NBA Alternative All-Star Weekend 2019: The 3-Point Contest
By Ian Levy
The NBA’s All-Star Weekend is a celebration of the league’s best and brightest. Unfortunately, there isn’t room for everyone who deserves it. That’s why The Step Back is planning their Alternative All-Star Weekend.
With eight slots, the NBA has a bit more wiggle room in the 3-Point Contest to offer recognition to some of the league’s best shooters. This year, the league has clearly chosen to build the contest around the brotherly rivalry between Seth and Steph Curry, which should be fun. Dirk Nowitzki, a legacy inclusion, is the only big man in the contest.
However, one of the most compelling and central storylines of this NBA season has been big men stretching their offensive games out to the 3-point line. Since this development is essentially ignored completely in the actual 3-Point Contest field, we’re going to make it central to our Alternative All-Star 3-Point Contest — our eight contestants this year all stand at least 6-foot-11 (stats through Feb. 12).
Brook Lopez — 135 3PTM, 37.4 3PT%
From ground-bound post behemoth to one of the NBA’s premier shooters, Brook Lopez has completely remade himself. He’s made way more 3-pointers than any other big man this season and has even had the nerve to start knocking in step backs.
This is clearly the favorite.
Karl-Anthony Towns — 97 3PTM, 38.3 3PT%
No big man in the field has been more accurate than Towns on 3-pointers this season. This contest is all about static, standstill shooting but Towns has proven he can handle a high degree of difficulty.
The easy ones should be, well, easy.
Lauri Markkanen — 85 3PTM, 37.9 3PT%
Look at this thing. The net doesn’t even move.
Moneyball, Markkanen.
Marc Gasol — 77 3PTM, 34.7 3PT%
The stroke is strong with this one.
Plus he can show the Charlotte home crowd what they could have had.
Kelly Olynyk — 71 3PTM, 33.5 3PT%
Olynyk is one of the least accurate shooters in the field, but he’s got the volume and the hand-eye-feet coordination for a quick reset as he’s grabbing the next ball off the rack.
Mike Muscala — 70 3PTM, 34.3 3PT%
Muscala is closing in on a career-high in minutes played and has already set career-highs in 3-point makes and attempts. His accuracy is way down from a career-best of 41.8 percent in 2016-17 but he’s got the stroke to make a solid run at this.
Nikola Vucevic — 63 3PTM, 38.0 3PT%
Vucevic has slowed down a bit, he was well over 40 percent in mid-December, but he’s still been among the most accurate big man shooters this season. It would be the perfect capper on his career-season to take him the 3-point crown.
Joel Embiid — 62 3PTM, 29.7 3PT%
Embiid is a woefully inaccurate shooter with the lowest 3-point percentage in the field. But he has the swagger and confidence to win the whole thing just out of spite. It’s the perfect final entry.