Stephen Curry makes mockery of all-time three-point list

OAKLAND, Calif. — Here is a lukewarm take for you: Stephen Curry is cut from a different cloth.

As he began his warmups last night before the Warriors played the Hornets at Oracle Arena, Curry decided to mess around with his old man. As he stood around mid-court having an innocent conversation with Bob Fitzgerald, Hornets color commentator Dell Curry was tagged by a bounce pass from his son.

After letting it fly, Steph immediately hid behind shooting coach Bruce Fraser. Wearing a huge childlike grin on his face, Dell casually walked over to the ball, picked it up and banked in a 35-footer — all while wearing a nicely pressed suit.

I was fortunate enough to watch this entire event unfold just a couple of feet away while in the midst of my own pregame routine, which consists of lurking along the baseline to watch Steph and company warm up. It was a spontaneous moment that adds to the lore of the Curry family. One that makes you shed a smile, shake your head and murmur, “Damn, these guys can shoot.”

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Steph passed his dad Dell on the NBA’s all-time three-point list at the beginning of last season. Dell, who is regarded as one of the better all-around shooters in NBA history, sits at a modest 45th place with 1,245 made threes.

Since that game, Steph has moved up 30 spots on the all-time list in just 120 games, on the backs of 547 made threes during that span. Steph is chasing down fools quicker than LeBron James did in Game 7 of the NBA Finals (it hurts, I know — but it happened, so get over it).

As you may or may not know, Curry became the quickest player to ever hit 1,000 career threes, doing so in just 369 total games. That is 88 games quicker than it took the previous record holder, Dennis Scott, to make his first 1,000 three-pointers, which is basically an entire NBA season.

Looking at the poorly constructed tables below, we see the 12 remaining players who dare stand between Steph Curry and the number-one spot in NBA history for most trey balls.

Every single player on the list has played over 1,000 career games. Steph has played just 543. Nobody on this list comes close to the type of three-point shooting ability that he possesses. He’s broken the single-season three-point record three different times and has the most games in NBA history with at least 10 made threes.

He is the only player in history to ever make more than 300 threes in a single season. In typical Steph Curry fashion, he blew that mark out of the water by netting 402 three-balls. Steph is on pace again this year to hit around 350 threes or so.

Steph currently has 199 made threes through 49 games. If we add another 151 to this total he would have 1,942 for his career, placing him just behind Kyle Korver for ninth of all time. If we continue to extrapolate this data with, say, 325 made threes per season (which is roughly 3.9 three-pointers per game), Steph will be in third place of all time by the end of the 2017-18 season.

If we continue with this trend, he will move into second place of all-time by the end of the 2018-19 season, and will become the all-time leader in made three-pointers by the 2020-21 season — in an estimated 840 games. That’s a ridiculously low number of games played compared to the other greats on the all-time list.

Now, this is all hypothetical, of course, and averaging 325 three-pointers pre-Steph Curry is pretty inconceivable. But Steph is real and this is definitely not out of the realm of possibility. If he were to maintain this type of pace over the entire course of his career, he would have over 5,000 made threes by the time he is 36-years-old. Ridiculous.

Now, these are all wild assumptions and anything can happen from now until then. There is always the chance of the dreaded “I” word that I dare not speak of, or maybe Steph will want to take the Jordan route and retire to take his crack at the PGA. Or, who knows — maybe he heads in the opposite direction and goes off for 500 threes one year. It could happen, right?

Kobe Bryant is the next victim on Curry’s hit list. Mamba will likely receive the red marker of three-point making futility in the coming weeks, with Chauncey Billups’s name to quickly follow.

All in all, Steph Curry is going to crush the record books. He will be sprinkling his name across the top of every single game, season and career shooting list. Savor these times, Dub Nation, because they won’t last forever ... unlike Steph Curry’s shooting records.