2. VOLUME 3-POINT SHOOTING TO CREATE SPACING
Once Lakers went all in on a third superstar by trading for Russell Westbrook, Rob Pelinka’s focus immediately shifted to looking for high volume, high percentage 3-point shooters to create spacing.https://t.co/ePkkGvhwug pic.twitter.com/VrPJCCCpAb
— LakerTom (@LakerTom) September 7, 2021
2. VOLUME 3-POINT SHOOTING TO CREATE SPACING
By 
September 7, 2021 3 Comments
There’s also a reason 3-point shooting was 2nd on my list of 6 areas where the Lakers improved their offense. With the addition of Russ actually exacerbating rather than helping the Lakers 3-point shooting woes, Pelinka did a superb job finding and adding high volume, high percentage shooters.
The additions of Ellington, Nunn, Bazemore, Monk, Ariza, and Anthony not only brought in 6 players who averaged over 35% from deep but also made at least 2 threes per game.
The key to being able to upgrade the Lakers’ 3-point shooting will be starting and playing AD at the five so the two and three slots could be filled with 3-point shooters, including two legitimate 3&D players like Trevor Ariza and Kent Bazemore.
Do you think the Lakers did enough so that 3-point shooting will become an advantage rather than disadvantage?
Not surprisingly this point didn’t move my needle. Yes, we added 6 players who shoot the three well on other teams. If more than 2 of them are playing when the game matters it will mean things in other areas are going poorly, specifically the health area.
I’m not too sure what Ariza has left and think he was brought to be a mentor as much as a contributor, kind of like ‘Kieff last season.
Bazemore and Nunn figure to get decent minutes, Anthony probably a little bit less than them. After that I don’t see a huge role for Ellington or Monk based on their defense. Ellington was hidden on D by New York a lot last season, Monk has not shown that he can defend at a high level yet. Both are net negative defenders.
There are only so many minutes in the game, which guy above will sit and how will he handle it? If I’m Vogel I tell the vets that they should feel free to ease into the regular season and give the young guys some long leashes. Give them a chance to shine because that will end up boding well now and on into the future. A guy like Ariza can handle not playing better than a younger player, let the young bloods hoop for awhile, see how it all fares.
In terms of our raw number of three point attempts I envision us being middle-of -the pack, inching towards the northern half. Our best skills set really ought to be transition scoring and points in the paint. If we’re jacking up a league-high number of threes it will indicate lazy offense to me. Like we saw in the playoffs from LeBron. We have several elite mid-range scorers on the team, a skill I expect to see more used in the playoffs, and better dunkers. So if we’re shooting too many threes it will actually be a detriment to our offensive flow.
I, of course, do hope we are more efficient in our three point scoring and, as we did last season, feel like we did as good a job as can be expected filling in that skill set around our trio of stars. If we can make a higher percentage of the same-ish number of threes you can color me pleased on that front. Better, not just more.
We’re surprisingly pretty much in agreement with respect to 3-point shooting. With three stars who are usually subpar 3-point shooters, it’s hard to generate the volume of threes to be in the top ten. I do think like you that we will be in the middle ten, which is an upgrade from being midway in the bottom ten.
I expect us to shoot more threes and make them at a higher percentage. Would be thrilled to see us average 35.0 3PA per game, an increase from 31.2 last season, which would put us around #13 or #14. Percentage wise, I think we could jump from 35.4% to around 37%, which would put us again around 13th or 14th. That’s a reasonable improvement to make, assuming the superstars shoot fewer threes and the rest of the team more threes.
While it’s a challenge to find room for volume 3-point shooters when three of your starting and closing spots are filled by superstars who don’t shoot a high percentage, where I think our upgraded cadre of 3-point shooters will have an impact is with the non-Lebron minutes, which could at times include Russ at the point and AD or Howard at the five with three volume 3-point shooters like Ellington (42% on 6 3PAPG), Monk (40% on 5 3PAPG), and Nunn (38% on 5.7 3PAPG). Lineups like these could make a huge difference for the Lakers when LeBron was on the bench.
Rotations are going to be a challenge, especially at shooting guard and small forward. I like the idea of using Nunn and Monk extensively early, not only to save older legs but also to get them integrated into what we want to do on defense. Kendrick and Malik are elite offensive threats but have never played for a defense first team. I would invest time getting them acclimated to what Frank wants on defense. I would be careful with minutes for older vets like Melo and Trevor and Wayne.