Lakers Rumors: Reports claim Lakers interest in a deal for Buddy Hield
By Ronald Agers
This is not some Lakers Rumors: Buddy Hield can shoot 3 pointers, will shoot 3 pointers and is not scared of shooting 3 pointers!
The staff of Lake Show Life will go out on a limb and say that the Los Angeles Lakers would make this trade because Buddy Hield is known for making a 3 pointer or two.
But seriously folks, Rob Pelinka’s first priority is to improve the team’s spacing this offseason with shooting (No not centers!) to clear the lane for LeBron James and Anthony Davis. The Lakers for the last two seasons have been one of the worst shooting teams in the NBA. The Lakers could not find any consistent shooting last season, specifically in the playoffs. As a team, the Lakers shot 34.9 percent from deep last season, which ranked in the bottom third of the NBA.
Hield will be a huge upgrade over Kentavious Caldwell-Pope no matter if he shoots poorly or not. Why? By the end of last season, KCP, Alex Caruso and Talen Horton-Tucker showed reluctance to shoot from beyond the arc. Caldwell-Pope at times was the fearful shooter that Ben Simmons was in the playoffs not shooting the ball when open.
Buddy has averaged 18.9 points per game over the past three seasons with the Kings shooting 40.3 percent on over nine 3-point attempts per game in 2020-21. Last year, he shot an average of 10.2 attempts.
The Lakers will definitely be sacrificing defense in this deal and they shouldn’t look for top shelf ball-handling and play-making either. This is all about the shooting that Hield brings to the offense.
Enough about basketball analysis…time to go to the office and crunch numbers.