Anthony Morrow is One of the Best Pure Shooters Ever

There’s a scene from the movie “BASEketball” when one of the characters laments to the other that they’re both pretty good at basketball, as long as they don’t have to run or jump or dribble. As they sulk, they effortlessly swish shots on a driveway hoop while standing in one place.

If Oklahoma City Thunder shooting guard Anthony Morrow saw this movie as a child, a lightbulb undoubtedly went off in his head. He knew he would have a chance to one day play in the NBA if he got good enough at standing in one place and making shots.

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Morrow has spent the last 9 seasons in the NBA cementing himself as not only one of the best pure shooters of his era, but one of the best shooters the game has ever seen.

His career 3-point shooting percentage is .425, which ranks 11th in NBA history. Considering that he’s shot the ball behind the arc 1,804 times for an average of over 200 a season, he has enough of a track record to be in the conversation for best perimeter shooter in NBA history.

It may sound hyperbolic to include him with all-time greats, but Morrow has a better 3-point percentage than legendary shooters like Dale Ellis, Mark Price, Glen Rice, Peja Stojakovic, Ray Allen, and Reggie Miller.

Clearly Morrow doesn’t have refined basketball skills like creating his own shot, rebounding, passing, or playing defense, but if you had to count on one player in the league to make a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer for you to win a billion dollars, Stephen Curry might be the only option you’d consider before Morrow.

His consistency is remarkable. He’s shot at least 180 attempts from downtown in all but 1 of his seasons, and in each of those campaigns, he’s never shot less than 37% from deep. You absolutely know what you’re getting from this guy: spectacular perimeter shooting. He never has off years, and always provides impressive range no matter what team he’s playing for.

Morrow is particularly deadly from the corner 3, and it doesn’t even matter which side. During the past 2 seasons, he’s shot 95 for 206 on corner 3s alone, which is over 46%. Isolating left corner 3s, that percentage rises to about 48%. There are very few players in the NBA that can match those numbers.

The corner 3-pointer is shorter than straight away 3s, but Morrow is nearly as proficient at those. During the same 2 year time frame, Morrow shot 31 for 74 on the deeper straightaway 3-pointer, which is about 42%. The guy is capable of lighting it up from seemingly anywhere behind the arc.

The only place where he seems to have any type of weakness is the left diagonal. For the past two seasons, he’s attempted 118 shots from that 3-point area and made only 36 of them for an underwhelming 31%. Teams should definitely lure Morrow into shooting from this area, because it appears to be his one blemish in terms of perimeter shooting.

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Morrow would be anybody’s first round pick in a H-O-R-S-E competition, and rightfully so. Very few players in NBA history have proven to be as deadly from 3-point range as him, and if there was a Hall of Fame specifically for shooting, he’d be voted in unanimously.