Stephen Curry’s 3-point record is safer than Draymond Green thinks, but one current player may have a shot

Just before Stephen Curry broke the NBA’s career 3-point record in December of 2021, his longtime Warriors teammate and vociferous hype man Draymond Green took to his own podcast to declare that Curry’s record would “100 percent be broken” within “five to six years” of Curry’s retirement. 

“Reason being,” Green began, “Trae Young comes into the NBA attempting six or seven 3-pointers per game. Donovan Mitchell comes into the NBA attempting six or seven 3-pointers per game. Steph Curry came into the NBA attempting two to three per game because it’s just a totally different ballgame, in large part due to Steph Curry and Klay Thompson and the ways those guys shot the basketball.

“It totally changed the way the game is played just by the way Steph Curry and Klay Thompson have been playing the game all this time. When I look back on the 10 years that I have been [with the Warriors], most people, especially in the analytical department, didn’t think Steph Curry shot enough 3s. To this day, they still don’t think Steph Curry shoots enough 3s. That just goes to show you where the game is going and why his record will be broken probably within five to six years of [when he stops] playing the game.”

The foundation of Green’s logic sounds solid. We all know everyone shoots a lot more 3s now than they used to. In theory, a worse shooter could pass Curry on pure volume. But when you start actually doing the math, it’s not such a slam dunk that Curry’s record gets broken — not just any time soon, but ever. 

Before we go any further, let’s try to guess what Curry’s final 3-point tally will be when the curtain comes down on his career. Entering play on Thursday, he’s made 4,008 of them. At his current pace of 4.4 makes per game, that would give him about 4,060 by season’s end. 

Curry is 37 years old. His current contract runs through 2027, and he recently said he would like to “outplay” that deal, when he will be 39. Just to put a round number on it, let’s say Curry plays until he’s 40, meaning three more years after this one. Even at 250 3s per season, which would be significantly fewer than he has averaged over his last three seasons, that would put him 4,800 in 2028. I’ll tell you what: Let’s make it an even 5,000 to account for the very real possibility that Curry either plays more than three more years or makes more than 250 per year over that stretch. 

Five-thousand 3-pointers, people. 

Whoever is going to have even a chance at sniffing a number like that is going to have two avenues to doing so: Either he’s going to have to blow Curry’s pace out of the water early in his career (because good luck keeping up with Curry’s pace after about year six) or he’s going to have to play about 25 seasons. Does anyone fit that mold right now?

Let’s just look at Green’s two examples for argument’s sake. Through the first six years of Trae Young’s career, he only attempted 282 more 3-pointers than Curry did through the first six years of his career, and even that is only because Curry missed virtually his entire third season. That isn’t nearly a big enough volume advantage to cancel Curry’s extreme efficiency edge (44% to Young’s 35%), which is why Curry made 132 more 3-pointers than Young through their first six seasons. And from there, obviously, it’s not even close. 

Same story for Donovan Mitchell, who, as Green correctly said, has attempted over eight 3s per game through the first eight years of his career. Want to know how many 3s Curry attempted per game through his first eight years? 7.6. So basically identical. Now calculate the difference in percentages — Mitchell’s career 36% rate to Curry’s 42% — and add in the next eight years of Curry upping his volume to 11.5 3s per game without even a tiny decline in efficiency, and again, it’s not even close. 

You’re going to find this to be true of pretty much every so-called threat to Curry’s record. One, their edge over Curry in 3-point volume through the early part of their careers — considering just how much track Curry started chewing up in just his fourth season, when he started launching 600-plus, at a minimum, annually — isn’t nearly as significant as Green, and many others who choose to build their cases on theory rather than actual numbers, would have you believe. 

And two, it’s not just about volume. Take LaMelo Ball, for instance. He would seemingly fit the profile of a green-light shooter who started gunning at a high clip as a teenager, but he’s only a 36% career 3-point shooter while Curry is near 43%. Which is why Ball’s 695 3-pointers through the first five years of his career is more than 200 fewer than Curry accumulated — despite missing nearly his entire third season — through his first five.

Jalen Green has actually made more than 100 more 3-pointers than Curry did through the first four years of his career, but that’s not nearly enough cushion to keep Green, or any other player of his 35% ilk, viable against a 43% 3-point shooter on Curry volume over the next decade and a half. Not even close. 

Now, if one of these guys ends up playing 25 years and Curry ends at 20, fine. Maybe they manage to threaten Curry’s record. But you could say that about any record. Play long enough, and the numbers add up. But that’s not realistic. 

In terms of players who may actually have a realistic chance at even approaching Curry’s number, there are three worth mentioning: the Celtics’ Jayson Tatum, the Lakers’ Luka Dončić and the Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards. Tatum is the least likely, as he is going to end up with somewhere around 300 fewer 3s than Curry through the first seven years of their respective careers, but let’s look at it anyway.  

If Tatum, who has 1,523 3s to date, gets to 250 made 3s this season (he’s at 227 entering play on Thursday), it will be the first time he has done so in his career. To pass 5,000, he would have to average 250 made 3s for the next 14 seasons. That would mean he played 22 seasons, and literally made more 3s in each of his last 14 than he has managed to do exactly one time through his first eight. Not happening. 

What about Luka? He’s also going to finish his seventh season with fewer 3s (somewhere around 1,350) than Curry (1,593) had through his first seven. Why? Because, again, it’s not just about volume. Dončić is a career 34.7% 3-point shooter. So now we’re back into the business of betting on a guy like Dončić to play about 25 healthy seasons to even sniff Curry’s record. Hell, the Mavericks weren’t even willing to bet on him making it another five years in good health. Cross him off, too. 

Which brings us to Edwards, who is the one active player who may have a shot at this thing. For starters, he is going to finish his fifth season with around 1,100 3s, some 200 more than Curry made through his first five. It’s not much of a cushion, but Edwards is the one guy who has shown that he can attack this number from both a volume and efficiency standpoint. 

This season, Edwards is taking over 10 3s per game and making them at a 40% clip. But the key is he’s only 23 years old. If he plays until he’s 40, which seems plenty plausible given his competitive spirit, joy for playing and elite fitness and build, that would give him 17 more seasons to rack up about 3,900 3s. 

Do the math, and that’s about 230 per season. If this season isn’t an aberration and Edwards, who is going to have the greenest of lights and complete control over whatever offense in which he finds himself operating for pretty much the rest of his career, can actually keep shooting like this, that’s actually doable. 

Keep in mind, this is a total blue-sky projection. No seasons lost to injury. Continuing to shoot around 40% on high volume, which, over any length of time, has proven to be impossible for anyone not named Curry. But yes, should everything absolutely perfectly, Edwards could have a shot at this thing. It’s still unlikely. But he’d have a shot. In about two decades. 

This idea that Green suggests that Curry’s record is going to fall five or six years after his retirement is just not based in any sort of reality. This record is going to stand for a very long time. It might honestly stand forever. It probably won’t, but it could. 

Anything close to 5,000 3-pointers, which Curry is a pretty decent bet to reach, is an outrageous number that — short of shooting like Curry, which no one is likely to do again — simply cannot be reached without elite shooting on high volume over decades of basically uninterrupted health. 

How many careers go that perfectly? Not many. But if this record is indeed going to fall someday, one is going to have to, whether it’s Edwards, or way less likely a guy like Tatum or Dončić, or perhaps most likely, some player who hasn’t even made the league or maybe even been born yet. Good luck to all chasers. You’re going to need it.