Worst 3 Point Shooters

[Roshan Fried]

In his prime, Coleman averaged around 20 points and 10-11 rebounds per game, but he was never a threat from long range. Coleman shot a career-low 21.2% in the 1998-99 season and only improved to 29.5% to round out his 15-year career.

The five-time NBA champion tried to make offensive plays when he could, but is rightfully known for his stellar defense rather than his 3-point shooting performance. Harper averaged a little over 13 points per game throughout his career but shot just 15% from the 3-line for the Cavaliers in the 1987-88 season, his second year in the NBA. He peaked nine years later at 36.2%, knocking down at least half of his 3-point attempts in 23 games.

DeRozan is one of the highest-paid players in the NBA. He attacks the basket with the best players in the league, and he has an excellent mid-range game. His attack and mid-range game are strong, but his 3-point game needs improvement. In the 2018-19 season, DeRozan shot 15.6% from behind the arc. As one of the only players on this list still active in the NBA, DeRozan has the potential to increase his percentage and make his way off of this list in the future years.

We know three-point shooting is changing the game, and with Noah Basketball technology present in over 50% of NBA practice facilities, we can only predict that three-point shooting as we know it will continue to improve. While we hope to only produce the greatest three-point shooters, not everyone can be the best. Will any current players join Barkley, Wade, and Thomas on the worst three-point shooting list? Only time and Noahlytics will tell.

Yes, Josh Smith is a bad 3-point shooter. Yes, he has been worse this year than in years past. Yes, he is playing out of position at small forward. We can dispense with all the usual preamble because the crux of the matter is this: Josh Smith is on a collision course with the wrong kind of history. He's on pace to turn in the worst 3-point shooting season in NBA history. The. Worst. Ever. In history. In all of NBA basketball that has ever been played.

Oh yeah, and he's also on pace to shoot more 3-pointers this season than he has in any year of his career. In fact, he's only about 12 games away from eclipsing his own career high at the pace he is chucking. While simultaneously setting a career low in 3-point percentage (min. 25 attempts).

Smith is on pace to hoist more than 300 3-pointers this season. He's also converting at a 23.9 percent clip. Want to guess how many players in NBA history have attempted at least 300 3-pointers in a season? Go ahead, guess. I'll give you a hint, it's a lot! Did you guess? Good.

The answer, according to Basketball-Reference, is 667 players. Of those 667 players, do you want to know how many of them converted at less than a 30 percent success rate? Seventeen (17). Of those 17 do you know how many people have been worse than Smith is on pace to be? Zero. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nil.

But, wait a minute! Smith is supposed to play less small forward now that minutes are being staggered with Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond! Heck, Monroe might even be shipped out of town to allow Smith to play his natural power forward position. That means less 3-pointers for Josh Smith, right?

Even if he only took 45 more 3-pointers the rest of the year and ended the year with 200 attempts, Smith would still be on track for the worst 3-point shooting percentage in NBA history. Heck, if he didn't take a single 3-pointer for the rest of the year, only two people would have a worse season than Smith -- the Denver Nuggets' Mike Evans in 1985-86 (22.2 percent) and Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, who shot an unbelievable 162 threes in 1988-89 as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers and made only 35 of them (21.6 percent).

Speaking of Barkley, while Smith is likely to surpass him for worst 3-point shooting season EVER, Sir Charles might retain the crown of worst career 3-point shooter. Only 15 players in NBA history make 3-pointers at a sub-30-percent level and have at least 1,000 career attempts. Smith is a member of the club, but its president is Barkley, who leads the way with 2,020 career attempts while making 26.6 percent.

For Smith to catch Barkley he will, well, I guess he'll have to have three more seasons like his current one in Detroit. Depressingly possible. But he's probably more likely to cut down to his Atlanta levels of around 150 a year. That means he'll almost assuredly be in the top three worst 3-point shooters of all time joining Barkley and Ron Harper, who had 1,811 3-point attempts and converted at a rate of 28.9 percent.

Josh Smith is making the wrong kind of history in Detroit. And the team might double down on this by trading 23-year-old big man Greg Monroe. But look at the bright side -- only 3.5 years and 47.25 million to go! Nothing you can do about that.

Dwyane Wade is the worst three-point shooter in NBA history
Of the 307 players in NBA history to attempt 1,000 three-point shots, eight have a career three-point percentage lower than 30 percent. Wade is one of them. But what distinguishes him from this ill-shooting pack is that he gets worse when the game is on the line: Over the course of his career, from 2003 to present (through Feb. 11), 45 players have attempted 200 three-point shots in clutch time -- when the score is within five points in the fourth quarter or OT. Of those 45 players, Wade is dead last in three-point percentage at 25.1 percent, preceded not so closely by Al Harrington and Carmelo Anthony at 27.3 percent. As for those other 44 players? They average 34.2 percent in crunch time, almost 10 percentage points higher than Flash.

It's simple, really: D-Wade shoots from three with high frequency and converts few, allowing his defenders to lag closer to the interior, which clogs the area where higher-efficiency shots are attempted. So not only does Wade brick his own shots, he makes it more likely that his teammates will too. That's bad shooting. -- Paul Swydan

But maybe the baseball world shouldn't have been so shocked. After all, history shows that the chubbier a pitcher is as he ages, the more slowly his skills decline. Of the top 20 pitchers over age 37 in WAR, 10 were in the top quintile of Body Mass Index -- guys like David Wells, Cy Young, Roger Clemens, Kenny Rogers and Gaylord Perry. Similarly, if you look at all pitchers who were active past their 35th birthday, those in the top quintile of BMI saw their ERAs increase 5 percent more slowly and innings totals decline 8 percent more slowly than their peers.

Luis Suarez is the world's best soccer player -- and it isn't close
Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo may have been crowned the 2013 Ballon d'Or winner, but no player in the world is impacting the game offensively like Liverpool striker Luis Suarez.

Still not convinced? Suarez creates 2.9 chances for his teammates per game -- third best in the EPL -- and his 60 total chances tops Ronaldo (34 in 21 games), Messi (34 in 16 games) and Ribery (40 in 14 games). And all three have better supporting casts.

Colin Kaepernick can't handle the heat
No one disputes that Kaepernick is one of the most exciting young QBs in football, but when it comes to staying cool under the heat of a pass rush, no one struggled more than the Niners signal-caller did last season.

When he was under pressure, his completion percentage fell from 63.3 percent to 42.9 percent, a figure of futility beaten only by Geno Smith and Andy Dalton. And in those spots, Kaepernick's accuracy, a measure that accounts for throwaways, spikes and drops, was 54.6 percent, dead last in football. Compounding his issues, he doesn't get rid of the ball quickly enough. It took him an average of 3.11 seconds to release under pressure, the 29th-slowest rate in the NFL.

Not coincidentally, he was sacked on 20.2 percent of those snaps, the fourth-worst percentage among starters. Add it all up and he suffered a 35-point drop in passer rating, to 62.5, in pressure spots.

Yes, he makes up for some of those deficiencies with his feet; his 524 regular-season rushing yards ranked fourth among QBs. But when he's forced to make a play with his arm, no QB fares worse than Kaep. --Sam Monson

Carlos Beltran is the best base stealer in baseball history
Last season, at age 36, Beltran stole his 307th and 308th bases, leaving him just 1,098 behind Rickey Henderson for the all-time record. So okay, the Yankees' newest outfielder is far from the greatest base stealer in terms of volume. But in terms of efficiency, there's never been anyone better.

Consider: Of the 160 players in MLB history to swipe at least 300 bases, Beltran is the only one to have a career conversion rate above 85 percent. Consider also that he's one of just 11 players since 1951 to swipe 30 bases in four consecutive seasons at an 80 percent clip. In fact, his 90.85 percent success rate from 2001 through '04, when he swiped 149 bags, ranks as the greatest stretch of base-stealing efficiency in history. Add it all up and, over the course of his 16-year career, Beltran has contributed nearly four Wins Above Replacement to his teams with his base-stealing alone. On top of his 358 home runs, numerous postseason heroics and three Gold Gloves, it might just be enough for Beltran to steal his way into Cooperstown. --Paul Swydan

Among players with a minimum 1,000 three-point attempts, Sir Charles shot three-pointers at a 26.6% clip, the worst percentage in NBA history. It's a good thing that's not what he is remembered for (though he's also not remembered for winning championships, either).

As countries implement necessary quarantines and social distancing practices to contain the pandemic, the world has been put in a Great Lockdown. The magnitude and speed of collapse in activity that has followed is unlike anything experienced in our lifetimes.

Under the assumption that the pandemic and required containment peaks in the second quarter for most countries in the world, and recedes in the second half of this year, in the April World Economic Outlook we project global growth in 2020 to fall to -3 percent. This is a downgrade of 6.3 percentage points from January 2020, a major revision over a very short period. This makes the Great Lockdown the worst recession since the Great Depression, and far worse than the Global Financial Crisis.

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