Duke Basketball Alum Wears NBA’s 3-Point Crown Once Again

Former two-year Duke basketball sharpshooter Luke Kennard sat out the Memphis Grizzlies' 115-100 loss at the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday, the final day of the regular season. His absence made sense, given the Grizzlies (51-31) had already wrapped up the No. 2 seed from the Western Conference for the NBA Playoffs.

And for the second year in a row, Kennard finished with the league's highest 3-point percentage.

Last season, he did so by shooting 44.9 percent from downtown. Then this go-round, he made NBA history with his 49.4 mark (his 10-for-11 clip in a game two weeks ago certainly didn't hurt).

LUKE KENNARD 10TH THREE OF THE NIGHT

He's 10/11 🤯 pic.twitter.com/pzF8bNIqnL
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 25, 2023

That's the highest from any player with more than 150 attempts since Jason Kopono shot 51.4 percent for the 2006-07 Miami Heat. Moreover, according to a tweet from the Overrated NBA Show Podcast's Brett Usher, Kennard's percentage set a league record as the highest from anyone who averaged more than 4.0 attempts per game.

Luke Kennard, who went No. 12 overall at the 2017 NBA Draft after becoming the ACC Tournament MVP and a consensus second-team All-American as a Duke basketball sophomore, was traded from the Los Angeles Clippers to the Memphis Grizzlies in early February.

Across his 24 games for Memphis ever since, the 26-year-old Ohio native and former McDonald's All-American shot a ridiculous 54.0 percent from deep — with 3.7 makes per outing — on his way to averaging 11.3 points in 24.6 minutes per contest, primarily as a reserve.

His career 43.7 shooting percentage from three ranks No. 2 among active NBA players, only a fraction of a percentage point lower than the leader in this department, Brooklyn Nets guard Joe Harris.

It's safe to say Kennard's ever-improving 3-point marksmanship should be a critical piece to the Grizzlies, who also feature 2015 Duke basketball national champ Tyus Jones off the bench, making a deep playoff run.

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