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Editor’s Note: For the second year in a row, the Silver Screen and Roll staff is counting down the most interesting Lakers heading into next season. We will be going through all 20 training camp spots before the season begins, and today we continue with No. 4, Danny Green.
Alex Caruso (48.0%), Josh Hart (39.6%), Nick Young (40.4%), D’Angelo Russell (35.1%), Jabari Brown (37.1%). Those were the players who led the Lakers in 3-point shooting in the last five seasons.
With Caruso, he did it in 25 games on 2 attempts per game. So no to take away from what Caruso did, because that’s still really impressive, but it’s pretty hard to keep that percentage in a full season.
Enter Danny Green, who shot the 3-ball at 45.5% in 80 games. There was only one other player who shot the three better than Green last season, and that was Joe Harris at 47.4%. The Lakers haven’t had a shooter quite like Green in a few years. In fact, the last Laker to average a 3-point percentage near Green’s numbers was either Steve Nash in the 2012-13 season at 43.8% or Vladamir Radmanovic at 44.1% in the 2008-09 season.
Green’s percentage last year was still better than both, and that can help the Lakers in a few ways beyond just spacing the floor. Let’s take a closer look:
LeBron James loves having deadly three-point shooters on his team. We’ve seen it year after year that most of his assists are to three-point shooters. During the 2017-18 season, the top 3 players that LeBron dished it to were Kevin Love, Kyle Korver, and JR Smith. Of the combined 309 assists LeBron gave them that season, 66.3% of those were threes. If you want to take it further, of the 170 assists that LeBron gave to just Korver and Smith, 78.8% of those were on threes.
Basically, what i’m trying to say is that LeBron is going to find Green a ton this upcoming season now that he has a shooter like (and few others) to pass it to.
When talking about Green’s offense, of course he’s not only a 3-point shooter, but his offensive game relies pretty heavily on them. He shot 449 3-pointers last season, while only shooting 181 2-pointers. As pointed out in this article from earlier, Green shot a career best 48.7% last season from two-point range, most of those coming from the restricted area.
One other thing that Danny Green is going to bring to the Lakers besides his play on the court is his championship experience. He’s been to the Finals three times in his career, twice with the San Antonio Spurs and once with the Raptors. Hopefully by the end of next season, we can say he’s made it a total of four times. If that happens, his shooting — and the other opportunities it creates — will likely have had a lot to do with it.
The countdown so far...
11. (tie) The 15th roster spot
4. Danny Green
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