The Lakers have been a historically bad 3-point shooting team through three games

For a brief moment, the Lakers looked like a competent 3-point shooting team on Sunday afternoon. An absolute BARRAGE of 3-pointers in the third quarter — five to be in fact — had the Lakers dreaming of becoming a reincarnated version of the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors.

However, that was nothing more than a mirage as the Lakers shot 1-20 in the three other quarters against the Blazers, a key factor in their loss. The Lakers have been bad in their first three games of the season from range. Like historically bad.

After the game, ESPN Stats & Info shared the following stat that really put into context just had bad this stretch has been.

Just taking a look at the Lakers’ individual shooting percentages shows how bleak of a picture it is. Technically, Matt Ryan is the leading 3-point shooter at 40%, though he’s only taken five total 3-pointers and didn’t feature in Sunday’s game.

After him, it’s a steep drop to the team’s best shooter on decent volume at Austin Reaves, who is shooting...28.6%. LeBron James has taken by far the most attempts at nine per game and is shooting the second best at a sizzling 25.9%.

Kendrick Nunn, Patrick Beverley, Anthony Davis and Lonnie Walker IV are averaging over three attempts per game and are shooting 23.1%, 21.4%, 20% and 17.6%, respectively. And then there’s Russell Westbrook, who is shooting 8.3% on 12 attempts (for those bad at math, that’s one make).

The Lakers aren’t going to be this bad at 3-point shooting this season. According to Cleaning the Glass, the Lakers’ location effective field goal percentage — essentially an approximation of what a team would shoot based on their shot profile — is fourth-best in the league at 54.8%. The problem is, the Lakers rank dead last in actual effective field goal percentage so far.

Where they rank ultimately is uncertain as they aren’t going to be a good 3-point shooting team this season. Even average shooting from team could be enough to make them competitive on most nights. But given their start, that could be an unreasonable ask.

For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.