Golden State Warriors: Will anyone ever catch Stephen Curry for the 3-point record?

Stephen Curry’s NBA peers

Any conversation of which player could catch up to Stephen Curry on the career 3-pointers list has to mention James Harden. The unshaven offensive maestro has developed his outside game over his career, and somewhat quietly is just two hundred 3-pointers behind Curry on the list, with just Reggie Miller and Kyle Korver between them.

What vaulted Harden up the list was the heliocentric offense he played on with the Houston Rockets, an offense that prioritized 3-pointers no matter how they were generated. Harden had the green light to shoot, and shoot he did; he is already ahead of Curry on the 3-point attempts list and will pass Ray Allen to take first place sometime next season.

Harden is no longer in Houston, however, and the offense he now plays in is the opposite of heliocentric; rather than revolving around Harden, he is part of a three-headed monster including Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. He has hit just 2.6 3-pointers per game since joining the Brooklyn Nets, which is well behind Curry’s career pace of 3.6 per game. Assuming he plays some amount of time with Irving and Durant on the Nets, the gap between he and Curry will likely only widen.

The hope for Harden will be games played. He has been mostly durable over his career, missing only a handful of games. Curry, on the other hand, has been prone to some freak injuries to miss time, including the vast majority of last season. Harden is roughly a year younger than Curry, so he could catch up simply by volume. That being said, he will also likely age worse than Curry. Harden has a shot, better than anyone else in the league at this point, but it’s not probable.

Another of Curry’s peers who could get into the mix is Damian Lillard. The Portland Trail Blazers guard has often been seen as Curry-lite, and in the past two seasons has increased his 3-point production to match Curry’s, at least in volume. He currently ranks 16th in career 3-pointers at 1,834, about 700 behind Curry. He is durable and two years younger than Curry, but even so the gap is likely too wide barring more injury concerns for Curry.

Finally, Golden State Warriors teammate Klay Thompson was the player most likely to push Curry, even playing on the same team. He was an iron man through eight seasons, hitting at least 239 3-pointers for five-straight seasons. Unfortunately back-to-back missed seasons for the Splash Brother make it unlikely he can catch up. His size and stroke should allow him to continue hitting shots for a long time, but he will be pushing for a top-5 finish, not the top spot.