Harden's 3-point shooting ability put in historical perspective

3PT% Career Averages

K.Irving 38.2%
K.Durant 38.1%
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V.Carter 37.2%
P.Pierce 36.9%
D.Lillard 36.8 %
J.Harden 36.7%
C.Paul 36.7%
K.Love 36.7%
P.George 36.5%
K.Lowry 36.3%
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C.Anthony 34.4%
K.Walker 34.2%
L.James 34.1%
T.McGrady 33.8%
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K.Bryant 32.9%
J.Butler 32.9%
M.Jordan 32.7%
J.Wall 32.0%
A.Iverson 31.3%
---------------------------
R.Westbrook 30.5%
D.Wade 28.6%


Basically everyone regards Durant and Kyrie to be elite 3PT shooters. Well guess what, they are career 38% shooters, which is good, but far from 40+%.

Harden is only 1.4% behind Durant in career 3PT% while taking more shot attempts.

In terms of 3 point shooting ability, Harden is in the class of Vince Carter, Paul Pierce, Lillard, CP3, Kevin Love, PG13 and Lowry.

Are those players just 'average' shooters? I don't think so (and Harden takes the most 3s among all of them, by far.)

I know Curry and Klay has ruined everyone's standards, and make it seem like if you don't shoot 40+% from the 3 while making 200+ of them in a single season you're basically a scrub, but in reality 37-38% range is more than good enough to be considered borderline elite, especially for non spot-up shooters. They basically create their shots by themselves, which in turn leads to more difficult shot attempts.

So in short, no, Beverley is not a better shooter than James is. That is ridiculous.

(One thing I'll admit is that Harden's shooting is really streaky, so a bit more consistency would be nice than exploding one night and missing 8 3s the other.)

 

Also, in 15-16 Harden made 236 threes in a single season, which is 12th all time high record. Players above him? Curry, Klay. Ray Allen, Dennis Scott, Peja Stojakovic, etc.

 

Yeah, but there are some who think he's just 'average', which is what I'm responding to. Harden falls somewhere between elite and average. 'Pretty good' would be an apt description, IMO.

 

Kobe and Tmac both took a lot of 3s, and the league average 3PT% back then was very similar to what is now. There is no reason why we can't make proper comparisons.

 

During their prime, Kobe and Tmac each took 6 and 7 threes per game. That is really high number even by today's standards. Lebron is a somewhat curious case because there was a period in his career when he was considered to be a decent 3 point shooter. You're right about the current Lebron, but that wasn't always the case.