Ahead of a likely resumption of the NBA season, George Hill is on course to set a single season Milwaukee Bucks’ record for 3-point percentage.
At this point, I doubt there’s a Milwaukee Bucks fan alive who isn’t broadly aware of just how phenomenal George Hill‘s 3-point shooting has been over the course of the 2019-20 season, and how important it will be if the season gets up and running again.
Having finished last season incredibly well, and starred for the Bucks in their run to the Eastern Conference Finals, Hill earned a lucrative new deal to stay in Milwaukee last summer, and hasn’t allowed that contract to slow him down even slightly.
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When the NBA season came to a halt due to the coronavirus pandemic back in March, Hill stood atop the league’s rankings in terms of 3-point percentage.
Having knocked down 48 percent of his long-range attempts on the season, Hill was a long way clear of second placed Seth Curry (45.3 percent), leaving little doubt as to just how special his performance had been in a league-wide context.
With 73 triples made and 52 games played at the time of the stoppage, Hill was also well on his way to the statistical requirements of 82 made 3-pointers and 58 games played that are needed to officially qualify for league leader stats in a traditional 82-game season.
What remains worth highlighting, though, is that Hill’s shooting this season wasn’t only leaving a mark on the NBA history books of 2020, but on the Milwaukee Bucks’ overall records too.
The Bucks’ all-time leading single seasons for 3-point field goal percentage are dotted with the names of some of the game’s all-time great sharpshooters. Ray Allen and Craig Hodges both appear twice in Milwaukee’s all-time top-10, while Dell Curry currently holds the distinction of the greatest 3-point shooting season in Bucks history at 47.6 percent.
Given Hill’s consistency for the year, and the fact he’d actually spent much of the season closer to the 50 percent milestone than that mark of Curry’s, it seems reasonable to imagine he would have closed out a franchise record setting campaign if the season hadn’t been disrupted.
Of course, the question now is whether Hill will be able to close it out in that same manner.
Much of the NBA’s plans for a return to play currently remain under debate, and very much up in the air. But it’s still very much possible that there could be a small number of regular season games played upon resumption, largely due to the players’ wishes to avoid the jump in at the deep end that would be coming straight back to competition with the playoffs.
If that does prove to be the case, Hill could understandably come back cold and find himself dipping below Curry’s high point. On the other hand, if play-in tournaments lead to top seeds like the Bucks instead playing some form of warm-up or exhibition games, the work Hill has already done may prove to be enough.
Regardless of how that shakes out, Hill’s season will stand as one of the most impressive years of shooting from deep that Bucks fans have ever seen, and that will remain worth celebrating.