3. His 3-point shooting
Late last season, Alex Caruso was a certified 3-point sniper. For the season as a whole, he shot 48.0 percent from downtown, and had a game against the Clippers on Apr. 5 in which he made 5-of-7 of his 3-point attempts.
This season has been a totally different story, as Caruso is hitting just 34.8 percent of his treys.
In doing so, he’s contributed to what has been a team-wide problem – inconsistent 3-point shooting. There have been nights and stretches where the Lakers as a whole have shot very well from the outside.
But there have also been just as many games and stretches where the team’s 3-point shooting has been as cold as Siberia during the wintertime.
Caruso is one of a few Lakers players – the others being Avery Bradley, Kyle Kuzma and to a certain extent Anthony Davis – who have underperformed when it comes to hitting treys this season.
No one expects him to duplicate that 48.0 percentage from last season, but the fact that he did that consistently for just over a month surely means he can shoot something like 40.0 percent from downtown for a whole season.