SAN FRANCISCO — Stephen Curry now holds the NBA career 3-point record after overtaking Ray Allen’s record set in 2011, which he took over from Reggie Miller.
The Golden State Warriors’ guard hit his 2,974th three-pointer on Tuesday night in the first quarter against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
It’s been long debated whether Stephen Curry is the greatest shooter of all time. Now, with the three-point record in his hands at just 33 years old, it’s harder to make a case against him than it is for him.
On Wednesday’s Locked On NBA podcast, Locked On Celtics host John Karalis and Locked On Pelicans host Jake Madison talked Curry’s iconic accomplishment, how he changed the game related to three-point shooting and debated whether this record will be unattainable when he’s all said and done.
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Even Curry after the game said obtaining the record made him finally ready to call himself the greatest shooter of all time.
“He’s maybe even solely responsible for this change in attitude towards the three-pointer,” Karalis said on the Locked On NBA podcast.
That’s why Karalis believes that Curry’s record won’t be unbreakable, because of the way he’s changed the game in regards to shooting from deep.
“I think there will be players coming into the league soon or already in the league that have a chance at it because of the attitude that Steph has brought to the league,” Karalis said. “The first few years of his career, he wasn’t taking or making an absurd amount of threes, he was making a high percentage of threes. But, now, he’s taking like 800 three-pointers where that was unheard of before.”
“My point is, somebody like Anthony Edwards, who is a 33% three-point shooter, made more threes in his rookie season than Curry did in his rookie season,” Karalis continued. “Any good shooter in the first 3-4 years of his career that has the volume that Curry has encouraged and brought out of the league, that guy is going to be ahead of that pace and the only question is how good is that player to have that longevity to keep that run going.”
Locked On Pelicans host Jake Madison isn’t so sure the record will be attainable because of how much time Curry has left, and the way his play may change in the later years of his career.
“He’ll be 34 this year, the dude could have 6 to 8 more years, right? And in the twilight of his career, he’s going to morph into that kind of Jason Kidd-esque player where Kidd went from not making threes to making threes at the end of his career because that was the only way to stay in the league,” Madison said on Locked On NBA. “When Steph just becomes that outlet guy kind of like Ray Allen was at the end of his career, he’s going to be able to make a whole lot more threes as time goes on.”
Apart from the debate on longevity, Madison said it was poetic to see Curry break the record at Madison Square Garden, because it was there that Curry really had his coming out party as an elite superstar player in the league following ankle injuries that prevented him from doing so earlier.
“To be able to set that record in Madison Square Garden, which does have this aura of mystique around it, it was kind of like cool bookends for everything with him,” Madison said.
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