Tonight was a battle of two of the very best three-point shooters that the whole NBA (and thus, the whole world) has to offer: …Devonte’ Graham… …and… Davis Bertans… !
Now, I have been told multiple times by multiple sources that the NBA is in the midst of three-point shooting revolution. Everyone is shooting threes these days. Good players, bad players, white players, black players, short players, tall players. It’s rare to find one who doesn’t, and when you do find them, they’re in a gym practicing threes in secret so that they can fit better in the modern NBA.
With that being the case, why the HECK are two of the league’s best long-ballers frickin’ Devonte’ Graham (just some random guard who sucked as a rookie) and Davis Bertans (your typical tall-ish Euro but he doesn’t even have all his fingers)? This is ridiculous. I get that injuries happened to some of the better-known deep threats, I understand that. But this is Devonte’ Graham and Davis Bertans we’re talking about here. Just two random role-players, neither of them are even known by the casual NBA fan, much less revered.
Obviously, they’re both having great seasons, and I’m digging every minute of it. I don’t want to derogate (or denigrate) their accomplishments, which are major: Graham is second in the league in threes with 96, and Bertans is 3rd with 92. But when I think “elite three-point shooters”, those are not the names I come up with. The first name I think of is “DownToBuck”, and then there are your usual suspects.
And people wonder why ratings are down.