Russell Westbrook is one of the best point guards in the league. He can do a lot of useful things on the court: he’s an elite playmaker, an amazing rebounder as a guard, and he can finish fairly well near the rim. There’s no doubt that all of those are useful qualities. However, one of his biggest weaknesses over his career has been shooting from beyond the arc: Westbrook only shoots 30.5% from 3PT range for his career, and 31.5% this season. However, it looks as though Westbrook is working on that part of his game.
A Twitter page for the #Lakers Podcast has recently shared a video of Russell Westbrook taking deep threes in a gym, and making 11 of them in a row. There’s no doubt that if Russell Westbrook can improve on that part of his game, it will greatly benefit the Lakers.
Westbrook made 11 straight deep threes in a row 🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯
(via IG) pic.twitter.com/pxN4jqkkih
— #Lakers Hoops (@HashtagLakerPod) August 28, 2021
Players shooting in an open gym doesn’t necessarily translate to an NBA game. We’ve seen a lot of players who are considered non-shooters in the league be able to shoot with ease from range during the summer. However, that doesn’t mean that this will be the case for Russell Westbrook, who is actually willing to take shots from range in NBA games and has once had a fairly respectable 3PT percentage for someone who is primarily a slasher (34.4% on 7.2 attempts in 2016-17). There have also been other point guards, who were able to improve their jump shot as they got older such as Jason Kidd.
If Russell Westbrook can get long-range shooting to become a consistent part of his game, then that may spell trouble for the rest of the league, considering he’s already a walking triple-double. Hopefully, the work Westbrook is putting in pays off, and perhaps we’ll see that improvement next season.
