Los Angeles Lakers need to improve three-point shooting
By Nick Ziegler
The Los Angeles Lakers have a 2-4 record through six games. One of the problems has been shooting from behind the 3-point line.
Coming into the season, the Los Angeles Lakers were certainly an improved team. After acquiring some talented players like Brook Lopez and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, we knew that the Lakers would be better than they were last season.
In addition to those acquisitions, the Lakers had a very good draft. While adding young talent in the draft is important for the Lakers down the road, that likely won’t result in a ton of wins for them this season.
Through six games, the Lakers have a few key weaknesses. Arguably the most glaring has been the shooting from behind the 3-point line. Last season, the Lakers had players like Lou Williams and Nick Young who are both respected shooters from beyond the arc. The Lakers traded Williams to the Rockets last season and Nick Young signed with the Golden State Warriors.
In the NBA now, shooting 3-pointers has become extremely important. Heading into the season, we knew that the Lakers lacked threats from beyond the arc. Recently, Luke Walton talked about the Lakers not trying to be something that they are not.
"“One of our big things going into every game is trying to attack the paint,” Walton said to Tania Ganguli of the LA Times “… I know the modern NBA is everyone shoots 40 threes a game, but that’s not what we’re trying to do. If we’re open and it’s a rhythm pass and we’ve got some ball movement side to side, inside out. Love it. You catch it in rhythm, let it fly. But we don’t want to just come down and jack up threes all game. That’s not our strength.”"
So far this season, the Lakers are shooting just 27.8 percent from 3-point range. That ranks the Lakers 29th in the NBA in that category. After six games, Jordan Clarkson is currently leading the Lakers in 3-point field goal percentage at 37.5 percent.
Even though the Lakers aren’t going to be a good 3-point shooting team the way the roster is currently built, they should improve. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Brook Lopez were pretty good shooters from beyond the arc last season, and they will likely get it going soon.
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Moving forward, it will be important for the Lakers to look to add some shooters, as it is certainly going to be hard to become an elite team in the NBA without being able to shoot 3-pointers.