Bleacher Report slighted and snubbed a lot of players while making their new “99 Best Shooters of All Time” list, but one exclusion stands out as especially outlandish through a Trail Blazers lens: Anfernee Simons.
Simons ascended into the NBA’s upper echelon of shooters during his 2021-22 season with Portland, and he hasn’t slipped since. In a league full of guards with elite jumpers, Simons is among the best of them. BR’s decision to leave him off their ranking is completely head-scratching.
Anfernee Simons is an all-time great shooter
Simons’ case to be considered an all-timer as a shooter is pretty unshakeable, both statistically and according to the eye test.
Starting with the numbers, Simons’ crown jewel is the pure volume at which he finds success from deep. He ranks 17th all-time in three-pointers made per game (2.5) and eighth in three-pointers made per 100 possessions (4.6). He simply makes more shots than (almost) everybody. That means something.
He’s not just chucking and getting lucky, though. On a season-to-season basis, he’s been one of basketball’s premier high-volume, high-efficiency guys. In 2021-22, he shot 40.5% from three on 7.8 attempts per game. That was his breakout campaign. From there, he only kept up his nuclear shooting:
- 37.7% on 9.1 attempts in 2022-23
- 38.5% on 8.8 attempts in 2023-24
- 36.3% on 8.5 attempts in 2024-25
- 38.5% on 6.9 attempts in 2025-26 (39.5% if you exclude his six games with the disorganized Bulls)
A lot of people are probably desensitized to them, but those are insane figures. Being that efficient while taking so many shots is really difficult, especially when most of those shots aren’t wide-open spot-ups.
Simons is a Damian Lillard disciple (who, by the way, is too low on this list, too— just ask him) and it shows in his playstyle. He’s an elite pull-up shotmaker, both coming off screens and in isolation. He genuinely scores like a star on the perimeter.
Sure, guys who can hit 45% on open corner threes are impressive, but players like Simons who can make those simple looks and literally every other type of shot in the book are more skilled and more valuable.
Simons belongs above many of Bleacher Report’s inclusions
Listing every player BR wrongly ranked ahead of Simons would take too long, but some of them need to be called out. Most of the inclusions that can’t hold a candle to the former Blazer are players from past eras who paved the way for today’s specialists but just can’t match Simons’ results.
Terry Porter, Dana Barros, Ricky Pierce, Bill Sharman, Dan Majerle, Word B. Free, Chuck Person… At some point, showing too much respect to the predecessors becomes disrespectful to the youngsters doing historic stuff in real time.
Don’t worry, this isn’t just a shot at the old heads. Joe Ingles and Bojan Bogdanovic would collapse if they were tasked with the same on-ball responsibility as Simons.
You don’t earn a nickname like Anferno for no reason. Maybe it feels weird to say, but Anfernee Simons is one of the greatest shooters to ever lace ‘em up. He deserves to be recognized.
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