Gotta be Jordan. He did what he did while only taking 1778 three pointers his whole 15 year career.
As a comparison, modern day scorers like Steph Curry twice shot over 800 threes in a season and Harden had a year with over 1000 threes attempted.
MJ doing what he did while averaging only 1.7 threes taken per game for his career is eye popping
Let's say he shot about 6 threes a game, which at his % would make for about two made threes a game. That would add 4824 points to his total (37116). Add to that his years in retirement and his total would be way over 40k. I know this is "what if" history, but that's just crazy.
The thing is if you added six 3 point attempts you are likely taking away six 2 point attempts and thus the overall points wouldn't change that much since Jordan was such a good 2 point shooter (50.9%) and a mediocre 3 point shooter (32.7%). He'd actually score less points given those percentages.
But given the original premise of being a great shooter that would have grown up in this era with these rules, the assumption is he would no longer be a 32.7% three point shooter.
I could see Jordan easily being a +40% 3point shooter if he grew up in this era. This would account for an increase in his career PPG of about 1.1-1.5 points(depending on actual 3PT% over 40% he would shoot) if you stick by the 6 more 3PTAs. That's a 3.6%-5.0% increase in his career PPG, which, given he leads the NBA in career PPG, is massive because the only guy within range of him, Wilt, probably wouldn't have developed a three point shot, so his PPG, wouldn't be affected.
It's not a given that he would have transformed into a +40% three point shooter. I mean, Kobe is the closest thing we've ever seen to MJ and he was a career 32.9% three point shooter in 4.1 attempts per game. Their career FT% (to a large extent, indicative of shooting prowess) is almost identical as well: 83.5 for MJ and 83.7 for Kobe.
You realize your problem with this argument, right? Kobe is not MJ. A lot of Kobe's career was in the modern three point era. He practiced and shot a lot of 3 pointers in his career. MJ didn't. If MJ made it a priority to make the three pointer a weapon, I think he easily becomes a 40% shooter from deep.
Jordan's basketball intelligence and once in a half century sheer will to master anything he tried in the world of basketball, would have driven him to become an elite 3point shooter, IMO.
Durant is a 38% shooter from 3. I find it hard to believe that Jordan would 40+% even growing up today. And if Jordan ended up with much better 3 point shooting he likely has no where near the overall 2 point game, especially mid-range. Today, I think he looks like a cross between Harden and Kobe on the offensive end. Probably a bit more efficient than those two, since he was better, but I don't think his game all of a sudden morphs into a Steph Curry or Ray Allen style of play.
And the thing is only 49 players in history have a career 3 point % of 40 (many are active and early in their career like Duncan Robinson) or better of those only Allen, Nash, and Petrovic are in the HOF (and Petrovic did not have a clear HOF career without his death and international play) and Steph Curry will obviously be in the HOF. That is it from real top level players. There are some others with fine careers like Mark Price, Peja Stojakovic, and Klay Thompson, but by and large the truly great shooters in history are role players in the mold of players like Steve Kerr, Kyle Korver, Tim Legler, BJ Armstrong, etc.
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