Sports

The best shooters in the NBA from every spot on the floor in 2020-21

June 28, 2021
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Shooting is more important than ever in the NBA. Almost 40% of shots are now 3-point attempts, and players who combine volume and efficiency as shooters are more revered.

With a maximum of 14 games left in the NBA season, it’s the perfect time to take a look at the best shooters in the NBA this season, from those who can knock it down from anywhere to those who specialize in the kind of shots teams seek out in the modern NBA.

Best shooter overall | Best 3-point shooter | Best deep 3-point shooter

Let’s start at the top. Stephen Curry is still the best overall shooter in pro basketball and it’s not particularly close. This season, Curry led a banged-up Golden State Warriors team back into playoff contention. While ultimately the Warriors fell short, Curry’s incredible shooting performances kept them afloat most of the year.

Nobody in the world provides perimeter prowess like Curry does. If there’s one stat that jumped out from his numbers this season, it was this: Curry made 47% of his 161 step-back 3s this season. No other player in the league who attempted at least 100 step-backs this season made more than 36.9%.

Curry has changed the game. He has demonstrated that it’s both possible to dribble into your own 3-point shots on a regular basis and win a scoring title with this approach.

And then there is his ridiculous range. This season out of 19 players who launched at least 100 3s from beyond 27 feet, Curry was the only shooter to convert more than 40%. He made 41.1% of his 292 tries from that distance. Only Damian Lillard sank more 3s from outer space, but as good as Lillard is, he converted just 34% of his deep ones this season.

Six years after Curry and the Warriors won their first title, he is still clearly the best shooter in the sport. Here’s one more telling stat: He put up 50/40/90 shooting numbers while scoring 32 points per game. That’s pretty good, folks.

Best catch-and-shoot 3-point shooter

Joe Harris did not have a great postseason run, but he was red hot during the regular season, especially as a catch-and-shoot threat.

Harris made a ridiculous 47.5% of his 444 3-point tries this season, but his numbers get even more absurd when you isolate his catch-and-shoot attempts, on which he shot 51.6% on 355 attempts. You’re not supposed to be able to do that!

Best midrange shooter

Chris Paul is enjoying a renaissance. At 36 years old, Paul has his team on the brink of a conference championship and a trip to the Finals. Nobody saw this coming when he landed with the Phoenix Suns, an organization that hadn’t even made the postseason in a full decade. But here we are, watching the Point God dissect defenses and make everyone around him more effective. Still, as much rightful praise as Paul gets for his incredible overall game, his shooting skills don’t get enough love.

At 6-foot-1, he is the best midrange shooter in the league. He has been doing it for years (well, except in the Houston era, where midrange shooting was forbidden).

Consider these facts:

  1. He led the league in both total midrange attempts and total makes.
  2. Out of the 20 most active midrange shooters this season, Paul had the best FG%, hitting 52.3% of his non-paint 2s.

There’s only one other player in the league who can match his ability to blend midrange volume and efficiency, and that’s Kevin Durant, who is nearly a full foot taller than Paul is.

Best paint scorer

Zion Williamson takes the award for best paint scorer for a simple reason: He outscored everyone by a wide margin. This season, 31 NBA players averaged 20 points per game overall; Williamson averaged 20.3 points per game in the paint alone. We haven’t seen paint numbers this high since Shaquille O’Neal was in his absolute prime in Los Angeles.

His shot chart is not exactly diverse, but why should it be? Shots near the rim are still the best shots in the game, and when you can get them at will, why diversify?

The New Orleans Pelicans‘ phenom is still only 20, and is putting up these impressive interior stats while still learning how to compete in the best basketball league in the world. His feel for the game is world-class, but his combination of size, speed and explosiveness is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. If he stays healthy, he has a chance to be a legend. For decades, the league was dominated by the players who were most unstoppable in the exact areas where Williamson does his damage. It’s an old formula, but it could still propel Williamson and his teams to great heights.

Now that we’ve covered the main shooting areas, let’s dive into some specialized awards.

Best floater

Are floaters having a moment? The answer is yes. They are now one of the top seven most important shot types in the NBA, but while the top six most active users of the teardrop are all 22 or younger, the league’s most accurate float-man is no young buck. It’s Derrick Rose, who had the best conversion rate on floaters among the 22 players who launched at least 100 of them this season. Rose made a cool 53.3%.

Best corner 3

Despite having his season upended twice, Norman Powell emerged as the league’s most reliable corner 3-point threat. Powell started his season for the Toronto Raptors, who were forced to live out of a hotel and play home games in Tampa. Then he got traded to the Portland Trail Blazers at the deadline. Still, he managed to convert more than 53% of his 141 corner triples this season.

Best big man shooter

Nikola Jokic won the MVP this season for many reasons. He’s the primary playmaker for the Denver Nuggets, and he’s a terrific rebounder, but Jokic is also an elite shooter. Like the league’s other top superstars, he can score from every level and he can create his own buckets. This season, he made 57.3% of his unassisted attempts. His jump shooting numbers are among the best we’ve ever seen from a center, period, and he’s still just 26.

Most improved shooter

Julius Randle won the NBA’s Most Improved Player award this season in part because he greatly improved his shooting numbers. Randle has been a good player for years, but this season he truly blossomed into a star. Last season, he made 27.7% of his 231 3-point tries; this season, he converted 41.1% of 389 tries. That’s an incredible improvement and the biggest reason he was clearly the league’s most improved shooter this season.

Best rookie shooter

Rookies often struggle with scoring efficiency. It has happened to the best. Even LeBron James was arguably the least efficient volume scorer in his rookie campaign in 2003-04. Before getting hurt, Tyrese Haliburton was combining scoring volume and shooting efficiency better than any other rookie in the NBA. Along with Desmond Bane and Payton Pritchard, he was one of just three rookies to make more than 40% of at least 200 3-point tries this season, but unlike those guys, Haliburton was also pretty good inside the arc. Both Bane and Pritchard made at least half of their shots from downtown, but Haliburton’s arsenal was more diversified.

Among the rookies who played at least 30 minutes per game, Haliburton ranked first in both eFG% and TS% by a wide margin.

Best postseason shooter

Even though the Brooklyn Nets had a disappointing postseason run, it didn’t stop Kevin Durant from reminding all of us why he is so special. Durant’s shooting performances this postseason were awesome. Durant made 96 jumpers in the first two rounds of the playoffs, and he made them at hyperefficient clips (eFG% of 58.9), but what made his shot-making so special was that he was taking impossible shots and making them. With the Nets limited by injury, Durant became the focal point for his team’s offense and for the opponents’ defense, but it didn’t matter: He took and made some huge shots against world-class defenders, and he was a few inches away from sending the Milwaukee Bucks home.

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