Moon Kyoung-eun Wants to be 3-point King

“I can’t give up the title.”

Two contenders for the 3-pointer title in pro basketball are the “Rambo Shooter,” Moon Kyoung-eun (ElectroLand), and the “Prince of the Court,” Woo Ji-won (Mobis). Moon is leading with 164 3-pointers in 51 games as of March 2, and Woo trails Moon by 6. Now they only have three games remaining.

Apparently, it seems that Moon has the advantage, but that is not entirely true. He overwhelmed for most of the season, but lately has been strongly pursued by Woo. “Woo is more likely to get it,” said Moon. Moon is not shooting long-distance jumpers for personal greed, since his team is still in contention. “I might not tell junior players to give me the ball. The first thing is the team.”

But in spite of his statement, he is frank about his hopes to accomplish his goal of becoming the 3-pointer king for two years in a row and four times overall.

Meanwhile, Woo is expecting to win the title, which would be the first of his career, with the full support of his acting coach, Jang Il, and colleagues because his team has already failed to advance to the playoffs. They sympathize that Woo can gain a personal title because of the team’s poor standing. Although they had a post chance off of a fast break, the ball went to Woo outside. Thanks to the help, Woo exploded for nine 3-pointers, tying his season high in two games out of the last five and chasing Moon at surprising pace.

Being taught shooting by Moon, his two-year senior at Yonsei University during his college days, Woo said, “Moon doesn’t look, but I think he is eager for the title,” adding, “I won’t give it up either.”

A commentator in MBC, Choi Hee-am, who was a coach in Yonsei University with two of them predicted that “Moon is superior to Woo in terms of concentration. But it can’t be ruled out that Woo can reverse this with an advantaged situation.”

In the meantime, Kim Joo-seong (TG Sambo) is in second place with 2.31 per game, behind Barset by only 0.01 on blocks as he attempts to get the foreign players-preferred-title as the first Korean player.

Jong-Seok Kim kjs0123@donga.com