Another All-Star Weekend competition and another player looking to three-peat. Damian Lillard enters the 2025 NBA Starry 3-Point Contest as the reigning two-time champion and current odds-on favorite to win again. There’s a crowded field of viable contenders and we’ve weaved through them all to give you our 3-point contest picks.
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2025 NBA Starry 3-Point Contest – Picks and Predictions
Start Time: Saturday (2/15) 8:00am EST (TNT)
Event Odds:
Damian Lillard (+350)
Norman Powell (+500)
Darius Garland (+500)
Buddy Hield (+550)
Tyler Herro (+700)
Jalen Brunson (+750)
Cameron Johnson (+750)
Cade Cunningham (+1000)
Breakdown
Sometimes a better way to get down to a winner in a field this big is to eliminate competitors until you have a smaller batch to work with. The first I’m eliminating is Cameron Johnson due to his height. There has been only one player in the last dozen competitions taller than 6’6″ to win the competition. That Karl-Anthony Towns win seems pretty flukey in the grand scheme of things, so we’re not looking to another tall guy.
We’re also eliminating Buddy Hield here as the howntown boy. Sure, people might expect a home court advantage, but nobody has ever won the three-point contest on their home court. Speaking of things that don’t ever happen, we’ll nix Damian Lillard and his chance to three-peat. Outside of the pair of three-peats we saw in the first seven years (Larry Bird and Craig Hodges), we haven’t seen another.
Now down to five players left to pick through, my methodology leans heavily on two factors. The first one being that we want to see plenty of attempts. Guys like Evan Mobley are putting up three-point contest percentages if you ignore that he’s only shooting a touch over two per game. Currently just two players in the field are averaging less that seven three-point attempts per game. Those two are Cade Cunningham and Jalen Brunson.
Best Bet: Darius Garland (+500)
Down to just three players to choose from, I move to my final factor – and that’s three-point percentage. Herro isn’t cracking 40% on the year, which leaves just Norman Powell and Darius Garland. Garland is hitting at about a half of a percentage point clip better than Powell on the year. This is also a normal part of Garland’s game over the years, whereas this uptick in attempts is new for Powell this year. As a result, I’ll put my faith in Garland.
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If you’d like even more info on the 2025 NBA 3-Point Contest and all of All-Star Weekend, including some All-Star picks, check out the NBA Gambling Podcast. They’re dropping episodes five days a week to make you the smartest guy/gal at the bar.
