Los Angeles Lakers: What’s wrong with the team’s offense?

The Los Angeles Lakers have gotten off to a slow start. Much of the blame for this can be attributed to the team’s offense. But what exactly has gone wrong?

The Los Angeles Lakers have began the 2018-2019 NBA season with a record of 0-2. As of now, they simply aren’t a very good team. But, this was to be expected. It’s going to take time for this Lakers team to become the best version of themselves. A rough start was inevitable.

They have shown flashes of what could make them a great team, but several key issues are holding them back from reaching that potential.

This team’s entire identity rests in their ability to run, and they’ve done that quite well through two games.

They currently lead the league in pace at 112 possessions per game. While they have run more than any team in the league, they have yet to see this pace have the intended impact to the team’s offense.

Teams play fast because it creates easy baskets in transition, leading to a more efficient offense. The New Orleans Pelicans, one of the fastest teams in the league the last two seasons, lead the league in team true shooting percentage with 64.5 percent. This is no coincidence.

Despite playing at a higher pace than the Pelicans, the Lakers are not scoring nearly as efficiently. They are just 18th in the league in true shooting percentage, shooting 54.8 percent. But this isn’t because they are failing to score in transition effectively. In fact, transition scoring is one of the few things keeping the offense afloat.

The Lakers are second in the league in 2-point percentage with 58.8 percent. To be more specific, they are also second in shooting percentage on shots at the rim, 70.5 percent, and first in the frequency of these shots, 50.5 percent. These heightened numbers are a direct result of the team’s pace and the shots created as a result in transition.

In short, the decision to up the team’s pace is working as planned–but the advantages created by this are being weighed down heavily by other aspects of the team’s offense.

The obvious reason why the team’s true shooting percentage is so low is due to the awful 3-point shooting we have seen in the first two games. The Lakers are currently dead last in the league in 3-point percentage with 24.2 percent.

This is a glaring issue that the Lakers must improve upon if they wish to compete with the top teams in the league. But it’s not the only problem with the team’s offense at the moment.

The team has had an incredibly stale halfcourt offense, leading to more difficult shots than need be. Too often do the Lakers resort to isolation plays when they fail to get a good look in transition.

There is simply too much standing around and not enough creative sets being run to initiate an effective offense.

This possession does a good job to display these issues, as there is next to no movement aside from a few ineffective screens. The team has been settling for far too many contested jump shots, as Josh Hart did in this play.

The bad shot is one thing, but while Beasley and Hart are conducting their awkward exchange, there is zero off-ball movement being conducted by the other three players.

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This five out alignment with no movement only works for teams like the Rockets, who have the necessary shooters and isolation ball handlers to be effective in this kind of set. For the worst 3-point shooting team in the league, this will not suffice.

You can have an effective offense without the greatest shooters on the court, but not if all your non-shooters are just standing around. Effective sets that create good off-ball movement can mask the team’s lack of shooting, which would create better looks in the half court and minimize the need for contested off the dribble shots from players who have no business taking them.

These issues are most glaring when the team’s bench unit is in the game, as one would expect. Having a player as gifted as LeBron James can make up for the lack of effective sets being run, to an extent. But when players like Lance Stephenson and Michael Beasley are on the court, the lack of movement becomes a glaring issue.

This team will never reach their full potential if they can’t score consistently in the halfcourt without James playing hero ball.

We heard all throughout training camp that the team was focusing on defense first, so perhaps they haven’t gotten around to fully implementing their offense.

If this is the case then there is a chance we see the offense improve over time– but it won’t fix itself. There has to be necessary effort put in by both the coaching staff and players to fix these issues.

Along with 3-point shooting and defense, this will be one of the areas that decide just how good this Los Angeles Lakers team becomes.