Lakers: Luke Walton Will Encourage Shooting Threes
The new era for the Lakers under head coach Luke Walton looks like it will entail plenty of shots from beyond the arc
The poor souls most commonly known as fans of the Los Angeles Lakers had to suffer through an abysmal season of basketball last year as the Lakers won only 17 games. All the while, Byron Scott was preaching his archaic messages and so on and so forth.
Now the Lakers have hope in the form of their new head coach and former Golden State Warriors assistant Luke Walton. Obviously having a younger coach with a much different background promises many diversions from what Scott did last season in his system, but Walton is adamant about at least one: three-point shooting.
After rookie center Ivica Zubac was taking threes in Las Vegas during Summer League play, the head coach for Summer League and one of Walton’s assistants in Jesse Mermuys was asked about if that was part of the game plan. Mermuys responded by saying that Walton is running the show and that this version of the Lakers is “letting it fly.”
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Considering that Walton is coming from a Warriors team that featured Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, two of the most prolific shooters from deep in NBA history, it shouldn’t be surprising to see him valuing the three-ball as he makes his way back to Los Angeles. However, he’ll have his work cut out for him considering the Lakers’ shooting woes of last year.
On their way to the second-worst record in the NBA, the Lakers managed to have the worst three-point shooting efficiency numbers in the league and by a relatively wide margin. The Lakers converted on only 31.7 percent of their attempts from deep, a full 1.4 percent lower than the Memphis Grizzlies in 29th place. To put that in perspective, 1.4 percentage points is the gap between No. 29 in Memphis and No. 21 in the Detroit Pistons.
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However, Walton isn’t just going to have these Lakers hoisting up shots from bad looks—instead, fans can look for an offense geared more towards getting better looks from the perimeter. At that point it’ll be on this young Lakers team to take strides forward and to start knocking down those jumpers from long range as, because they’re going to be letting it fly regardless.