A few days after James Harden moved past Ray Allen and into second place on the NBA's career list for made 3-pointers, he shared an embrace with the man in first place.
That’s about as close as Stephen Curry wants anyone to get to his constantly updated total.
“You hope to push the number to where – and you know all records are meant to be broken; that’s how sports works, that’s how life works – but I hope, with the volume and accuracy, that it might be a number that will be very, very hard to break,” Curry said on NBC Sports Bay Area’s "Dubs Talk," which debuted Wednesday.
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“Very similar to what LeBron [James] has done with the all-time scoring record. There’s a lot that goes into it, so maybe we can push it further. Then nobody can touch it.”
Through Nov. 19, Curry has made 3,788 3-pointers. Harden was at 2,977, four more than previous record-holder Ray Allen. The others – Damian Lillard, Reggie Miller and Klay Thompson – have surpassed the 2,500 mark, but only Curry has scaled Mount 3,000.
There is a chance he’ll climb to 4,000 this season.
“It’s definitely something to look forward to, a clean number like 4,000,” Curry said. “When I got to 2,974, that was special, knowing that was the all-time record that (Allen) held for so long. Three thousand was special when I got to that milestone. Even 402 back in the day (2015-16), the single-season record. They all matter because I’m blessed to be doing this at the highest level. The fact that it’s even attainable is wild to me.”
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The numbers are rising in a blur because the game has changed not only since the turn of the century but also into the decade beginning in 2020. Teams averaged, on a per-game basis, 2.0 3-shots from deep in the 1980-81 season, pushed it to 13.7 in 2000-01 and this season are on pace to average about 40 attempts per game.
At this rate, Curry, 36, has an outside chance to reach 5,000 – and that total would not be safe for long.
Harden, 35, conceded that he’ll never catch Curry, that being behind by roughly 800 triples simply is too much to overcome in his final seasons. But there is one person that Curry considers a legitimate threat: Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards.
“There’s a lot of (focus) on how much he’s shooting the ball,” Curry said of his teammate during the 2024 Olympics in Paris. “We talked a little bit this summer with Team USA just about how you evolve, your style and the way you see the game as you get deeper into your career.
“He’s only 23, so he’s got a long way to go.”
Edwards is on pace. He has played 316 games through Nov. 19 and has a league-leading 67 triples this season and 856 in his career. He likely will zoom past 1,000 this season.
Curry was 26 years old when he reached 1,000, which came in his 369th game.
“Anytime you see how guys start the year and the list that I’m on, I think he’s had two years of this amount of 3s in the first (few) games of the season, and he’s third on that list,” Curry said of Edwards. “The perspective of shooting 3s, the volume that’s going on around each team and around the league, it’s definitely a different world. So, guess everything is possible at this point.
“I do question how far this can go because it seems to be hitting a breaking point. This style has a threshold or a limit to it. Everybody is playing numbers, and they just want to get up as many as possible. So, so we’ll see how it goes.”
It’s going up, Steph. Three always will be more than two, so the math dictates a rise – at least for the foreseeable future.
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