The Los Angeles Lakers’ 3-point shooting has been a concern this season, but there are reasons to believe it will improve in the second half. With the team becoming healthier and players like LeBron James and Luke Kennard underperforming on catch-and-shoot 3s, the Lakers are poised to sustain their recent 3-point success.
The Lakers entered the second half of the season ranked No. 21 in 3-point percentage at 35%, worse than last season’s 36.6% 3-point shooting (No. 14) and the previous season’s 37.7% (No. 8). However, there are reasons for optimism that their outside shooting will be a strength in the final “sprint” of the regular season.
The Lakers shot 37% from beyond the arc in their 19 games leading into the break, which ranked No. 7 across the league, despite their player availability being in flux for most of that stretch after previously being one of the league’s worst shooting teams (33.9% in the first 35 games).
Most of the Lakers’ higher-volume shooters are underperforming on catch-and-shoot 3s this season vs. their previous few seasons, including Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Marcus Smart, and Jake LaRavia. Even Luke Kennard, the league’s most accurate 3-point shooter, significantly underperformed on his catch-and-shoot looks in the four games he played with the Lakers entering Friday.
The underperformance on catch-and-shoot 3s started to turn in the Lakers’ favor before the break. And with the team overall becoming healthier, there’s confidence they’ll be able to sustain being a solid-to-good shooting squad, even if players who’ve shot better than expected (like Rui Hachimura) begin to regress to their mean.
The Lakers have shown they don’t need high-level 3-point shooting to perform well offensively. They remain elite inside the arc and getting to the free-throw line. But sustained 3-point shooting can be the difference between them being a good-to-very good offense like they have been so far and elite like they’ve been projected to be.
And they’re on the precipice of getting to that level. With their recent 3-point success and the team becoming healthier, the Lakers are poised to make a strong push in the second half of the season.
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