just a Friday night post about Jeff Hornacek

I grew up a Utah Jazz fan. '97. '98. Cheering against Michael Jordan.

One thing I remember: Jeff Hornacek was the ultimate sharp-shooting, three-point specialist. Career 40 percent three-point shooter. Won the '98 and '00 three-point contests (couldn't defend his crown in 1999 because of the strike-shortened season. A three-peat would've put him in Larry Bird territory). He set then records for consecutive threes in a game (8) and consecutive threes spanning multiple games (11) in 1994 and 1995. He was the man.

But check this out. Look at Hornacek's 3PA per game column. He only got over 3.0 twice in his 14-year career. Career average of 1.9.

Basketball Reference

Only two three point attempts a game!

Which got me thinking, what do Reggie Miller's numbers look like? Sixth all-time in career three pointers made. He's at least cracking five attempts a game, right?

Basketball Reference.

Only year above six attempts a game was 1996-97. Now compare that to Steph Curry.

Basketball Reference

Steph hasn't averaged fewer than 7.7 attempts since 2012.

Another crazy stat, LeBron is only one three away from tying Reggie Miller on the all-time makes list. But LeBron has taken 836 more attempts in his career than Reggie.

The Chicago Bulls shot 17 threes a game in their 72-win season. Golden State shot 31.6 threes a game in their 73-win season. And last year's Boston Celtics shot a whoping 48.2 (!) threes a game.

Put another way, last year's Celtics shot as many threes in half a season as Jeff Hornacek shot in his entire career.

I don't have some grand conclusion here or moral of the story. Not gonna go on a "today's NBA shoots too many threes" soapbox. Just a guy writing a Friday night post about Jeff Hornacek, reminding the next generation that Hornacek was a great three-point shooter.

And he deserved to shoot more than two threes a game.