The Lakers have jump-shooting issues. We’re only one game into the season and that’s already apparent.
It’s bad. Very bad. So bad that LeBron James threw the entire Lakers team under the bus for their lack of shooting prowess against the Warriors in the team’s opening night loss.
As harsh as it was, as my colleague Bryan Kalbrosky writes, James isn’t necessarily wrong. The Lakers are poorly constructed with an absurd lack of shooting available across the roster. The raw numbers only begin to tell the story of how bad the team is at shooting across the board.
What hasn’t been discussed much, however, is how big a contributor Anthony Davis is to the team’s shooting woes.
Since landing with the Lakers for the 2019-20 NBA season, Davis has been wildly inconsistent outside of the paint. That didn’t change on opening night, where he shot 10-22 from the field and 2-12 outside of the restricted area.
Here’s how bad it was for Davis last night.
There’s a whole lotta red on this shot chart — word to Playboi Carti. That’s not a good thing. And it allows the defense to further pack the paint on his touches.
But this has been a consistent theme with Davis for most of his stint with the Lakers. Yes, he was incredible shooting the ball in the NBA Bubble — he shot 40% from 10-16 feet away from the basket and 55% from 16 feet out to 3-point range, according to Basketball Reference.
But that version of Anthony Davis has not returned since then. In the seasons since, he’s shot 37% from both of those areas, respectively, and just 22% from 3-point range overall.
What’s so baffling about this is that Davis hasn’t always been this terrible jump-shooter. It once served as his bread and butter in his days as a Pelican. Through his years in New Orleans, he shot 43% from 10-16 feet and 38% from 16 feet and beyond. For him to have regressed so sharply is stunning.
And it’s not like these are difficult jumpers, either. Davis shot 0-7 on open jumpers against the Warriors with a defender between 4-6 feet away from him. Those were makeable shots.
This is the sort of inconsistency the Lakers have seen from Davis offensively over the last few years. Sometimes he makes them, sometimes he doesn’t. The problem is this team absolutely needs him to make them — they need guaranteed shooting. And he’s just not providing that right now.
Maybe that changes this season. This is only one game and he can improve moving forward. But if he’s going to get better, he’d better do it fast. The margin of error is razor-thin for this Lakers team.
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