Earlier this season he became the fourth-youngest player to score 3,000 career points, behind only James, Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony. Backing up his performance in the Three-Point Contest, Booker is also averaging a career-best 2.7 treys a game while shooting a professional-best 43.0 percent from behind the arc.īooker has scored 30 or more points in 16 of his last 38 games, and only LeBron James reached 10 30-point games this season faster than Booker.
Adrian "Odie" Smith (1957-58) also won the MVP award in the 1966 game.īooker is averaging a career-best 24.2 points, 4.8 assists and 4.4 rebounds per game. Anthony Davis (2012) won the Most Valuable Player award at last year's NBA All-Star Game after Jamal Murray (2016) took home MVP honors in the Rising Stars Challenge. In the actual All-Star games, the Wildcats have fared just as well. Wildcats John Wall (2010) and Kenny Walker (1983-86) won the Slam Dunk Contests in 20, respectively, and Karl-Anthony Towns (2015) won the Skills Challenge in 2016. I'm just glad my name can be mentioned with those guys."īooker is the first player from Kentucky to win the JBL Three-Point Contest. "When I came out of college I was just considered a shooter but now I consider myself an elite shooter," Booker said. "I have a lot of respect for what guys like Larry Bird and Craig Hodges did in this contest. One of three finalists, Booker went second, before Thompson, and set an almost unreachable mark.
#DEVIN BOOKER 70 POINT GAME PRO#
The third-year pro scored a record 28 in the championship round to defeat the Golden State Warriors' Klay Thompson, considered one of the NBA's best 3-point shooters and winner of the 2016 competition.Ī member of the 2014-15 Kentucky team that went 38-0 before losing in the Final Four, Booker scored 19 in the first round to advance to the championship round. LOS ANGELES – Already the owner of a 70-point game, former Kentucky men's basketball player Devin Booker added to his already spectacular NBA career by winning the JBL Three-Point Contest on Saturday night at the Staples Center.īooker, with the Phoenix Suns, beat some of the NBA's best shooters with the best performance ever in the Three-Point Contest.
Yes, the Suns may be an abysmal 22-52 this season, and yes, they did lose to the Celtics when Booker scored 70 points, but anything is possible moving forward as long as Phoenix has Booker around. After all, as Kobe pointed out, he doesn’t put limits on himself.
‘You don’t have to beat me on my move man!’ But it was great to see, it was absolutely great to see because I remember I did the same thing with MJ.”Īt only 20 years old, the fact that Booker has already impressed Bryant on multiple occasions is incredible, but perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Playing against Booker tonight, I mean he went straight to my move the first time he caught it. “I think the most important thing about my career is being able to pass it on and have the next generation of athletes embody the same spirit and learn some of the same techniques and have that same mindset,” Bryant said after last year’s game. Then, Kobe expressed an appreciation for Booker’s killer mentality after the then-rookie used Bryant’s own signature move to score a basket over the legend: Those comments sound a lot like what Kobe said about Booker to after he squared off against the young star last season. It’s that mentality that’s very important for the next generation of players to understand – you do not limit yourself. “You think you can score 70? Yeah, why not? Could have been 80, could have been 90. “The biggest thing though is that he said, ‘I don’t put limits on myself,'” Bryant says in the video.
Kobe impressed with Devin Booker's mindset after 70-point game:
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