It's time for the best NBA All-Star Weekend betting market of the year: the NBA 3-Point Contest. It's also time for our 2024 NBA 3-Point Contest picks, best bets and predictions for who will win on All-Star Saturday 2024.
With more props than ever offered and so many ways to approach betting strategies, the 3-Point Contest is the marquee betting event of the weekend for hoops heads.
With that said, let's break down the updated 2024 NBA 3-point contest odds and make some picks.
2024 NBA 3-Point Contest Picks, Best Bets
- Tyrese Haliburton +480 (FanDuel) — 1 Unit
- Lauri Markkanen +700 (bet365) — .5 Units
- Karl-Anthony Towns +700 (BetMGM) — .5 Units
Other props
- Haliburton to make one "Starry" range shot in Round 1 +115
- Haliburton to make two "Starry" range shots in Round 1 +500
- Lauri Markkanen to make zero "Starry' range shots in Round 1 -125
- KAT over 19.5 first-round score -125
- Markkanen highest round 1 score +700
- Jalen Brunson over 3.5 made in Round 1 Moneyball rack +125
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NBA 3-Point Contest Odds
| Player | Contest Winner Odds | Make Final Round |
|---|---|---|
| Damian Lillard | +450 | -105 |
| Tyrese Haliburton | +450 | +105 |
| Trae Young | +550 | +130 |
| Jalen Brunson | +600 | +155 |
| Karl-Anthony Towns | +650 | +165 |
| Donovan Mitchell | +700 | +140 |
| Lauri Markkanen | +700 | +160 |
| Malik Beasley | +850 | +175 |
| Odds via FanDuel. Get up-to-the-minute NBA odds here. | ||
Read more below for the logic on each of these NBA 3-Point Contest picks.
NBA 3-Point Contest Preview
The Strategy
Here's how I laid it out last season:
The four most important attributes for the 3-Point Contest:
- Consistency across the five shooting spots
- Efficiency in hand-off situations
- Range to hit from the special zones
- Right corner efficiency because that’s where everyone puts the moneyball rack
You want consistency, so you don’t have empty racks. Even if you’re red hot on the moneyball rack, you usually can’t get by with an empty rack.
Handoffs are important because that is the closest scenario that mirrors the shooting conditions. It’s popular to look at catch-and-shoot numbers, but guess what? Nobody is passing the ball to these guys. They have to pick up the ball from the side and fire: that’s closest to a hand-off.
The right corner is the most commonly used moneyball rack location. It’s a corner 3-pointer, which is the highest efficiency shot, and it’s at the end, so you can try and make up if you’re behind.
Now the third one is one I want to focus on: "range to hit from the special zones." Damian Lillard won last year by one point on the final ball of his moneyball rack in the final, giving him 26 over Buddy Hield's 25.
But here's the kicker: Dame hit both Starry shots from 30 feet. That's what gave him the win.
(NOTE: I want to stress how much the NBA needs to get rid of those shots. I get it, the NBA has adopted these shots since Steph Curry became one of the greatest players of all time. But it really does mess with trying to determine a pure shooting contest. You can include them, but making them three-points is a bit much. No, I'm not bitter at all about having Hield last year.)
So that one needs extra attention this season. Here's how the field stacks up in shots from 30 feet or further this season:
| Player | 3PM | 3PA | 3P% |
| Trae Young | 23 | 70 | 32.86% |
| Tyrese Haliburton | 13 | 28 | 46.43% |
| Damian Lillard | 13 | 37 | 35.14% |
| Donovan Mitchell | 8 | 27 | 29.63% |
| Jalen Brunson | 1 | 6 | 16.67% |
| Lauri Markkanen | 1 | 5 | 20.00% |
| Karl-Anthony Towns | 1 | 2 | 50.00% |
| Malik Beasley | 0 | 1 | 0.00% |
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Haliburton stands out here; he's made the second-most of the group and done so at 46%. Lillard has struggled overall this season; his shot is not in a great place. Young is used to the volume, but his efficiency (predictably) isn't there. And the other players don't really attempt a lot from that range outside of Donovan Mitchell.
The hand-off percentages favor Haliburton as well, as he shoots 42% in hand-off situations — which more closely resembles the mechanics of 3-point contest shooting), and he is the only player to do so with at least 50 attempts in the field.
From a spot-consistency standpoint, you want to avoid players with charts like this, from Trae Young:
Young doesn't shoot the same volume from all spots, and varies widely from spot to spot.
Compare that with Haliburton's chart:
Haliburton is 39% from above the break and 49% from the corners this season. He's got the volume and consistency.
Another player who has the kind of shot profile you want, outside of the "Starry" shots, is 2022 winner Karl-Anthony Towns:
Towns is incredible above the break at 44% but has only taken 22 shots from the corners. That could really hurt him, depending on where he puts the moneyball rack.
Finally, the other player whose shot chart fits all the criteria is Lauri Markkanen, who had a decent showing of 20 in the first round last year:
Markkanen doesn't have any weak spots in his shot profile. He's a volume shooter with efficiency from everywhere.
The Picks: How We're Betting the 2024 NBA 3-Point Contest
We had originally bet two units on Tyrese Haliburton +550 (DraftKings), one unit on Lauri Markkanen +850 (bet365) and a half-unit on Karl-Anthony Towns +600 (DraftKings). With the way the market has shifted just before Saturday night tipping off, we're down to one unit on Haliburton at +480, a half-unit on Markkanen at +700 and still a half-unit on Towns at +700.
This is going to be a Haliburton weekend. I'm not scared off by him participating in the skills competition; it'll just warm him up. This is in his city, as one of the new faces of the league. The In-Season Tournament was Part 1 of his arrival party, now this is Part 2.
Markkanen is too good of a shooter not to invest in, and Towns has already shown he can win this event to make up for his shot location inconsistency.
