Brian Bales was a pretty good basketball player in his time.

Nowadays, “I can still shoot,” Luke Kennard’s high school basketball coach said, “but if I start moving, it’s over.”

So, put Bales in a station-by-station shooting contest, and it’ll be the scoreboard that moves – ticking on upward as it did on a visit to Kings Island a few years ago, when he recorded the day’s high score.

The popular amusement park is about a half-hour drive from Franklin High School, where Bales still works and coaches and where Kennard put 2,977 points on the board, the second-highest total in Ohio prep history – eclipsing even LeBron James’ 2,646 at Akron’s St. Vincent-St. Mary.

Now a fifth-year pro, the Clippers’ Kennard will realize a dream when he makes his debut Saturday in the NBA’s 3-point contest (5 p.m., TNT) during All-Star Weekend in Cleveland – a little more than three hours from Kings Island, where Kennard established himself as shooting royalty.

“Growing up, everybody around where I was from, everybody had season passes to it,” Kennard said. “So rollercoasters, all the fun things – and there’s a 3-point contest. They had jerseys like hanging on the walls, and video game consoles, prizes to win if you got a certain number.

“I did it probably every time I went, which was a lot – and I had a collection of NBA jerseys just because of that.”

“The basketball game there usually gets a good crowd during the day,” said Bales, describing the set-up: three stations – corner, top, corner – with four balls each. The first three balls per rack are worth three points and the last ball counts for two, for a maximum of 15 points.

It costs $5 to play, with prizes available for those who exhibit extraordinary touch.

“It’s an outdoor basket, the balls bounce from here to the clouds,” Bales said. “They make it really hard.”

Confirmed Kennard: “They got some lopsided balls. They try to trick you at those amusement parks, the ball has to fit perfect.”

But both Kennard and Bales have had fruitful encounters with the unfriendly basket, including the day the coach walked away with a score of 12 or 13, the day’s top tally – at that point.

“Coach Bales can shoot,” Kennard said. “He’s a really, really good shooter. We would always have shooting competitions, and he beat me a couple of times.”

More often, though, the win went to the kid who currently holds the second-best 3-point percentage (44.8%) in the NBA entering All-Star Weekend – where family and friends will gather to cheer him on.

There was a crowd there that day at Kings Island too, the coach remembers.

“My son’s with me, he’s 7 or 8 years old, and Luke, one of his teammates is there, too,” Bales said. “And this is typical Luke, being a high school kid, he said, ‘Do you have $5?’ I said, ‘Yeah, here’s $5 to play, let’s see if you can beat your old coach’s score of the day.’

And what did Kennard – who warmed up for the world’s premier shooting exhibition with a career-high eight 3-pointers on nine attempts in the Clippers’ 142-111 victory over Houston on Thursday night – do with that $5?

“He doesn’t miss one ball,” Bales said, describing Kennard’s hot streak as the stuff of local legend: “He was just the second player in the history of Kings Island to get a perfect score.

“And then he walks past me, ‘Thanks for that $5.’”

“Most competitive kid I’ve ever coached,” Bales added. “He hates to lose drills in practice, hates to lose shooting competitions, tried to win every sprint. Teachers in our school, he’d come up in the morning of a math exam or text and he wanted to know at lunchtime, ‘What was the highest score of the day?’ And whatever it was, he was going to try to beat it.”

So, yes, Kennard – who won the 2015 McDonald’s All-American 3-point contest – sounds like an Oscar nominee saying the right things before Saturday’s show.

“Just getting invited and just being able to be there, the opportunity, is just really cool,” he said Thursday. “Just going to enjoy it and whatever happens, happens.”

But he and his Clippers coaches have been training.

Kennard will be one of eight competitors, including Memphis’ Desmond Bane, Chicago’s Zach LaVine, New Orleans’ CJ McCollum, Brooklyn’s Patty Mills, Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns, Toronto’s Fred VanVleet and Atlanta’s Trae Young.

They’ll each have 70 seconds to shoot as many of the 27 balls as possible, with a maximum score of 40 points per round. The three shooters with the highest scores in the first round will advance to the final round, and the player with the highest score in the championship round wins.

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“I ran through it a few times, a couple days already,” Kennard said. “I mean, it’s tough. It’s pretty exhausting just getting the timing down and getting a rhythm going, just where you want to pick the ball up. There’s a lot that goes into it I didn’t even realize, but all the coaches, some assistant coaches, they were in the gym with me getting me ready, reading the rules, and even they got in it with me, so we went through a whole competition.

“I came out with a win on both days, so that made me feel a little good.”

Kennard’s current coach, Tyronn Lue – a 43.7% 3-point shooter in his 11-year NBA career – said he likes his shooting guard’s chances.

“Earlier today, the first time he got 24 and the second and third time, he got 30 and 30,” Lue said Thursday. “So if he shoots the ball like that, he’s got a great chance at winning.”

Luke Kennard’s memories of Kings Island: “Rollercoasters, all the fun things – & there’s a 3-point contest. They had jerseys & video game consoles, prizes. I did it every time I went, which was a lot – & I had a collection of NBA jerseys because of that.”https://t.co/jBnPmgU0KA

— Mirjam Swanson (@MirjamSwanson) February 18, 2022

Repetition is . pic.twitter.com/geiCL37rPR

— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) February 16, 2022