The Lakers have won just 2 of the 6 total games played. The team has been competitive in every single game. It’s just a start to a marathon season, where the team needs to figure out their roles and get a feel for how each player plays. Laker fans would love to see more wins, but the ones that start to count begin around January, where some of the issues on both ends of the floor should show signs of being resolved. Here are some key stats to show some of the Laker successes and opportunities to build from.
Lance Stephenson leads the team in pass-outs from drives.
LeBron may lead the team in total drives to the hoop at just over 12. Rajon Rondo adds another 8 drives to the hoop. But, respectively, they pass out of those drives at 24% and 16% of the time. Lance Stephenson leads the team at pass-outs on 38% of his drives.
Lance Stephenson is 3rd best on the team with defended field goals made.
Opponents shoot 41.7% against him when he defends shots. Brandon Ingram, admittedly with the small sample size, leads the team with 37.8% against while Rajon Rondo is right behind at 39.1%.
The Lakers are 6th in contesting 2-point shots per game.
Consistent shot contests help give a team a defensive identity. The Lakers contest 43.5 2-point shots per game, and that’s largely due to the impact of JaVale McGee.
JaVale McGee is the anchor of the Lakers’ defense.
McGee contests 15.8 shots per game, 5th in the league. He leads the league with 22.5 shot contests per-36 minutes
The Lakers are 27th in contesting 3-point shots per game.
The team contests 20.8 3-point shots per game. In comparison, the Golden State Warriors are #1 with 30.7 3-point contests per game.
The Lakers are 25th in 3-point field goal percentage against.
The Lakers give up 37.1% shooting behind the arc to their opponents. This makes sense, given their number of shot contests. In comparison to the Golden State Warriors, they’re #1 in 3-point field goal percentage against at 31.9%.
Box-outs are still an issue.
The Lakers average 26.5 box-outs per game, ranked 21st in the league. In comparison, the Golden State Warriors, New Orleans Pelicans, Portland Trailblazers, and Boston Celtics are all in the top-4, with 35-42 box-outs per game.
This affects total team rebounding.
The Lakers are an average rebounding team. At 17th best in the league, they’re also ranked 13th best in defensive rebounds. It’s the offensive glass that gets them hurt. They average just 9.5 offensive rebounds per game. Good teams average between 11-to-13, which would put them between 13th best and 4th best in the league. Their advanced rank is 22nd best in the league, with a 25.6% offensive rebounding rate. The top 10 offensive rebounding teams rebounding at a rate between 30% to 35%.
The Laker guards and wings don’t box-out.
The key to winning games is getting extra possessions. However, Josh Hart, Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Svi Mykhailiuk, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Rajon Rondo box out once per game or less. In fact, Rondo has yet to box-out one player this season. Last season, the Lakers had the luxury of two big bodies that did the work, but in terms of guard-rebounding, the Lakers’ perimeter players are reaching for boards instead of putting bodies on opponents.
The Lakers are #1 in shots within 5′ or less.
Despite the slower pace of the past three games, the Lakers shoot 43 field goal attempts at 5′ or less. It’s three more attempts from the 2nd place Pelicans. The Lakers convert at a very nice 69% from the field from these distances, ranking #2 just behind the Golden State Warriors at just over 71%. This has been one of the keys for the Lakers keeping up their 8th best ranked true shooting percentage at 57.4%.
Are the Lakers really that bad?
While the record reflects a 2-4 record, the Lakers have started to show what their identity is about. A big part of that is pace, transition points, and points in the paint. In order to win through that strategy, the Lakers need to get extra possessions to make up for the lack of 3-point shooting. Every team needs extra opportunities, but the Lakers have hung right there with the playoff teams without it.
There are other issues to work through as well, but crashing the glass alone would help the Lakers get a few extra wins as they sort out their roles and playbook.
*Special thanks to nba.com/stats and Mark Sobhani via NBAE/Getty Images*
