What’s Wrong With Lakers Can Be Simply Fixed By Just Making Shots

At its simplest, basketball is about shot making. The primary reason the Los Angeles Lakers are struggling right now is they just cannot make shots. The good news is that can be immediately fixed by simply making shots.

Right now, the Lakers are the only team in the entire league shooting under 30% from deep. Opposing teams know that and are actively game planning their offenses on L.A.’s inability to shoot the three or defend or rebound. Poor 3-point shooting totally destroys the Lakers’ 5-out offense and allows opposing teams pack the paint and force their poor shooters to fire blanks, igniting inevitable long rebounds and opponent transition fast breaks.

That’s led to the Lakers 3–5 start to the season, which right now has them 12th in the west and outside the playoffs, a far cry from the team that made it to the Western Conference Finals after a horrendous start last season.
The Lakers‘ 106.6 Offrtg is 28th and their 113.8 Defrtg 19th out of 30 teams, resulting in a -7.2 Netrtg, which is 27th or 4th worst in the league and a disappointing start at both ends of the court but especially offensively.

While they can hope for injured players to return, major midseason trade, or lineup and rotation changes, the one thing the Lakers can do right now to immediately fix most of what’s wrong with team is simply make shots.

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WHO NEEDS TO ‘MAKE’ MORE 3-POINT SHOTS?

The three Laker shooters who need to dramatically improve their 3-point shooting percentages are starting point guard D’Angelo Russell, starting shooting guard Austin Reaves, and starting power forward LeBron James.

Russell is shooting 32.0% on 6.3 attempts per game vs. 41.4% on 6.5 attempts last season, Reaves 27.8% on 4.5 attempts per game vs. 39.8% on 3.4 attempts, and James 31.0% on 5.3 attempts vs. 32.15 on 6.9 attempts. Combined, Russell, Reaves, and James are taking 16.1 3-point attempts per game, over half the Lakers’ 30.4 attempted threes per game. So far, they’ve made 39 out of 128 threes for 30.5% vs. 253 of 704 or 36.0% last season.

Of greater concern is the Lakers are making just 9.0 out 30.4 threes per game this season for 29.6% vs. 10.8 out of 31.2 threes for 34.6%. Rather than improving over last year, Lakers are scoring 5.4 points less per game.
Since the Lakers are making 9.0 threes and allowing 13.3 threes per game, they have a negative 3-point differential of 4.3 threes per game or 12.9 points per game vs. 2.4 threes per game or 7.2 points per game last year.

Unless Reaves and Russell suddenly start hitting their shots, the Lakers may have to make a change, possibly moving Austin Reaves to point guard and starting Taurean Prince, who’s been the team’s 4th best 3-point shooter.

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WHO NEEDS TO ‘TAKE’ MORE 3-POINT SHOTS?

The top three 3-point percentage shooters on the Los Angeles Lakers — center Anthony Davis, backup center Christian Wood, and backup small forward Rui Hachimura — need opportunities to take more 3-point shots.

This season, Anthony Davis is shooting 42.9% from deep on 1.0 attempts per game while Christian Wood and Rui Hachimura are each shooting 41.7% on 3.0 attempts per game. All three need to attempt more threes. Right now, their 7.0 combined attempts represent less than a fourth of the Lakers total 3-point attempts per game. The offseason hope had been that the Lakers would be able to increase their 3-point volume and percentage.

If the Lakers opt to start Reaves and Prince in the backcourt, that would open up a starting small forward spot for Rui Hachimura or starting center spot for Christian Wood with Davis and James becoming the forwards.
That would enable the Lakers to improve the 3-point shooting gravity of their starting lineup with either a Reaves, Prince, Hachimura, James, and Davis lineup or a Reaves, Prince, James, Davis, and Wood starting lineup.

The los Angeles Lakers will not be able to improve via a trade until December 15 when recently signed players can be traded. In the meantime, what’s wrong with the Lakers can be simply fixed by just making shots.