Los Angeles Lakers: Why have they shot so poorly this season?

Why have the Los Angeles Lakers shot the ball so poorly this season? We take a look into what plays into their poor shooting performance.

The Los Angeles Lakers, as a whole, are 29th in the NBA in 3-point shooting and they’re also 29th in the league in free-throw shooting.

Are the players on the Purple and Gold simply bad shooters or is there another explanation for their putrid percentages?

3-Point Shooting Stats:

2017-2018 Lakers players 3-point shooting percentage:

2018-2019 Lakers players 3-point shooting percentage (the players who’ve improved from last season to this season are in bold):

Josh Hart: 33%
Brandon Ingram: 33%
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope: 33%
LeBron James: 34%
Reggie Bullock: 29% (since joining the Lakers)
Mike Muscala: 26% (since joining the Lakers
Kyle Kuzma: 30%
Rajon Rondo: 37%
Lonzo Ball: 33%
Lance Stephenson: 38%

It’s easy to see that almost every player on the team has shot worse this year than last season. Is it because they’re not getting open looks?

According to www.nba.com, for a 3-point attempt to be considered “wide open” there must be no defender within 6 feet of the shooter and for a 3-point attempt to be seen as simply “open” a defender must be within 4-6 feet of the shooter.

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Let’s see how many “wide open” and “open” shots the five players on the Lakers who take the most 3-pointers per game (excluding Lonzo Ball, because he’s been injured for too long now) attempt:

LeBron James: 5.9 3-point attempts per game, 2.4 attempts are “wide open,” 2.8 attempts are “open”
Kyle Kuzma: 5.8 3-point attempts per game, 3.8 attempts are wide open, 1.8 attempts are “open”
Reggie Bullock: 5.1 3-point attempts per game, 2.5 attempts are wide open, 1.8 attempts are “open”
KCP: 4.5 3-point attempts per game, 2.2 attempts are wide open, 1.8 attempts are “open”
Josh Hart: 4.1 3-point attempts per game, 2.0 attempts are wide open, 1.8 attempts are “open”

Almost all the shots that James, Kuzma, Bullock, KCP, and Hart take from beyond the arc are considered “wide open” or “open,” so it’s clear that they’re not forcing up bad attempts due to bad offensive schemes.

In fact, it’s obvious the Lakers are running respectable offensive sets that lead to very good 3-point attempts. The players on the Purple and Gold are – simply put- bricking wide-open shots.

As I said at the beginning of this article, the Lakers are also 29th in the NBA in free throw percentage. The players on the Lakers make 16 out of 24 freebie attempts per game, which works out to 69%.

Here are the free throw stats for the three Lakers players who average the most shots per game from the charity stripe this season:

LeBron James takes 7.6 free-throws per game and he makes five of them, good for 66% on the year.
Brandon Ingram took 5.6 free-throws per game and he made 3.8, which is 67%.
Kyle Kuzma takes 3.5 free-throws per game and makes 2.6, which is 74%

I’m going to give my theory as to why the Lakers have shot so poorly this season in a moment, but first I’d like to quickly show how damaging the Lakers’ 3-point shooting and free throw shooting have been this year.

If the Lakers could have made a mere two more free throws per game, that would have bumped up their free-throw percentage to 75%, good for 22nd in the league. Then, if the Purple and Gold could have made one more 3-point attempt per game that would have increased their 3-point percentage to 36%, which would be 7th in the league (considering how many “wide open” looks the players on the Lakers get from deep, it doesn’t seem too crazy to think they could hit just one more 3-pointer per game).

If the Lakers DID actually hit those two more free-throws and that one more 3-pointer per game it would take their net-rating from -2.1 on the season to +3.1, which according to a Pythagorean Win Percentage Calculator would make the Purple and Gold a top-5 team in the Western Conference.

Here’s why I think the Lakers are shooting the ball badly this season: Because LeBron James is on the team.

The Lakers aren’t shooting badly because LeBron James is a bad basketball player. In fact, I’d go so far as to say James is the best offensive basketball player in the league. He’s great at setting up his teammates and the Lakers get more than a dozen open looks per game, because of James’ gravity and passing ability.

I think the Lakers are bricking their open 3’s and their free throws because the circus that LeBron James has transported with him to LA has brought too much pressure for the Lakers players to handle.

There’s no other way to explain why so many of the players (Ingram, Hart, Kuzma, and KCP) who played under the bright lights of LA last season have faltered so badly this year despite the fact that they’re getting so many open looks every game.

Earlier in the season, Kevin Durant called the environment around LeBron “toxic,” because of the weight that the members of the media bring to any ball club that LeBron plays for. After Durant made those comments I was mad and I thought that he was just hating on LeBron, but now, I agree with KD.

Look at Reggie Bullock and Mike Muscala. Bullock was shooting 39% from distance this year when he was on the Detroit Pistons, but since he’s come to the Lakers via trade, he’s shooting 29% from 3-point range. Mike Muscala was shooting 34% from beyond the arc this season with the Philadelphia 76ers, but since he’s joined the Lakers he’s shooting 26%.

What about Svi Mykhailiuk? He was shooting 32% from 3-point distance while on the Lakers, but since he’s been traded to the Pistons, he’s been shooting (in limited minutes) 50% from beyond the arc.

Basketball is a sport of inches. If a player takes a shot from 28 feet and he’s off by an inch to the right, the ball’s not going in. If a player shoots the ball just a tiny bit too hard, it’s not going in the basket.

Let’s take Reggie Bullock for example. He’s just come from the relatively quiet confines of Detroit, a place he could just go out and play the game he loves without being bothered too much. All of a sudden he gets traded to LA and now he’s faced with the scrutiny that comes from the media horde that follows LeBron James.

This relentless examination into what type of player he is gives Bullock stress, and he starts to tighten up just a little bit when he releases the ball, causing his shot to miss by an inch to the right.

This is what is happening to all of the Lakers players. They’re tensing up when they shoot, because of the all of the media pressure they feel, and they’re missing their shots.

This is the only way to explain why so many Lakers players have shot the ball so badly this year, and that includes LeBron himself. Even though he won championships in Cleveland and Miami, nothing compares to the media coverage a player who is on the New York Knicks or the Lakers receives.

The normal reporting in LA is intense but add in LeBron “I could be the GOAT” James into the mix and the decibel level has become deafening, not just for Kuzma, Ingram, Bullock, KCP, Muscala, and Hart, but for LeBron himself as well.