Earlier, the NBA officially announced the roster for this year's All-Star Weekend three-point contest, led by Bulls' Lavin, Hawks' Trae Young, Grizzlies' Bain, Raptors' VanVleet, Nets' Mills, Clippers' Kennard, Pelicans' CJ McCollum and Timberwolves' Towns. And Downes, as the only center player in this All-Star three-point contest, is indeed a clear stream. In fact, the NBA has been deeply affected by the small ball trend in recent years, and the big man has gradually possessed the guard's ball-holding breakthrough and three-point skill pack.
As the Timberwolves' choice in 15 years, Towns in the first year of his career, he participated in the All-Star Contest Skill Challenge, and successfully won the final championship, and this time chose to participate in the three-point contest, it can be seen that Towns is also full of confidence. Downs averaged 24.3 points, 9.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1 steal, 1.2 blocks for the Timberwolves this season, shooting 51.8 percent from the field, but what's even more surprising is that Towns has averaged 2.2 three-pointers per game this season and shot 40.6 percent, even higher than the outside guards like Lavin, Trent Jr., and Fournier, and his three-point production is guaranteed, and among the big players, only Love (2.6) is more than him.
In fact, in the season when Towns had just entered the league, he began to show his projection talent outside the three-point line, when he averaged 1.1 three-point shots per game, and the shooting rate could reach 34.1%, and in the following season, Towns directly improved his three-point shooting by nearly 3 times, and the shooting rate also reached 36.7% above the standard.
Throughout the league over the years, in fact, there are only a few all-round big men like him, but compared to Embiid, Jokic, who also shoot three-pointers, Downs seems to have a higher grasp of the outside line, in the 19-20 season, Towns had to shoot the most career 7.9 three-pointers per game, and the shooting rate was as high as 41.2%, and throughout his career, Towns's three-point shooting rate also remained at 39.6%, even better than the accuracy of some guards.
In the All-Star three-point contest, the last inline player to win the championship is back to 12 years of Lefour, when Lefour was still wearing the Timberwolves jersey, and further ahead of 2006 Deknowiski, if Towns can win this year's three-point contest in one fell swoop, it can indeed give a lot of face to insider players like him who are proficient in outside projection, and even attract more big players to participate in the three-point contest in the future.
And the rise of Downs, but also more highlighted in today's NBA, the inside players to master the outside projection is how important, as strong as the best defensive player Howard, in the absence of projection ability, can only now in the Lakers with a basic salary as a blue collar, not to mention the former Tanhua Lang Okafor was directly abandoned by the NBA and began to play in the CBA. I believe that this Cleveland All-Star Weekend three-point game, will definitely be very good, looking at these backcourt players, in fact, have a good shooting ability (including LaVine, Bain, Kennard, Mills, VanVleet three-point shooting rate of more than 40%, the lowest Trae Young also has a 37.2% shooting rate), and Towns, as the only inside lineman, can he defeat these main competitors in one fell swoop, after winning the championship in the skill game, and then add another crown to the three-point contest?