Damian Lillard Puts Himself Over Warriors Legend in Best Shooter Rankings

Lillard's placement in his all-time rankings is questionable

Damian Lillard | Soobum Im-Imagn Images

When discussing the greatest shooters of all time, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are often ranked first and second.

But Damian Lillard thinks he's a better shooter than Thompson...and every player other than Curry.

Yes I would. https://t.co/ASPoUWC8xA

— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) May 29, 2026

Lillard certainly belongs in the conversation of best shooters ever, but there are reason to believe Thompson deserves to be ranked higher in the all-time rankings.

Comparing Thompson and Lillard

Statistically, it's hard to argue against Thompson as the second-best shooter of all time.

	Games	3-Pointers	3PT%
Thompson	934	2,899	40.9
Lillard	900	2,804	37.1

Thompson has the record for the most three-pointers in a game (14) with one more than Lillard's single-game high (13), but Lillard broke Thompson's record in 2021 for the most three-pointers in a playoff game (12).

Thompson leads Lillard in regular-season games with double-digit threes. Thompson has nine and Lillard has six.

But more than any of those single-game stats, it's the fact that Thompson has a 3.8 percent advantage that gives him a great argument.

But there is one thing that Lillard can use to counter this argument, and it's that Lillard takes and makes more difficult threes.

Whereas Thompson gets most of his three off passes, Lillard creates a lot of his own threes with dribble combinations.

With that in mind, one would expect Lillard's percentage to be lower. But still, 3.8 percent is a big difference for two players with over 7,000 attempts.

And it's not like Thompson is just spot-up shooting for all of his threes. Just look at the difficulty of his 11 threes in the 2016 Western Conference Finals against the Thunder.

Who Else Deserves Mention for the No. 2 Spot?

By a combination of volume and percentage, the other players who could be considered for the No. 2 spot are Ray Allen, Reggie Miller and Kyle Korver.

The reason Korver isn't usually given serious consideration is he took almost all of his threes from spotting up. Still, you can't ignore a guy who is eighth in made threes (2,450) and 10th in percentage (42.9).

Allen (2,973 career threes) and Miller (2,560) were both stars who spent their primes as offensive focal points. Teams geared up to stop them, but they often used off-ball screens to get slivers of space.

In today's era, they might have taken 10-plus threes per game, but Miller topped out at 6.6 and Allen peaked at 8.4.

Thompson's career percentage slightly beats Allen's (40.0) and Miller's (39.5).

Ultimately, it's a matter of preference, but I'm taking Thompson as the second-best shooter in NBA history.