The Portland Trail Blazers finished up their regular season Sunday against the Sacramento Kings. Having been eliminated from playoff contention long ago, the Blazers let it ride with their youngsters.
Ultimately, the “star” of the show was the Portland guard Dalano Banton.
Banton, however, went on to produce the single worst three-point shooting performance in NBA history. He attempted 15 triples on the afternoon … and missed all 15 of them. According to Jason Anderson of the Sacramento Bee, that set a record for the most three-point attempts in a single game without a make in league history.
Here is the lowlight reel of all 15 of Banton’s long-range bricks.
To top it all off, Banton was ejected (before he could miss another three-pointer) for a flagrant-2 foul with 3:30 left in the fourth quarter. He finished the game as a minus-38 in 39 minutes as the Blazers got stomped by a 121-82 final. Needless to say, it was not quite a day to remember for Banton.
On the bright side for Banton, 24, he made several shots from inside the arc and from the free-throw line to at least finish with 17 points on 6-of-26 from the field overall. That meant that he escaped the NBA record books for most total shot attempts in a game without a make (a distinction that is still held by then-Golden State Warriors guard Tim Hardaway with an indelible 0-for-17 stinker in 1991). Plus, at least Banton never got discouraged and kept on letting it fly from deep. That was some real Mamba Mentality right there.
Banton, a four-year veteran who has also played for Toronto and Boston since being drafted in 2021, actually wasn’t terrible for Portland this season, averaging 16.7 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game over 29 total appearances. But he etched his name into the history books on Sunday in the worst possible way (continuing an ugly trend for Portland this year).
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