[Jovan Buha] The Lakers are attempting 42.3 3-point attempts per 100 possessions since Luka 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.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6211802/2025/03/18/luka-doncic-lakers-offense/

Nearly two weeks before the Los Angeles Lakers traded for Luka Dončić, coach JJ Redick emphasized the Lakers’ inability to generate easy offense by drawing double teams.

“We don’t have a guy on our team that’s going to necessarily always draw two to the ball,” Redick said on Jan. 19 after a 116-102 loss to the LA Clippers. “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 spread it out to the perimeter. Like, that’s just not our team.”

The Lakers, Redick felt, had a bit of a geometry problem.

For as great as LeBron James and Anthony Davis were, and for as much defensive attention they commanded, it wasn’t enough to consistently break defenses and generate the caliber of high-percentage open 3-pointers that the league’s best teams like Boston and Cleveland do.

And then the Lakers acquired Dončić.

His arrival has changed the geometry of LA’s offense. The Lakers have actualized Redick’s preseason vision of becoming a high 3-point volume team, one of the primary offensive principles in the modern era.

The Lakers are attempting 42.3 3-point attempts per 100 possessions since Dončić 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. With Dončić on the floor, the Lakers’ 3-point frequency increases by 6 percent, a mark that ranks in the 94th percentile league-wide, according to Cleaning The Glass.

Dončić is a threat to pull up or step back for 3s at anywhere within 30 feet, putting defenses on edge as they try to take that away while preventing him from shredding them with his generational court vision and playmaking.

“He creates such havoc for teams’ defenses that 90 percent of the time people are blitzing him, as you can probably see, and he makes the right play out of the blitz,” Austin Reaves said. “He doesn’t try to force it too much in those situations, and he makes the right play. So therefore you’re playing four-on-three, and it just comes down to playing the game the right way and passing it to the open person, because three people can’t guard four.”