After years of steering away from the 3-point line, the Lakers’ new head coach, JJ Redick, will attempt to reroute the team’s offensive course.
As the rest of the NBA continues to inch further out on offense, the Lakers remain one of the few teams still pushing inward.
Last season, Los Angeles had the second-highest shot frequency percentage (36%) at the rim in the league. a statistical marker that has become the bludgeoning trademark of the LeBron James and Anthony Davis era.
Since the star duo linked up in 2019, the Lakers have never ranked lower than sixth in the number of shots generated within four feet. Given the individual and combined strengths of James and Davis, alongside the value that attempts at the rim still carry, the strategy makes sense.
However, the scales may have moved too far in one direction.
A direct result of the team’s paint-heavy approach has been their inability to keep up with the rest of the league’s perimeter shift. Whether due to roster construction or gameplan, the Lakers have yet to finish outside the bottom ten in 3-point shot frequency during James and Davis’ tenures.
Last season, they arguably hit rock bottom as they finished with the second-lowest rate in the league despite posting arguably their best 3-point shooting season in franchise history.
The team’s continued aversion to the deep ball is not so much a faux pas within the current basketball landscape but an Achilles heel that has put a mathematical ceiling on their championship outlook.
Even the most ornery skeptics of analytics have to admit there is a correlation between the three and offensive success. This past season, the Boston Celtics exemplified this as they shot their way to a championship.
Beyond just Boston — who attempted more threes than any other team in the NBA last year — the postseason also highlighted the impact spacing still has for several clubs, including the Dallas Mavericks, who attempted the second-most threes.
In an article back in June, Tom Haberstroh pointed out that teams that won the made 3-point column went 60-17 this postseason. That’s the highest mark since the NBA moved the 3-point line back in 1998. The Celtics, specifically, went 15-0 in such games.
This is not to say the Lakers should abandon bullying teams in the paint, but rather, strike a careful balance of modernizing their profile. An aim that is likely at the top of mind for the team’s new head coach, JJ Redick.
Redick, a prolific shooter in his own right, has already been vocal about what he envisions for the Lakers’ offense and the role that 3-pointers will play. Beyond signaling he will use “math,” Redick has also namedropped which individual players he wants to let it fly more often and the type of system he wants to install.
Perhaps the most interesting breadcrumbs to Redick’s philosophy can be found within his comments regarding James’ utilization
With James set to turn 40 in December, Redick will attempt to walk the tightrope of managing his star’s workload while convincing him to alter his game in the process. The most prominent change potentially is James embracing a more off-ball role, which Redick hopes results in more threes.
While it remains to be seen if this transpires and to what degree, before he was hired as head coach, Redick and James had a spirited discussion about the role of analytics and the value of 3-pointers on their “Mind the Game” podcast.
The conversation, which was interesting on several levels, is even more compelling now as it was a sneak peek at the exact types of dialogues Redick will need to have with his team to modify their approach heading into the new season — James included.
There will be expected pushback, as James had during the podcast, but the key for Redick and his staff is to find an important middle ground.
“(You) certainly have to get buy-in and talk to him about how he wants to play,” Redick said about James. “Him and I have joked about this, but he shot over 40 percent from three this year. Like, I want him shooting threes.”
Outside communicating his point with his players on a human level, Redick will also have to reconfigure the Lakers’ offensive system schematically to manufacture more looks from deep.
Beyond their volume issue last season, Los Angeles also lacked versatility in their 3-point attack. Behind no consistent downhill threats, the Lakers had the second-lowest assist percentage off drives, which forced them to create from the inside out, highlighted by them finishing with the second-most post-ups per game.
It is also worth pointing out that despite their improved efficiency, the team’s shooters often were exclusively standstill options. As a team, the Lakers had the third-lowest percentage of off-screen chances, according to the league’s tracking data. Individually, they did not have a single player crack the top 50 in attempts.
While dramatically improved in the second half, the Lakers’ offense still felt predictable as a result. And at times, one-dimensional.
“One of the things last year with this team, they played a lot of random,” Redick said during Summer League. “If you look at the efficiency numbers, when they played random versus when they played out of sets, the sets had a much higher efficiency.
“It’s not that we’re going to call plays every time, but we’re going to put them in environments where they can make reads. Look, we have LeBron and AD on our team. Those guys are obviously going to be offensive hubs, but we are going to play with more movement, more cutting and we have to certainly get buy-in from all players to play that way.”
From a personnel perspective, there should be optimism that the Lakers can replicate their improved shooting last season and, with the right level of buy-in, as Redick stated, could also be more dynamic from a shooting and offensive standpoint. The latter is important for a team that has only one top-ten finish in offensive rating in the last five seasons.
Although the Lakers have had a love-hate relationship with the 3-point line in the past — mostly hate — at some point, the team will have to adapt or risk getting left behind.
Redick will have to wear many new hats as a first-time coach this upcoming year, but how well he can be the team’s 3-point whisperer and matchmaker could prove his most important.
All stats courtesy of Cleaning the Glass unless otherwise stated. You can follow Alex on Twitter at @AlexmRegla.
