2019 NBA SEASON PREVIEW
Which NBA Centers Will Suddenly Start Hitting Threes This Season?
7-foot Brook Lopez starting hitting three pointers virtually overnight. Which NBA big men will be next?
NBA CENTERS WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO SHOOT THE BALL. Centers are giants, usually hovering around seven-feet tall. They’re the behemoths that traditionally dominate the paint, dunking on opponents and swatting anyone that dared to enter their territory. It used to be rare that an NBA big man could hit an outside shot too, so rare that we started calling anyone who could a “unicorn.”
But in today’s NBA, there are unicorn big men on almost every team. Some of them are stretch fours and fives, guys who get a paycheck every two weeks because they’re tall and can shoot the rock. But more and more, NBA big men are expanding their game beyond the arc, even guys who spent the first 25 years of their lives never even attempting threes.
Look no further than Brook Lopez, who made exactly three threes the first nine years of his career before hitting an absurd 187 of them last year for the Bucks. Lopez averaged shooting 19.7 feet from the rim for the season. And he’s just one of many big men who had added a three-point shot almost overnight, which can only leave you wondering who will do it next.
We’re not talking about the obvious big men shooters like Karl-Anthony Towns or Kristaps Porzingis…