What will soon-to-be-acquired Dennis Schröder bring to the Lakers?

Notable aspect of the Dennis Schroder deal: It gives the Lakers a walk-away point if Rajon Rondo gets too pricy in free agency. Schroder can provide the secondary playmaking next to LeBron. Averaged four assists next to Chris Paul last season. https://t.co/Bjf4WhgSfD

— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) November 15, 2020

For the Lakers, the appeal is simple. Schröder would immediately become their third-best scorer. He averaged 18.9 points off the Thunder bench last season, scoring 1,191 total, the most among all NBA reserves. That’s also significantly more than any Lakers player not named Anthony Davis and LeBron James. Kyle Kuzma, the Lakers’ third-leading scorer, didn’t even reach 13 per game.

Schröder does it at all three levels. Despite a tiny build, the 6-foot-1 guard is slithery on the drive with deft touch around the rim and a floater he can teardrop over descending bigs. Schröder made 157 shots in the restricted area last season. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, for example, made 95.

Schröder attacks the paint, but he also pairs it with an effective stop-and-pop midrange. He was 117-of-243 on 2-point jumpers last season, a respectable 48.7 percent, which was efficient enough to keep defenses honest while not sucking an offense dry. He particularly loves the 15-19 foot range. Schröder made 71 jumpers from that zone last season, tied with Kawhi Leonard for eighth most in the NBA.

But it’s his capable 3-point shot that might add the most to a Lakers team in desperate need of some supplementary shooting. It didn’t bite them in the playoffs — mostly because Caldwell-Pope got hot at the right time — but the Lakers were a bottom-10, collective 3-point shooting team last season, allowing defenses to collapse on James and Davis and bog down the offensive flow for stretches.

Green was a major culprit. His 3-point accuracy tumbled from 45 percent during his lone season in Toronto to 36 percent with the Lakers, trickling down to 33 percent in the playoffs when his cold streaks hurt the most. The Lakers created 45 wide-open 3s for Green in the playoffs — no defender within six feet of him, per NBA.com/Stats — and he only made 16 of them.

Schröder, still in his early prime at 27, is more potent and capable. Last season, he made 125 3-pointers, more than every Laker except James, who led his team in 3s for the first time since 2008 in a glaring sign of the lack of spacers around him. Schröder’s accuracy was 38.5 percent, which was equal to Caldwell-Pope, who led the Lakers.

But zero in on that catch-and-shoot number. In his Atlanta days, Schröder was often the lead initiator, but playing next to Russell Westbrook and later Chris Paul in Oklahoma City, he became more comfortable in the type of off-ball, supplementary role he’ll fill when sharing the court with James. Ninety-six of Schröder’s 125 made 3s in 2019-20 were of the catch-and-shoot variety, done with 41.4 percent accuracy. When left wide open, he was 66-of-139, a 44.6 percent clip. He’s just much more dangerous from deep than Green at this stage of their careers.

Is there a downside? Of course. Green is a longer, stronger, more accomplished defender. He is not a stopper, but he’s a veteran who can reliably take shifts on James Harden, Leonard and Paul George and even smaller guards like Damian Lillard and Steph Curry. Schröder isn’t that. You can’t put him on bigger wings and, if he’s on some of the league’s better guards, he’s in survival mode. There will be times when the Lakers might have to hide him on the opponent’s least threatening option.

But Schröder also is not awful on defense. It won’t be a problem like the Clippers have with Lou Williams. The Thunder actually had a much better defensive rating with him on the floor (103.0) than off of it (111.8) last season. It was the same situation in OKC’s seven-game first-round series against the Rockets: 103.8 with Schröder on it, team-worst 114.9 with him off of it. That might be the greatest argument why Schröder will work in the postseason for a defense-first Lakers team. He just worked in a playoff series against a conference rival.