For a brief moment, the Lakers looked like a competent 3-point shooting team on Sunday afternoon. An absolute barrage of 3-pointers in the third quarter, five to be exact, had the Lakers dreaming of becoming a reincarnated version of the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors.
However, it was nothing more than a mirage, as the Lakers shot 1-20 in the other three quarters against the Blazers, a key factor in their loss. The Lakers have been poor in their first three games of the season from range. Preferably historically bad.
After the game, ESPN Stats & Info shared the following stats that really put into context just how bad this streak has been.
The Lakers are 25-118 from 3-point range in 3 games this season.
In NBA history, there have been over 6,100 instances of a team taking at least 100 3-pointers in a 3-game stretch.
His 21.2% is the second lowest of any of them, ahead of just a fraction of the 2018 Hawks (21.0%). pic.twitter.com/rYOqTRmWYB
— Statistics and information from ESPN (@ESPNStatsInfo) October 23, 2022
Just one look at the Lakers’ individual shooting percentages shows how bleak the picture is. Technically, Matt Ryan is the leading 3-point shooter at 40%, although he has only made five 3-pointers total and was not in Sunday’s game.
After him, it’s a steep drop to the best shooter on the team with decent volume in Austin Reaves, who shoots…28.6%. LeBron James has taken by far the most attempts with nine per. matches and shoots in second place with an amazing 25.9%.
Kendrick Nunn, Patrick Beverley, Anthony Davis and Lonnie Walker IV are averaging more than three attempts per game. match and shoot 23.1%, 21.4%, 20% and 17.6% respectively. And then there’s Russell Westbrook, who is shooting 8.3% on 12 attempts (for math wimps, that’s a mark).
The Lakers will not be East poor 3-point shooting this season. According to Cleaning the Glass, the Lakers’ effective field goal percentage, essentially an approximation of what a team would shoot based on their shooting profile, is fourth-best in the league at 54.8%. The problem is that the Lakers are last in true effective field goal percentage so far.
It is not certain where they will ultimately qualify, as they will not be a good 3-point team this season. Even the teams’ average shots might be enough to make them competitive most nights. But given his start, that might be an unreasonable question.
