Hawks’ Larry Nance Jr. Leads NBA In 3-Point Percentage; Cavs’ Ty Jerome Fifth

November 17, 2024

To the surprise of many, perhaps the Hawks’ Larry Nance Jr. himself, your NBA leader in 3-point field-goal percentage is none other than Larry Nance Jr.

It’s true, as Nance is shooting a sizzling 66.7 percent on threes entering Sunday’s game. Nance, who’s in his first season with the Hawks following the offseason Dejounte Murray trade with the Pelicans, was 14-of-21 from beyond the arc through Saturday.

This is newsworthy because Nance has slowly but surely — and successfully — extended his game away from the basket. This is a man who was once known as almost strictly a dunker, shot-blocker and overall leaper.

Atlanta is the fifth team for the Akron native and product of Revere High School. He played his college ball at Wyoming for Cleveland native Larry Shyatt.

Prior to this season, the best Nance ever shot on threes? The answer is 41.5 percent with New Orleans last year. In 10 years, he’s a 35.2 percent shooter on threes — and that includes his high mark this year. So it’s gone up quite a bit.

Interestingly, each of the top four leaders in 3-point percentage are frontcourt players. Trailing Nance are Nikola Jokic (Nuggets, 56.4 percent), Taurean Prince (Bucks, 55.8) and Aaron Gordon (Nuggets, 54.5).

After that, it’s Cavaliers guard Ty Jerome, who was at 53.3 percent.

Granted, there is a long, long way to go, and sure the Stephen Currys of the world are likely to soon catch up. But one month into the season, there’s another guy from Akron who is the king of something. That king is Larry Nance Jr. and no one else has been hitting threes like him.