5 NBA frontcourt players who improved their 3-point shooting over the years

#3 Karl-Anthony Towns

Karl-Anthony Towns warms up before a game

Although his college coach forbid him from taking three-point shots in his lone season at Kentucky, Karl-Anthony Towns always had the shooting skills to make a living from downtown. Perhaps KAT experienced some leftover effects from that diktat as he played out his rookie season in the NBA. Towns attempted only 1.1 three-point shot attempts in 2015-16, making 30 of the 88 triples he tried.

But since then KAT has been on fire from long range. He has attempted a minimum of 250 three-point shots in each of his last five NBA seasons. In fact, in the 2019-20 season, Towns played only 35 games, but averaged 7.9 shot attempts, a seven-fold increase from his rookie season average, from long range.

Towns’ best showing from downtown has been in the 2018-19 season when he made 142 threes from his career-best 355 attempts. With 629 career triples, Towns is also the Timberwolves’ franchise leader for making three-pointers.

#4 Nikola Jokic

Nikola Jokic accepts the 2021 NBA MVP award

The 2020-21 league MVP has made a steady improvement from behind the three-point line. In his inaugural NBA season in 2015-16, Jokic attempted only 84 triples, making 28 of them. In his second NBA season, Jokic improved his per-game three-point shot attempts from 1.1 to 1.9.

In the last four NBA seasons, Jokic has attempted a minimum of 230 triples every season. And he has made a minimum of 80 threes in each of these four seasons, with the 2017-18 season where he made 111 threes from 280 attempts (39.6% efficiency) being his best showing. Jokic is now averaging nearly 3.5 three-point shot attempts in his last four NBA seasons, as against a career average of 2.8.

#5 Anthony Davis

Los Angeles Lakers v Golden State Warriors

The LA Lakers superstar’s trajectory from behind the three-point line is in some ways similar to Brook Lopez and Al Horford. In his first three NBA seasons, Davis was a reluctant long range shooter, attempting only 27 long range shots and making just three of them. But then Davis went ballistic, knocking down 35-of-108 attempts from downtown in 2015-16.

Over the course of his next four NBA seasons, between 2016 and 2020, Davis attempted a minimum of 134 three-point shots (2016-17), going up to as many as 218 attempts in 2019-20. Even in his injury-riddled 2020-21 season, Davis attempted 100 threes, knocking down 26 of them. The year the Lakers were crowned champions, in the 2020 Orlando bubble, Davis splashed 23-of-60 triples in 21 playoff games as opposed to 8-of-35 over the rest of his playoff career (18 games).