Luka Doncic was expected to transform the Los Angeles Lakers upon arrival and he has certainly done that in some ways. The Lakers have drastically changed offensively under Doncic, with The Athletic’s Jovan Buha sharing how they are shooting a lot more threes since he debuted for them.
“The Lakers are attempting 42.3 3-point attempts per 100 possessions since Doncic made his debut on Feb. 10, the second-highest mark in the NBA over that stretch. Before that date, the Lakers averaged 34.3 3-point attempts per 100 possessions, which ranked 26th in the league.”
The Lakers aren’t just chucking up threes for the sake of it either. According to Iztok Francko on X, they are getting a lot more uncontested threes per game on average in the last few weeks compared to earlier in the season.
Doncic just draws so much attention from defenses that his teammates are being left wide open from time to time. It’s basically pick your poison at this point. You leave him 1-on-1 and he’ll almost certainly score. You send the double and he’s going to find the open man. Teams have resorted to the latter often and that’s led to all those uncontested looks.
While everyone within the Lakers organization would have been thrilled by Doncic’s arrival, there’s one man, in particular, who’d have been happier than most, head coach JJ Redick.
Before the season, Redick had spoken about what the Lakers’ offense was going to look like under him. One of the things he stressed was the need to shoot more threes but the Lakers were not able to do that in the first half of the season. They were near the bottom of the pile in attempts per game and that number needed to go up.
In his press conference following the 116-102 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Jan. 19, Redick stated that a problem for the Lakers was not having a player who would consistently draw double teams.
“We don’t have a guy on our team that’s going to necessarily always draw two to the ball,” Redick said. “We don’t have a guy on our team that’s going to be able to get past his guy one-on-one and get to the paint and spray it out. It’s just not our team. So, we have to do it through connectivity, through execution and when we do that, we’re really good.”
Well, just a couple of weeks later the Lakers basically gave Redick what he was describing there. Doncic was just what the doctor ordered and he is helping Redick achieve his vision for this offense.
Redick also praised Doncic for his ability to deal with all sorts of defensive coverages. The Slovenian is making life easier for his head coach and Redick certainly is fortunate to have him around.
Doncic and the Lakers will be in action next against another offensive wizard in Nikola Jokic. They take on the Denver Nuggets at Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday at 10 PM ET and it’ll be interesting to see which of the two superstars comes out on top.
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