Kyle Korver of the Utah Jazz moved into fourth in NBA history in 3-pointers made Saturday night, drawing the attention of the entire league, including LeBron James.
Utah Jazz sharpshooter Kyle Korver will go down in history as one of the greatest 3-point shooters to ever play the game of basketball. Jazz fans knew it during his first stint with the team, he never lost that touch on other teams and he’s reaffirming it yet again in his second run as a Jazzman.
In his 15th season in the NBA, Korver is shooting an incredible 41.8 percent from deep on nearly five attempts per game. His best season efficiency-wise was 2009-10 with the Jazz wherein he converted on a whopping 53.6 percent of his triples, albeit on just over two per contest. Korver has finished over 40 percent from deep in all but four of his seasons in the NBA. That has resulted in career numbers of 43.1 percent from the 3-point line on 4.6 attempts per game.
Simply put, those are extraordinary figures. Korver’s sharpshooting ways led to him earning an All-Star selection in 2014-15 as a member of the Atlanta Hawks. By every measure, Korver has had a prolific NBA career. And even at 37 years old, the shooter extraordinaire is far from done. As long as he can continue to scorch the nets as he does, he could still yet have a few impactful years left in the NBA.
That said, Korver had yet another impressive career moment on Saturday as he surpassed a major milestone. After draining four 3-pointers in Utah’s win over the Chicago Bulls, he moved into fourth all-time in NBA history in 3-pointers made with 2,283. Ironically, the man he passed was Jason Terry, who fell from third to fifth this week after being left in the dust by both Kyle Korver and Stephen Curry, who is currently third on the list with just two more made treys than Korver.
Kyle Korver passed Jason Terry to become fourth all-time in 3-pointers last night.
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 13, 2019
Incredible career continues ✊ pic.twitter.com/zMq3m07arK
As such, it’s entirely possible that based on schedules and volume, Korver and Curry could go back and forth a little bit for those third and fourth place spots. Of course, however, considering that Curry is roughly seven years younger than Korver and has a lot more time left in the league, it’s essentially a guarantee that Curry will ultimately wind up his career ahead of Korver.
In fact, barring injury or some other major setback, Curry is almost certain to one day finish atop the list. He’s 275 threes behind second-place Reggie Miller and 688 behind the leader Ray Allen. Considering that in 2016-17 he made 324 and in 2015-16 he made a whopping 402, those numbers are certainly attainable in the not-so distant future.
Korver may have a chance to ultimately move up into second place, depending how long he continues to play and what his opportunities continue to be, but he’s unlikely to ever catch Steph, even if they have a bit of a seesaw for a few games this season.
Nevertheless, moving up to fourth all-time is still a massive accomplishment and one that should be celebrated regardless of whether Korver were to stay put or continue to climb. His former Cleveland Cavaliers teammate LeBron James was quick to echo that sentiment as well as he issued a congratulatory statement to Korver on Twitter as you can see below–
https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1084355678641082368
Although Kyle Korver was never able to earn a ring alongside James during their time in Cleveland, there’s still no denying that he was a crucial part of that Cavs team and an excellent teammate for LeBron and Co. Receiving such respect from arguably the greatest player in the game is a wonderful achievement for Kyle.
I, for one, am ecstatic to have Kyle Korver back in the ranks of the Utah Jazz. His constant shooting threat has helped open things up immensely for the Jazz offense, and as he continues to knock them down at an incredible rate from deep, he’ll keep being an important weapon for the Jazz.
He may never catch Steph Curry – at least not for any extended period of time – but I look forward to seeing the beloved Jazzman continue to climb the record books and go down as one of the greatest shooters to ever play the game.