It took the Los Angeles Lakers six games to finally get in the win column and you would have thought that the team won a playoff series with the way they celebrated. It was a long overdue win and for the first time this season, the Lakers actually played comprehensive good basketball.
The season is long, though, and getting overly excited about one win after an 0-5 start is the last thing fans should do. Instead, we should be dissecting the trends that the team has showcased thus far to give us a better understanding of what this team could be in the bigger picture.
It is early but there are three distinct trends that already stand out and are worth dissecting. Are they legit and will they follow the team all season? Or are they merely just the product of a small sample size?
Let’s dive into them.
1. The Los Angeles Lakers cannot shoot threes — BUY
The Los Angeles Lakers actually shot well from beyond the arc in Sunday’s win over the Denver Nuggets, which was a big reason why the team posted its largest scoring night of the season. Unfortunately, games like that are going to be the outlier as this team simply does not have enough shooting.
The Lakers got out to the worst three-point shooting start in league history this season because of a roster that was not put together with enough shooters. The law of averages says that the team will get better as they were all shooting under their career average from three but the team’s career average still is not good.
Will the Lakers be historically bad the entire season? Probably not, but that is far more likely than the team suddenly being great at shooting threes. Instead, they will continue to be amid the worst in the league from beyond the arc, hindering their offensive ceiling as a result.