Los Angeles Lakers’ 3-point shooting has been surprisingly solid

For the past few months, national pundits have warned us that the Los Angeles Lakers would be a bad 3-point shooting team, based on the additions they made this summer. So far, it looks like that may not be the case.

When LeBron James announced that he was taking his talents to Venice Beach to join the Los Angeles Lakers in early July, the organization filled out the rest of the roster with players such as Rajon Rondo, Lance Stephenson and JaVale Mcgee.

They fit the bill of what Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka wanted, but they a reputation for throwing up bricks from behind the arc. Many people (including myself) criticized the Lakers’ front office for not addressing their 3-point shooting, which was something they were ranked 29th in last season.

I know it’s early, but so far in this young 2018-19 season, the purple and gold have been surprisingly solid from downtown. In fact, at times they have actually been – dare I say it – really good from deep.

As of Nov. 13, the Lakers were shooting 35.1 percent from 3-point range. That is good enough for a tie of 17th in the NBA, and just slightly below the league average of 35.2 percent.

In fact, after struggling mightily in the first two games of the season, they have shot less than 35 percent from deep in just three of their subsequent 10 games. In one of those games – an Oct. 25 win over red-hot Denver – they shot 34.5 percent, which is not too bad.

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Even better, several of their key players are shooting very well from downtown. Stephenson, who has shot better than 35 percent from that range in only two of his previous eight seasons, is hitting threes at a 42.9 percent clip this season. Rondo, who for many years couldn’t hit an outside shot to save his life, is making an amazing 45 percent of his 3-point attempts.

Their incumbent players are also doing well, such as Josh Hart, who is burning it up at 43.5 percent. Brandon Ingram is hitting at a 35.3 percent rate from downtown, and Lonzo Ball, who shot a dreadful 30.5 percent from beyond the arc last season, is now shooting a very reliable 36.2 percent from there, despite some game-to-game inconsistency with his outside shooting.

The Lakers have also managed to shoot pretty well percentage-wise from 3-point range even though a couple of their players are struggling.

Kyle Kuzma, who shot 36 percent last season despite hitting the rookie wall really hard between Christmas and March, is only hitting 29.2 percent of his treys so far, although he’s been showing signs of picking it up as of late. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who shot 38.3 percent from downtown last season, is only shooting 28.2 percent this season as he’s struggled to find consistent playing time.

LeBron James was ice-cold from long range to start the season and is shooting 31.6 percent from 3-point range on the season. But he’s starting to get his stroke back, as he’s hit 40.4 percent from deep in the last eight games. During that stretch, he has multiple 3-pointers in all but one game.

It’s fair to assume that Rondo’s accuracy will dip somewhat, as his high-water mark from downtown for a whole season was 37.6 percent in 2016-17. However, he doesn’t shoot that many of them (only 2.0 attempts so far this season), so a drop in his percentage may not hurt the team’s percentage all that much.

Even if Ball’s 3-point shooting gets a little worse as the season moves along, it will probably be offset by guys like LeBron and Kyle Kuzma improving their rhythm and picking up their percentages, as they have in the last five games or so.

The Lakers don’t necessarily need to be an elite 3-point shooting team to be a legit playoff team and make some noise in the postseason. Last season the Houston Rockets, under coach Mike D’Antoni and math geek general manager Daryl Morey, gained a reputation as a great 3-point shooting team. They shot more of them than anyone else (42.3 a game) and ranked a modest 13th in 3-point shooting percentage (36.2 percent).

It was good enough to take them to the brink of reaching the NBA Finals until Chris Paul pulled up lame in the closing moments of their big Game 5 win in the Western Conference Finals. Many still think that if it weren’t for that injury, the NBA World Championship trophy would be in Houston right now.

Everyone knows that the Lakers bread-and-butter is their fast break and overall transition attack, which, at times, has looked like a trip in the hot tub time machine to 1985, sans the daisy dukes. They usually look for layups in transition, unlike most teams, who shoot threes on the break even when they have an easy layup available to them.

I personally think doing the latter is basketball stupidity, no matter what those stubborn analytics nerds think.

The Lakers only need to hit a solid number of their 3-pointers (like they have) so that they can keep defenses honest. They shouldn’t shoot them off the dribble much, a la Golden State, but if they improve their ball movement, player movement and overall fluidity in their halfcourt offense (definitely a bone of contention with this team right now), hitting triples shouldn’t be a problem for them.