The Los Angeles Lakers roster looks much different than it did last season. The Lakers traded for Russell Westbrook and had to fill out the roster with minimum signings, Talen Horton-Tucker and one Taxpayer’s Mid-Level Exception signing.
All in all, Rob Pelinka did a solid job. One of the narratives around the Lakers was that they needed to add three-point shooting and they did just that. If all goes right, this could be the best three-point shooting team of the last three seasons.
There will naturally be players who exceed expectations and who disappoint. Today, we attempt to pinpoint just how the Los Angeles Lakers’ three-point shooting will shake out. We are ranking the top-five three-point shooters in LA based on how many threes we expect them to make in 2021.
Ranking the three-point shooters on the Los Angeles Lakers:
5. Kendrick Nunn
Coming in fifth is Kendrick Nunn, who will be appearing off the bench for the Los Angeles Lakers as the primary backup point guard. The team did sign Rajon Rondo but Nunn should still be ahead of him on the depth chart and still should be playing around 24 minutes per game.
There is a good chance that Nunn sees a lot of minutes with LeBron James on the floor. We will likely see a lot of staggering between LeBron and Russell Westbrook and Nunn is the perfect off-ball point guard to play with LeBron as he can fill in as an off-ball shooter.
Nunn is a solid three-point shooter and he should find himself somewhere in the 38-40% range. Historically, Nunn is not as much of a high-volume three-point shooter as some of the players ahead of him on this list, so while he might have a better percentage, his overall three-pointers made will likely be lower.
Factoring in how many minutes he should play this season with his career rates of taking and making threes, we project Nunn to finish right around 125 threes made next season.