In the pace and space era, creative three-point scorers have flourished. As a result, scores have gradually increased during the All-Star Three-Point contests. When the contest began in 1986, Larry Bird won it with 22 points. He nabbed the title in the succeeding two contests as well with scores of 16 and 17. Bird denied Craig Hodges in the process whose 25-point performance in the first round of 1986 still figures among the best. In 1994, Mark Price set a new benchmark as he hit the 24-point mark to win the contest. But the rules around the competition have changed since then and the three-round affair has eventually been reduced to a two-round affair.
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Scores dramatically increased since 2014 when the league added a “Money Ball” rack, meaning that five more shots can be worth two points each. Then in 2020, the landscape transformed completely when the league added two additional shots from the three-point range and the shot clock increased to 70 seconds from 60 seconds. When one couples these changes with the evolution of deep-distance shooting, records were broken instantly. Let us look at the top scorers in the contest, including the All-Time NBA Three-Point leader Stephen Curry and Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker.
Stephen Curry: 31
Quite unsurprisingly, Chef Curry holds the record for most points in an NBA All-Star Three-Point Contest. In 2021, he registered 31 points out of 40, the second year when scores were tallied out of 40. He accomplished this feat in the opening round itself and sank three out of four shots from the deepest range. However, Mike Conley tested Curry’s clutch quotient in the final round after putting up 27 points. With just two attempts to go, Curry had to make both the shots. The incredible shooter buried both shots under pressure to win the contest.
This 28-point performance ranks third in the All-Time Final Round performance. Meanwhile, Steph’s 27 points out of 34 in 2015 and 2019 ensures that he appears multiple times in the top five performances.
Devin Booker: 28
Booker’s 28-point mark is the second-highest in the contest’s history. He attained this feat in 2018 before the addition of the two three-point balls, when the maximum score was 34. Therefore, in contests that had 34 points as the max score, Booker’s score remains the highest.
He notched this mark in the championship round and just edged out Klay Thompson, who had a remarkable 25-point performance. Forward Tobias Harris finished third in the final round with 17 points.
Klay Thompson: 27
Of course, a list of top three-point performances in the contest features shooting artist Klay Thompson. The Shooting Guard was red-hot for 27 points in the final round of the 2016 contest. After Steph had nabbed 23 points, the guard was under the pump. His worries multiplied when he was down big entering his last rack which had just money balls. However, beating his own backcourt mate and the best three-point shooter in league history was a great motivation.
Klay buried all six money balls and finished with a score of 27 out of 34. Meanwhile, Devin Booker was third with 16 points.
Buddy Hield-26
Buddy Hield also finds a place below Curry, Booker, and Thompson. In 2019, he racked up 26 points out of 34 to tally the fourth-highest score in the competition. Hield notched this score in the first round where Steph’s 27 points took the top spot while Joe Harris’ 25 points was placed third. This made for an enticing final round. However, the sharpshooter could only get 19 points, falling short of both Joe Harris and Stephen Curry
Joe Harris-26
It was Joe Harris’ 26 points that denied both Curry and Hield their three-point titles. Going first in the final round, the spot-up shooter kept nailing his money balls. Curry was red-hot in the beginning but he cooled off in the middle of the final round.
He still nailed an impressive 24 points but Harris’ early showing proved to be too much. Apart from Harris and Hield, Stretch-Four Davis Bertans also piled up 26 points in the 2020 competition, finding a place in the top-five scores of all time.
