2026 NBA 3-Point Contest Rules, Odds, Predictions, & Picks
The 2026 NBA 3-Point Contest is back! NBA betting analyst, Nick Galaida, breaks down the odds, format, and rules, and then gives a handful of his favorite picks and predictions before the event begins this Saturday as part of NBA All-Star Weekend.
On Saturday, the always anticipated NBA 3-Point Contest will return as part of the NBA’s All-Star Weekend festivities. This year, the competition will be the first event of All-Star Saturday, which tips off at 5:00 PM ET on NBC and Peacock.
2026 NBA State Farm 3-Point Contest Preview
This year’s NBA State Farm 3-Point Contest features five All-Stars: Devin Booker, Tyrese Maxey, Donovan Mitchell, Jamal Murray, and Norman Powell, making it easily the most star-studded event of All-Star Weekend.
Booker (2018) and Damian Lillard (2023, 2024) are both past winners of this event. Lillard can tie Larry Bird and Craig Hodges for the most 3-Point Contest victories of all time with a win on Saturday. Donovan Mitchell is less accomplished in the 3-Point Contest, but he will be making his 3rd appearance under the current format, having competed in 2021 and 2024.
Rookie of the Year candidate Kon Knueppel could make history by becoming the first player to win the event in his first NBA season. Murray, Maxey, and Bobby Portis will join Knueppel in making their 3-Point Contest debuts this Saturday.
3-Point Contest Format & Rules
This Saturday will be the 7th consecutive year in which the format for the State Farm 3-Point Contest will remain the same. Each participant will have 70 seconds to shoot 27 balls, able to score up to 40 points from ball racks located at 5 main shooting locations around the 3-point arc, testing a player’s shot-making ability from all areas of the floor.
The core piece of strategy in this event is that players get to decide where they will position their “money” rack. At 4 of the 5 racks, there will be 4 official NBA game balls, with 1 multi-colored “money” ball for players to shoot. Each made shot with an NBA official game ball will be worth 1-point, with “money” ball shots made being worth 2-points. The 5th rack will feature exclusively “money” balls. Each participant gets to pick where they would like their “money” rack positioned on the floor, choosing from any of the 5 ball rack locations. Of course, this can be a tremendous advantage for a player who has a strong skill difference for shots from the corner rather than above the break, or vice versa.
Another fun wrinkle added to the event a few years ago is the “From the Logo” shots. In addition to the 5 aforementioned ball racks, there will be 2 balls located on pedestals 6 feet beyond the 3-point line. Per NBA communications, when shooting the “From the Logo” shots, players must have at least one foot on the designated floor decal for the attempt to be considered legal.
Also of note: Any shot attempt that occurs out of sequence will become void. This means that players are unable to skip ahead to their final rack if they are running out of time. Thus, players who put their “money” rack in the final corner could be forced to rush those shots if the shot clock is getting close to expiring.
Competition Rules
The order in which players compete in the opening round will be determined by random drawing.
The order in which players compete in the championship round will be determined by the inverse of the opening round scores. For example, the player with the lowest score from the first round will compete first in the championship round.
Tiebreakers (If Necessary)
Consistent with previous years, if there is a tie to determine the championship round participants, a 30-second tie-breaker round will take place between the impacted players. If necessary, the players will compete in an additional 30-second tiebreaker round until the tie is broken, with the winner of the tiebreaker round advancing to the championship round.
In the event that a tie occurs in the championship round, a full 70-second tiebreaker round will be used to determine the sole champion. If necessary, the players will compete in additional tiebreaker rounds until there is an individual winner.
Below, we take a look at the odds for the 2026 State Farm 3-Point Contest, including analysis for our best bets.
3-Point Contest Participants
- Kon Knueppel +325
- Damian Lillard +475
- Jamal Murray +650
- Tyrese Maxey +650
- Devin Booker +750
- Donovan Mitchell +800
- Norman Powell +1000
- Bobby Portis +1800
Devin Booker 3-Point Contest Prediction
Since the NBA moved to the current 3-Point Contest format in 2020, no participant has had worse than a 33.8% shooting percentage from long range prior to the All-Star Break – until now. Booker is in the midst of a career-worst season shooting from the perimeter, making only 31.1% of his long-range attempts in his first 43 games.
The good news for Booker is that his struggles don’t necessarily mean he will perform poorly on Saturday night. Making uncontested shots in the 3-Point Contest is a fundamentally different skill than being an efficient in-game shooter, as we saw in 2024 when Damian Lillard won the competition after shooting only 34.8% from deep during the first half of the campaign.
Booker won this event in 2018 and finished 2nd in 2020. It wouldn’t be overly surprising to see him find success once again this weekend despite his poor shooting numbers this season.
- PICK: To Qualify for the Final (+120, BetMGM)
- PICK: Champion (+750, DraftKings)
Donovan Mitchell 3-Point Contest Prediction
This weekend, Mitchell will be making his 3rd appearance in the 3-Point Contest under the current format. He didn’t make it out of the 1st round in either of his previous appearances, but he was far from underwhelming shooting the basketball, scoring 22 points in 2021 and 21 points in 2024.
Since the new format was introduced in 2020, there are only 4 players who have competed in this event 3 times: Damian Lillard, Buddy Hield, Trae Young, and Zach LaVine. Lillard has won twice, Hield has made the finals three times and won in 2020, and Young has finished runner-up twice. LaVine is the only player from that group who has failed to advance to the finals in at least one of his appearances.
Mitchell is a strong shooter and has experience competing on All-Star Saturday, which should help him this weekend. He’s one of the best value bets on the board this year.
- PICK: To Qualify for the Final (+165, FanDuel)
- PICK: Champion (+800, BetMGM)
Norman Powell 3-Point Contest Prediction
As mentioned above, regular season shooting numbers generally don’t have strong predictive validity pertaining to who will win the 3-Point Contest at All-Star Weekend. That being said, players who have excelled at knocking down above-the-break 3-point attempts have advanced to the final round at a significantly higher rate than their peers under the current format.
Since 2020, participants shooting better than 42% on above-the-break attempts entering the All-Star Break have advanced to the final round in 7 of 12 instances compared to only 11 of 34 instances for players below that threshold.
No player in this year’s field meets the critical 42% mark, but Powell at 40.7% isn’t far behind any of his 2026 competitors. He isn’t as likely to advance to the final round as Jamal Murray or Kon Knueppel, but price matters here – at +225, this is good value in a competition that is often flatter than intuition suggests.
- PICK: To Qualify for the Final (+225, FanDuel)
- PICK: Champion (+1000, Caesars)
Image Credit: Imagn