Greatest Three Pointer of All

Today is all about Stephen Curry. We talk about him; everything else can wait. On the 14th of December 2021, Steph became the all-time leader of 3-point shooting in the NBA.

We give the tribute by checking and visualising a few of his performance highlights in the NBA. First, what he is famous for – the 3 point shooting. Following is a visualisation of all three-point attempts (successful and unsuccessful) from 2010 until 2018.

The blue dots represent the successful, and the red dots represent the failed attempts. The output was generated using the following R code:

library(tidyverse)
library(jpeg)
library(grid)

Curr_Shots <- read.csv("./CurryShots.csv")
Curr_data <- read.csv("./Stephen Curry Stats.csv")

court <- rasterGrob(readJPEG("./BasketBallCourt.jpg"),
           width=unit(1,"npc"), height=unit(1,"npc"))

      Curr_Shots %>% filter(Shot_Value == 3) %>%  ggplot(aes(x=Left, y=Top)) + 
      annotation_custom(court, -15, 495, 45, 440) +
      geom_point(aes(colour = Outcome)) +
      xlim(-250, 600) +
      ylim(50, 420) +
        theme(line = element_blank(),
             axis.title.x = element_blank(),
             axis.title.y = element_blank(),
             axis.text.x = element_blank(),
             axis.text.y = element_blank(),
             legend.title = element_blank()) + 
      #labs(title = "", subtitle = "",  y = "", x = "") + 
      #theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle=0, hjust = 0), plot.background=element_rect(fill="lightyellow")) + 
      theme(legend.position = "none")

Following are histograms of his attempts and successes from different distances and in various quarters. Note that my plots are only as good as the data in hand (that too ended in 2018). And I realise that it missed shots that Curry did from beyond the centre line!

Now, let’s look at how Steph has made his three-pointers over the seasons. The stats include regular and post-seasons. Steph had a blockbuster season in 2015-16, in which he became the season MVP.

Steph maintained a high 3 point percentage success rate of above 40% in most seasons

With ever-increasing efficiency (3 points made per minute of play)

With excellent regular-season and decent post-season efficiencies. You may remember that two of them – 2015-16 and 2018-19 – resulted in his team, Golden State Warriors, losing in the NBA finals.