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Stephen Curry’s 3-Point Record in Context: Off the Charts
By GREGOR AISCH and KEVIN QUEALY APRIL 16, 2016

This chart contains 752 lines — one for each N.B.A. player who finished in the top 20 in 3-point attempts made in each season since 1980. Sitting atop it is the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry, who finished the regular season with a record 402 3-pointers.

The record is an outlier that defies most comparisons, but here is one: It is the equivalent of hitting 103 home runs in a Major League Baseball season.

The colors show a clear progression toward more 3-pointers. In the 1979-80 N.B.A. season, the first to feature the 3-pointer, making just 21 was good enough to put a player among the league’s top 20. On Feb. 27, Curry made 12 3-pointers in a single game.

How can we best put the gap between Curry and the best three-point shooters in history in context? Over the past 30 years, the number of 3-point field goals has trended steadily upward. If we project that trend into the future, 402 becomes a perfectly natural number of 3-point field goals for an N.B.A. player to make.

In the mid-2030s.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/16/upshot/stephen-curry-golden-state-warriors-3-pointers.html?ref=sports