25 in 25: No. 7 Kyle Korver

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What is the story about?

This is a series that looks at the best Atlanta Hawks of the past 25 seasons dating back to the 2000-01 season. No. 8 Clint Capela can be found here.

Even as a largely off ball player on offense, this man was maybe the most feared Hawk for defenses in the mid-2010s. Just as the pace-and-space era was taking hold all over the NBA, an unassuming wing from Pella, Iowa was the scariest per-dribble (and possibly per-shot) weapon on a team that won 60 games in 2014-15.

Kyle Korver took a circuitous route

during his career to end up on a Hawks franchise that was in transition in the summer of 2012. After a standout college career at Creighton, he was drafted late in the second round of the 2003 NBA Draft by the New Jersey Nets who immediately traded Korver to the Philadelphia 76ers for money that became a copy machine in a famous retelling of his draft day adventures.

Korver quickly took on a role as three-point specialist in an offensive era that still had its roots in mid-range self-created scoring. In 2004-05, just his second season, he posted the highest three-point rate (a ratio of three-point attempts per shot attempts) in the NBA with 74% of his shots coming from beyond the arc.

Still, his defense and limitations on offense capped his impact from becoming anything more than a bench threat for teams that needed the spacing. After 4.5 seasons in Philadelphia, he was traded to Utah, where he played a similar role on the Jazz for the next 2.5 years.

But after signing with the Chicago Bulls in 2010, his game took a mini leap. Within the defensive infrastructure of a Thibodeau-led team anchored by eventual Defensive Player of the Year Joakim Noah, his defense made a noticeable improvement.

Sure, teams will often choose to attack him when he’s in the game for, um, biographical reasons. But with a dedication to his offseason strength and conditioning program, he was by no means an easy target at this stage in his career. He communicated and rotated quicker on that side of the ball, and in addition to his movement and sharpshooting on offense, he became a better passer with more in-game reps.

With that backdrop, after two seasons in Chicago, the Hawks traded for Kyle Korver in the summer of 2012 after having sent away franchise mainstays Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams. In his first season in Atlanta, he started 60 games for the first time in his career and scored 10.9 points per game on 46% shooting from three and 64% true shooting.

After re-signing with the team on a four-year, $24 million contract that summer, he continued his upward trajectory, hitting 12.0 points per game on 47% shooting from three and 65% true shooting. That included breaking the record for the longest streaks of a made three in consecutive games (127) in NBA history to that point reaching back to the previous season.

It all came together to hit a high-water mark in his career with the 60-win Hawks of the 2014-15 season. Coach Mike Budenholzer’s movement-based motion offensive system was in its second season, and by now all Hawks who hit the floor knew how to find Korver running full sprint off screens.

Korver’s stat line this season earned him an All-Star nod for the first and only time in his career: 12.1 points per game on 49% three-point shooting (on 6.0 attempts per game) and 70% (!) true shooting.

That 70% true shooting mark (effectively 1.4 points per shot attempt) was the highest in the league — higher than dunk specialists like Tyson Chandler and DeAndre Jordan and even higher than MVP winner Steph Curry. To this day, that figure remains a top 30 shooting mark in NBA history, and the only one from a player who took 150 threes or more in a season.

Now is a good time to mention that Kyle Korver attempted 449 threes that season.

The gravity of Korver’s movement three-point shooting was absolutely vital to the Hawks posting the sixth best offensive rating in the league (108.9) and making a run into the Eastern Conference Finals.

With the team unable to get over the postseason hump in the years that followed, the franchise ultimately traded Kyle Korver to the team that knocked them out of consecutive playoffs, the Lebron James-helmed Cleveland Cavaliers.

Upon his retirement from playing in 2021 (after not appearing in the NBA in 2020-21), Korver stepped into a role as a player development coach with the Brooklyn Nets. Then, the following season, he found his way back to the organization where he had the most success, first as the Hawks’ director of player affairs and development. Then in 2023, he rose to the title of assistant general manager — a title he still holds.

On the court, Korver is currently fourth in franchise history for career made threes (818), second in three-point percentage (45.2%), and second in free throw percentage (88.7%).

He remains the most feared shooter in Hawks lore. Highlight reels of his flamethrowing from deep still go viral from time to time. And so, I’m obligated to link below the time he was mere inches from scoring 12 points in four consecutive possessions in a 65 second span: