NBA Draft: The Best 3-Point Shooting Draft Prospects Heading into the NCAA Postseason
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In today’s NBA, the ability to shoot the basketball from beyond the 3-point is as valuable as ever. Cerebro Sports has put together a metric that:
- Using the median shooting expectation offers a great degree of insight for an introductory shooting metric by considering the volume and efficiency within context.
- Using this formulation, 3PE can place high percentage, low volume shooters on a continuum alongside low percentage, high volume shooters.
- Using additional value on the developmental projection of shooting…3PE allows one to notice players who are starting to climb the shooting development curve, even with uneven early results.
Each skill score is graded on the same 100+ point scale: 60-plus is good, 80-plus is great and 100-plus is elite.
We now have a complete season of college basketball to identify some of the prospects that have really been shooting the ball well and impressing scouts.
Not only are players who have not been tracked for at least 20 games and average 20 minutes per game filtered out, players who are not consistently looked at as 2023 NBA Draft prospects have been filtered as well.
Brandon Miller (Wing/Forward | Alabama) - 90 3PE
Brandon Miller has led his Alabama team to a record of 26-5 with regular season and conference tournament championships. All of this leads them to be one of the favorites to win the upcoming NCAA tournament.
The 6-foot-9 freshman has consistently been one of the best 3-point shooters all season long and finished off the season shooting over 40% on more than seven attempts per game.
This will ring true for most of the players on this list but what is most impressive about Miller is not just the percentage but that he is able to shoot that percentage and on that volume and difficulty.
Miller is more than just a 3-point shooter, though. He leads his team in overall scoring, is second in rebounding and steals, and is 3rd on the Crimson Tide in blocks per game.
This all leads Miller to an overall C-RAM score of 10.6 and every individual metric being greater than 70 other than his floor general skills (FGS).
Brandin Podziemski (Guard | Santa Clara) - 88 3PE
Brandin Podziemski also made our list for the best college bucket getters according to Cerebro Sports.
The 6-foot-5 guard scored just under 20 points per game on shooting splits of 48-44-77 and led his team to a record of 23-9.
Podziemski is knocking down those 3-point shots at 44% on 5.8 attempts per game and doing it in multiple different play types.
Even more impressive is his final 19 games of the season from mid December where he shot 48% from the 3-point line on the same amount of attempts.
His overall draft position will be extremely interesting to follow based on athleticism concerns. You can find mocks that have him from anywhere in the 20s all the way to late 2nd round.
Jordan Hawkins (Guard | Connecticut) - 88 3PE
Another prospect who has his team hanging around the top 10 in the country and in the conversation for a Final Four run is Connecticut's Jordan Hawkins.
When taking into account volume and level of difficulty there is an easy case to be made for Hawkins being the best 3-point shooter in the country.
Hawkins 3-point shooting percentage is a little lower than others on this list, 38%, but he is taking 7.7 attempts per game and you will not find another player who runs off more screens than him.
This shooting gravity alone should make Hawkins a first round pick but he does have some other areas for growth as he moves to the next level.
The 6-foot-5 guard has an overall C-RAM score of 8.7 due to scores in the 50s in floor general skills (FGS) and around the rim (ATR).
The Gaithersburg, MD native has the athleticism to be more efficient inside the 3-point line but it is a case of reps and comfortability to get there.
He does have a defensive stats impact (DSI) of 74 which at the very least projects Hawkins to be a high level 3-point shooter with good defensive impact.
Tucker DeVries (Wing/Forward | Drake) - 86 3PE
Tucker DeVries also made our list for the best college bucket getters according to Cerebro Sports.
Tucker DeVries led his Drake Bulldogs to a record of 27-7, a conference tournament championship and a trip to the NCAA tournament.
Like Hawkins, DeVries is not shooting over 40% from the 3-point line but considering the volume, 6.8 attempts per game, and level of difficulty it still puts him in the argument for one of the best shooters in the class.
DeVries knocked down three or more 3-point shots in almost half of his games this season, 16 of 33 games, and had a seven game stretch where he made five-plus in four of those games
In that seven game stretch he was 49% from the 3-point line on over 8.1 attempts and averaged 24.7 points per game. Even more impressive is that stretch included a one for eight and 11-point performance or the numbers would be even better.
Where he leaves some room for improvement is with his floor general skills (FGS), his assists per game did go down in his sophomore season, and his overall around the rim (ATR).
DeVries draft stock is another one that will be interesting to monitor but one may benefit the most from a couple of big games in the Big Dance.
Jett Howard (Wing | Michigan) - 86 3PE
Jett Howard is the only player in this, and the bucket getting series, whose team did not see a ton of success as the Michigan Wolverines finished the season at just 17-14 and were not able to make a run in the Big Ten tournament.
Howard was also not the leading scorer on his team as that distinction would go to big man, Hunter Dickinson. It should also be noted that the fast rising draft prospect, Kobe Bufkin, also finished just 0.6 points per game behind Howard.
With that said, there is no denying the 3-point shooting ability of the 6-foot-7 wing.
Son of Michigan Head Coach Juwan Howard, the IMG Academy alum shot over 37% from the 3-point line on 7.3 attempts per game.
Similar to others on the list, Howard was not getting these attempts up in simple catch and shoot situations either.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of his 3-point shooting is his ability to knock down these attempts off the dribble, off screens and on the move.
A projected lottery pick for much of the season, it will be interesting to see if the high level shot making will be able to carry Howard to a selection that high considering his lack of contributions in other areas.
He has the lowest overall C-RAM score, 8.3, of anyone in either of these series and like Hawkins, has two individual metrics in the 50s. The major difference here being that Howard’s DSI score is also in the mid 60s.
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