Former Kentucky guard Devin Booker plans to defend his title in the 2019 MTN Dew 3-Point Contest during NBA All-Star Weekend.
Booker will face some major competition this year with the likes of Steph Curry, Damian Lillard, Kemba Walker and Dirk Nowitzki in the field.
Here are details from the NBA:
Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker will defend his championship from last year as one of 10 shooters to participate in the 2019 MTN DEW 3-Point Contest, the NBA announced today. The competition will be part of State Farm All-Star Saturday Night on Feb. 16 in Charlotte, airing on TNT and ESPN Radio at 6:00 p.m. MT.
Competing against Booker will be Portland’s Seth Curry, Golden State’s Stephen Curry, Toronto’s Danny Green, Brooklyn’s Joe Harris, Sacramento’s Buddy Hield, Portland’s Damian Lillard, Milwaukee’s Khris Middleton, Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki and Charlotte’s Kemba Walker.
The 2018 3-Point Contest Champion, this will be Booker’s third time competing in the event. Last year in Los Angeles, he set an event-record 28 points by making 20-of-30 shot attempts in the final round to take home the trophy. In 2016 in Toronto, Booker advanced to the final round against Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry as a 19-year-old rookie, the youngest competitor in 3-Point Contest history. Booker also participated at All-Star Saturday Night in New Orleans in 2017, competing in the Taco Bell Skills Challenge.
This season, Booker is averaging 24.9 points per game on a career-high 46.3 percent shooting from the field including 32.4 percent from three-point range with 2.1 three-point makes per game. On Jan. 24, Booker became the fifth-youngest player in NBA history to score 5,000 career points.
Booker (2016, 2018, 2019) is the first Suns player to make three career appearances in the 33-year history of the 3-Point Contest on All-Star Saturday Night. In addition to Booker, Jeff Hornacek (1992), Dan Majerle (1993, 1995), Quentin Richardson (2005), Joe Johnson (2005), Steve Nash (2008) and Channing Frye (2010) have participated. Booker in 2018 and Richardson in 2005 are the only Suns players to win the event. Suns Vice President of Basketball Operations James Jones won the 3-Point Contest as a member of the Miami Heat in 2011.
The MTN DEW 3-Point Contest is a two-round, timed competition. Five shooting locations are positioned around the three-point arc. Four racks contain four NBA regulation balls (each worth one point) and one multicolored “money” ball (worth two points). The fifth rack is a special “all money ball” rack, which each participant can place at any of the five locations. Every ball on this rack is worth two points. The players have one minute to shoot as many of the 25 balls as they can. The three competitors with the highest scores in the first round advance to the championship round. The player with the highest score in the championship round is the winner.
