Despite not having the touch from beyond the arc this season, Phoenix Suns All-Star Devin Booker will again compete in the NBA 3-point contest.
A winner of the event in 2018, the numbers suggest Book is a huge underdog in this year’s competition. Booker is entering the 2026 3-point contest with a career-worst 30.7% mark from long range. If he was to pull off the upset and win this year’s competition, he’d have the lowest 3-point percentage of a contest winner in history.
Suns fans know Book is a better outside shooter than he’s shown in 2025-26, though. So, who among his Phoenix brethren should join him in an all-time 3-point shootout composed solely of Suns?
Let’s break it down.
Booker joined Quentin Richardson as only Suns to win 3-point shootout
Before Booker won the 3-point contest in 2018, the only Suns player to take home the trophy prior was Quentin Richardson during a magical 2004-05 campaign.
In Q’s only season in a Suns uniform, Richardson made (226) and attempted (631) the most 3-pointers per game in the league throughout 2004-05. He shot 35.8% from distance and set the individual Suns franchise record for 3-point makes in a season — a record that still stands more than two decades later.
Book and Q are the unquestioned locks for the Suns-only 3-point competition, but who else gets the nod?
Two-time MVP Steve Nash is another clear-cut choice. Though Nash never won a 3-point contest despite competing three different times — he was more of a Skills Challenge merchant with wins in 2005 and 2010 — he’s among the best 3-point snipers in franchise history.
In fact, at 43.5% from long range in a Suns uniform, Nash is the all-time leader in franchise history from a 3-point efficiency standpoint. He’s second behind Booker in all-time 3-point makes for the Suns as well.
Aside from those three sharpshooters, a total of three additional 3-point contest winners played for the Suns — just not when they took home the hardware.
Jeff Hornacek (a two-time 3-point shootout champ), James Jones (who was Executive of the Year for the Suns in 2021 afters spending two seasons with them as a player) and Eric Gordon have all won 3-point shootouts — but do their resumes as it pertains to the Suns franchise grant them inclusion?
Hornacek absolutely will be included on the Suns all-time best 3-point contest lineup. The former second round pick won his 3-point contest trophies in 1998 and 2000 while playing for the Utah Jazz, which happened to be Horny’s final two seasons played in the NBA. Prior to making it to Utah, though, the Iowa State product spent his first six NBA seasons in Phoenix with the Suns. He made his first and only All-Star team during his final year in Phoenix before being packaged in the trade that landed the Suns future MVP Charles Barkley.
Hornacek was a so-so 3-point shooter during his first three seasons in the pros (topping out at 33.3% from deep in his third year), but he went on to become a career 40.3% shooter from long range.
Jones, meanwhile, had his best 3-point shooting seasons away from Phoenix. The NBA’s disastrous experiment of switching to a microfiber composite ball over leather also occurred during the 2006-07 season when Jones was a Sun. The NBA scrapped the composite ball experiment after a tenor of player complaints, so we can’t really hold that against Jones, who still shot 37.8% from deep that year.
Anyway, his past 3-point shootout win and successful stint as an executive with the Suns should grant Jones inclusion for this list. Let’s see him compete.
That leaves Eric Gordon, who only played 68 total games for the Suns in his career. Gordon clearly wasn’t the same player at age 35 that he had been previously in the NBA for other teams, but Richardson also only played one season for the Suns, so we may as well include all the 3-point shootout champions here.
That leaves us with: Booker, Richardson, Nash, Hornacek, Jones, Gordon.
Any sharpshooters missing?
We’d be remiss if “Thunder Dan” Majerle didn’t get a spot in the competition. His 800 3-pointers made in a Suns uniform ranks No. 3 in franchise history behind Booker and Nash. Majerle also led the league in both 3-point makes and attempts on two separate occasions for the Suns in 1992-93 and 1993-94. He shot better than 38% from distance in each of those two years as well.
If we get more granular with the statistics, a current Sun seems a more than worthy choice to join the list of 3-point shootout competitors.
Grayson Allen, who made 205 total 3-pointers in his first season in The Valley, ranks second in franchise history behind Q for 3-point makes in a single season (tied with another Suns player we’ll get to in a minute).
Though Allen has battled injuries during his time in Phoenix, he also ranks second in franchise history in 3-pointers made per game at 2.71. Only Richardson’s lone season making 2.86 treys per game bests Allen’s mark that he’s been able to maintain over the course of three seasons in Phoenix. That’s a deserving 3-point resume.
So, too, is that of former Suns lockdown defender and fan favorite Raja Bell. He’s the player tied with Allen with 205 3-point makes in a single season, second behind Q. Bell also ranks third in Suns history by making 2.45 triples per game in a Suns uniform. Only Richardson and Allen are better by that metric.
So, that leaves us with the following Suns 3-point contest lineup: Booker, Richardson, Nash, Hornacek, Jones, Gordon, Majerle, Allen and Bell.
Let the 3-balls fly.