Take a wild guess which category, folks.
After Los Angeles Lakers team vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka was roundly (rightly?) criticized for surrounding All-Star power forward LeBron James and not-quite-All-Star center Anthony Davis with a distinct lack of three-point shooting during the 2022 offseason, he responded with a bevy of moves designed to address that very issue in the weeks and days leading up to this season’s NBA trade deadline.
First, he flipped Kendrick Nunn’s atrocious contract and three second-round draft picks to the Washington Wizards for combo forward Rui Hachimura, an excellent catch-and-shoot long range gunner whose cumulative three-point shooting average had dipped a bit with the Wiz this season. But that was really just a warm-up.
A day before the draft, Pelinka traded a first-round pick and the expiring $47.1 million contract of reserve point guard Russell Westbrook to the Utah Jazz as part of a three-team trade that netted LA D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt. Russell and Beasley are both quality three-point shooters on volume.
Pelinka next added 3-and-D center Mo Bamba from the Orlando Magic in a deal to get off Patrick Beverley’s expiring money. He then flipped one of LA’s few good three-point shooters at the start of the season (albeit on low volume), Thomas Bryant, to the Denver Nuggets for guard Davon Reed and (more importantly) draft equity.
Notice any recurrent factor in these deals? That’s right, Pelinka is finally, mercifully, giving James and Davis the kind of floor-spacing they had during their charmed championship run in 2019-20.
Adding Russell, Beasley and Bamba doubled LA’s 35%+ long range gunners.
Russell is making 38.7% of his 7.0 triples a night in his games with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lakers this season. Beasley is taking a high-volume 8.6 treys per bout, and making 35.8% of them. Bamba, set to make his LA debut tonight, is making 39.8% of his 2.7 threes a night.
Unfortunately, if James and Davis can’t perform at their typical All-Star levels, the new additions, while helpful, might just be too little, too late.
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