Recently, the NBA officially announced the list of this year's Cleveland All-Star Three-Point Contest, which is the top of the NBA outside the three-point line, including Bain, Kennard, Lavin, CJ, Mills, VanVleet, Towns and Trae Young. Who has the best hope of winning this year's three-point contest? In terms of recent form, it would have been the Clippers' white guard Kennard.
This season, Kennard is one of the NBA's most accurate three-pointers, ranking second in the league with an average three-point shooting rate of 44.8 percent per game, and he has a lot of shots, throwing 2.7 three-pointers per game, and he has the most three-point shooting percentage among the top five players. What's even more remarkable is that Kennard is more accurate after entering the All-Star Three-Point Contest roster, shooting 20 three-pointers in the last four games, shooting 70%, averaging 3.5 three-pointers per game, and Tyrenlu said that if Kennard maintains this feel, he can win the three-point contest this weekend.
Such a quasi-Kennard also made the doubts about him extinguished, and after joining the Clippers, Kennard quickly signed a four-year, 64 million early contract extension with the team, which made fans worry that the Clippers would fall into the trap of a middle-class contract. Because in the NBA, pure shooters sign big contracts and quickly become garbage contracts, and shooters are too replaceable. That argument culminated at the end of last year's season, when Kennard's first Clippers playoff trip was a bad one, averaging just 14.6 minutes in 15 games, 5.6 points, 0.9 rebounds and 0.5 assists, and shooting 41.2 percent from three-point range, which can be understood as the Clippers spending more than 10 million on a big contract to sign a defensive loophole that only scored one three-pointer per game.
Fortunately, the Clippers at that time still had Mann, who replaced Kennard in the second round of the seventh round, and was able to reach the Western Conference Finals for the first time in team history, because many fans felt that Kennard was a parallel cargo. In fact, he is just a player with obvious advantages and disadvantages, first of all, Kennard's advantage is stability and hard work, the most important thing for three-point shooters is stability, this season Kennard has played 50 games, 30 games have a three-point shooting rate of more than 36%, 35 games average two three-pointers per game, is the Clippers' most important outside firepower, which is also currently lacking in many teams, such as the Lakers and 76ers.
Although Kennard looks thin and has the label of "white shooter", he is not a lot of hard work, kenard's defensive efficiency ranks 53rd in the league this season, the data may be confusing, but it will not lie, when he plays, the Clippers can always win points. In fact, Kennard's past downturn is related to the team boss George and Leonard, first of all, as the position of the forward swinger and the double core has overlapped, the bosses need a lot of ball rights when playing on the field, and when George plays without the ball, the ability completely covers Kenard, so last season his playing time was very unstable, and the shot was not confident enough.
Now the team boss is recuperating, Kennard averages 27.8 minutes per game, he still has time to show his organizational skills, which is where he is better than the average shooter, Kennard's ability to hold the ball is very good, in the Pistons' last season he averaged 4.1 assists per game, this season has picked up to 2.3 times. With quality projection, solid defense and organization, and extremely tactical literacy, Kennard is definitely the Clippers' championship puzzle, and now he has to win the three-point contest for himself first.