LeBron and AD are healthy and awesome: So why is the Los Angeles Lakers' offense ... this bad?
Just over a
week ago it looked as if the Los Angeles Lakers might have hit rock bottom --
because of their inability to hit anything at all.
In just over
a minute and a half of game time in the first quarter against the Miami Heat at
home, the Lakers turned the ball over five times in a downright brutal
six-possession span. They'd have 17 more. More troubling, still: The Lakers
were terribly off the mark, even more than they normally are. Of the 30
three-point attempts they launched that night, they made just four, or 13.3%.
The
sputtering 110-96 defeat was so frustrating that LeBron James, who had shot
6-for-18 overall and 0-for-6 from 3, left without speaking to the media.
In James'
defense, what was there to say, really? The Lakers were suddenly under .500,
and had lost nine of their last 12 games. It was a precipitous drop for a team
that not only began the season 14-9, but also one that thought it had found
something after overhauling the roster last season to punch a trip to the
conference finals. The Lakers were in great spirits even last month after
making what seemed like a resounding statement in Las Vegas by winning the
league's in-season tournament.
LeBron James
leads the Lakers in assists (7.5) and steals (1.5) while Anthony Davis leads
the team in points (25.7), rebounds (12.2) and blocks (2.6). (Photo by Juan
Ocampo/NBAE via Getty Images)
Perhaps most
confusing about it all: Unlike in recent years, when much of the team's losing
could be chalked up to either James, Anthony Davis or both being out with
injuries, the superstar duo has played together in all but five of their 39
games (87%) -- on pace to be by far the most they've played together in their
five-year Lakers tenure. If that holds, it would best the 72.8% mark the duo
played in together back in 2019-20, the lone season the pair won an NBA title.
In their other three campaigns together -- 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 --
James and Davis played in 37.5%, 26.8% and 43.9% of their games together,
respectively.
Yet Los
Angeles ranks a dismal 23rd in offense, logging just 112.1 points per 100
possessions -- only a touch better than the 6-31 Washington Wizards.
All of which
raises a question: Why, exactly, are the Lakers, with James and Davis healthy
and playing at an All-NBA level, this bad on offense?
Just three
teams -- the Portland Trail Blazers, the San Antonio Spurs and the largely Ja
Morant-less Memphis Grizzlies -- are scoring less in the halfcourt than the
Lakers.
It isn't
rocket science to figure out where this offense comes up short: It's the
shooting. Only the Detroit Pistons -- yes, the team that just tied the NBA
record for infamy with 28 consecutive defeats -- are making fewer
three-pointers per game (10.5) than the Lakers(10.8). Even with the additions
of forwards Taurean Prince and Christian Wood, the Lakers generate the NBA's
second fewest wide-open attempts from deep each game.
No lasers --
still.
And even
when they do get open looks, they rarely convert them. The Lakers are
connecting on just 27% of their uncontested 3s this season, a mark that would
go down as the NBA's worst in the past decade, according to Second Spectrum
data.
Making
matters worse: The club ranks seventh in the percentage of its shots that
qualify as long twos. That combination -- a 7.9% long-two attempt rate, and too
few open 3s -- compares them to the Bulls. It's also noteworthy that the Lakers
are poor offensive rebounders (third-worst mark in the NBA, at 24.7%) and turn
the ball over at the league's second-highest rate in transition opportunities
(14.4%).
This isn't
to say that everything ailing the Lakers stems from X's and O's. Though the
club ranks in the middle of the pack in terms of how many games its players
have missed due to injuries, the ones who've missed the most time -- guard Gabe
Vincent (33 games), Jarred Vanderbilt (20 games) and key reserve Rui Hachimura
(15 games) -- all would bring something meaningful to the team's offensive
attack.
Which makes
the sustained success of the James-Davis pairing more tantalizing -- and
maddening. Consider: James assisted Davis eight times Tuesday alone in the
Lakers' one-point victory over Toronto. Of those eight, four of them led to
dunks for Davis. And beyond just Tuesday, Davis has shot the ball better than
ever before off James' passes this season, logging a 65.1% effective field goal
rate off those looks, according to data from Second Spectrum. His previous high
off passes from James is the 55.3% mark he posted last season.
With that in
mind, coach Darvin Ham desperately needs to figure out which pieces to put
around those two (and ball handler Austin Reaves). James has always thrived
most when he has an array of three-point marksmen to dish the ball to as he
drives toward the basket. It wouldn't be surprising to see Wood, a stretch big,
get more opportunities alongside James and Davis in the near future. The Lakers
have scored a blistering 130 points per 100 possessions in almost 100 minutes
with that trio to this point.
Perhaps the
most important question, though, aside from the noise about rotations? Whether
this offensive burden is too much for their 39-year-old superstar. James is
second in the Western Conference so far this season in fourth-quarter minutes
played with 303.
The Lakers
have had an atypically lucky run with their two superstars. If they don't take
advantage, and soon, the conversation won't be about whether they can repeat
last year's magical run. It'll be about whether they make a run -- at all.