating, so Curry is so low. Incredibly, he played less than 500 games in the association. If you count the indicators for the game, then Curry is far ahead of the other best NBA snipers. No one even approached him. Here is what the results in “sniper points” would look like if we were looking for athletes of the category “best NBA players in the history of points scored” in one game:
1. Curry: 2.91.
2. Clay Thompson: 1.91.
3. Kevin Durant: 1.77.
4. Ray Allen: 1.75.
5. Peja Stoyakovich: 1.61.
Stephen Curry in basketball is like Wayne Gretzky in hockey. It can be called not just the best, but a person who redefined the very meaning of this word.
6. Kyle Corver, 1431 points
Korver is the record holder for the number of consecutive games played, where he threw three-pointer (127). Therefore, it can be safely classified as the “best NBA snipers by season” according to the results of 2009-2010, when he gave a result of 53.6% or 59 out of 110. Last year he played all the stars in his first match and got the most out of it scoring seven goals in 15 minutes due to the three-point line.
According to the NBA, the most similar player to Kyle Corver is striker Armen (Hammer) Gilliam. Some find it funny because it is impossible to imagine two more different players than Corver and Gilliam. The latter played in 929 games and did not score a single three-pointer. His result is 0 out of 17.
One more note: Michael Cage's result is 0 out of 25.
5. Chauncey Billups, 1537 points
Will there be a Billups in the Basketball Hall of Fame, which features the best NBA snipers in history? Billups was the best player on the Detroit team when she won the NBA title, as well as on the Pistons team, which lost to Spurs a year later. He is among the 50 first players to contribute to the win or Win Shares of all time (although it is unknown what basketball players think about this rating), and everyone who stands next to him in the list of applicants for getting into the Hall of Fame is likely to be there (Adrian Dantley, Dave Debouche, Joe Dumar and others). Today, Billups on average scores only 15 points per game, and he spent the last few years of his career jumping from team to team. Probably the next city will be Springfield.
4. Steve Nash, 1677 points
Nash was so good and so often mentioned as a leader in programs that you can not notice his talent as a sniper. In other conditions, he could score 25-30 points per game. You may know that Nash grew up in a hockey environment - he was nursed by future NHL champion Russell Kurtnell. Steve started playing basketball only at the age of thirteen. But he was so enthusiastic and focused that by the time he entered Santa Clara University, he became one of the best NBA snipers for three-pointers.
3. Dirk Nowitzki, 1700 points
You have probably heard the story of how former German champion Holger Geschwindner saw the potential of Dirk Nowitzki when the latter was still a clumsy and too tall teenager. Many remember the phrase that Geschindner said about Dirka Nowitzki in 1998: “He did not have basketball equipment, but he instinctively knew what to do.” Geshvindner led Dirk through all sorts of intricacies of professional basketball, becoming for him a real sensei, but the fans were particularly struck by the fact that he also taught his ward such things as playing musical instruments. Dirk Nowitzki's sniper attacks look very artistic.
2. Reggie Miller, 2226 points
Reggie Miller did not win the three-point shots. He twice lost one point in the finals - first to Craig Hodges, then Glen Rice. But one of the best NBA snipers makes him not the cleanliness of the shots. Who cares how many times he got in when no one bothered him? Miller’s talent lies in how he maneuvers and makes incredible throws when someone’s hands are in front of him, one of the opponents pushes him to the ground, and the other screams at him. If you need someone who can make a three-point shot during a storm and Steph Curry is busy, contact Reggie Miller.
1. Ray Allen, 2272 points
The greatest long-range attack master built his career on the basis of impeccable coherence. Allen's form and rhythm are so well synchronized that he simply cannot have a bad year. He delivers exactly 40% of shots throughout his career and, in fact, is one and the same NBA sniper both at the age of 21 as part of the terrible Milwaukee team and the 38-year-old champion in Miami. The astonishing record of 2,973 three-point shots is likely to remain valid for another five or six years until Steph Curry catches up with Allen.