Duke basketball’s sweetest shooters in the NBA bubble: Gary Trent Jr.
Career, season, and bubble 3-point percentages: 41.6, 43.1, 62.2
Career, season, and bubble FG percentages: 43.4, 44.7, 57.6
Career, season, and bubble FT percentages: 76.9, 82.2, 71.4
Shooting stroke purity (10-point scale): 9.5
Saturday’s showing says maybe Gary Trent Jr. should be No. 1 here. Well, the Duke basketball one-and-done probably would be if this was purely a reflection of the past two weeks. After torching nets in scrimmages, across five games since the restart, this is what the second-year pro’s astonishing shooting totals look like: 34-for-59 from the field, 28-for-45 (not a typo) from 3-point land, and 5-for-7 from the charity stripe. Stats say his shooting eye is made for the bubble.
The 21-year-old Trent Jr. and the 32-39 Portland Trail Blazers, No. 9 in the Western Conference standings, are 3-2 since the restart and have three games remaining in their regular season: against the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. (NBA TV), against the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. (TNT), and against the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday (TV and tipoff time to be announced).