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Only a season ago, Darvin Ham infamously predicted Anthony Davis would shoot six threes per game for the Los Angeles Lakers. The quote was mocked in the moment and remains one of the funnier anecdotes of that fateful second Ham season in Los Angeles. Now, one game into the 2024-25 season, Davis is making a similar promise.
The crazy thing is, This time, it just might happen.
Standing at his locker following the Lakers' Opening Night win against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Davis was asked about hit shooting this preseason and the three-pointers he attempted that night.
“I shoot a lot of them in practice,” Davis told reporters. “At the end of one practice, he [JJ Redick] was in front of the group. He said, ‘You shoot them in practice, but we need you to shoot them in the games.' After I shot nine in Phoenix, he said it again. He’s constantly on me, and not just him, [D'Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, LeBron James], everybody. They tell me to shoot more; I’m gonna let it fly. I might shoot 15 this season.”
According to a source with knowledge of both Redick's approach and Ham's, the biggest difference has been the follow-through on the talking points raised by each coach. Where Ham spoke endlessly about grit, toughness, or effort without holding players accountable if they fell short of his expectations, Redick speaks more specifically and lets his players know with constant feedback how they're faring relative to what he's asking of them.
Davis shot a total of 107 threes last season, making 29 of them. That fell well short of the roughly 500 Ham was hoping for but was an improvement over the 74 Davis shot the previous season and the 70 he shot in '22. Both those seasons were shortened by COVID and injuries, though, so 107 is roughly the pace Davis has carried throughout most of his time in L.A.
The one exception to that trend, however, was the 218 threes Davis shot during the 2019-20 season — which ended in a championship.
Given how the Lakers looked that season with Davis more of a deep threat, it's no surprise each coach since has begged him to go out there and shoot more from deep. Redick said coming into this season, he had a theory on why Davis has been so reluctant to pull the trigger on threes but wouldn't share it publicly.
Anthony Davis needs to be more aggressive from deep
I have my own theory:
Davis is famously hard on himself and hates when he feels a mistake he made put his teammates in a tougher spot on the court, especially defensively. Offensively, if he felt as if his poor shooting was making things harder on the Lakers, then the easy fix would be to focus more on the parts of the floor where he's more dangerous.
In theory, makes sense. In practice, however, passing up open threes in a 24-second shot clock just gums up the offense in different ways. If a defense knows a player isn't going to shoot from certain areas on the court, they can ignore them once they get to those spots. With Davis hardly looking at the basket whenever he was behind the three-point line, defenses were able to shade even closer to James or whatever other action the Lakers were running.
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Even further, this isn't a Ben Simmons or Jarred Vanderbilt situation. His shot looks a hell of a lot nicer than Mikal Bridge's new shooting form. Whenever Davis shoots the ball in rhythm, without thinking about what might happen if he misses, the technique is rather clean.
When Davis, a bonafide superstar who has a decent jumper and has had success in the past, takes himself out of the game by merely standing far enough away, he's doing the defense's job for it.
Davis shooting more threes and, ideally, knocking them down would also open things up in terms of lineups for Redick to go with. The preseason has shown that.
Anthony Davis is draining 3s now #LakeShowpic.twitter.com/wnzRPeOBnM
— The Ultimate Lineup (@TheUltLineup_) October 18, 2024
Over the last couple of seasons, playing Davis alongside a center may have made sense defensively, but there was so little space offensively that the advantage was mostly negated. It was also difficult to play Davis and Vanderbilt together, with both players getting ignored from deep the way they were.
In theory, Davis shooting threes would not only help the Lakers offensively in obvious ways but could help them defensively by giving Redick more options on that end that wouldn't cripple their scoring looks.
Now, as far as how many three-point attempts is a good number for Davis, well, that's certainly something he and the Lakers are going to work on together. Collectively, it's appeared as if Redick and the coaching staff stressing the need to shoot more threes has led to a bit of an overcorrection, and the Lakers will have to find the balance between quality and quantity.
At the very least, look for him to finish the season with at least three three-pointers attempted per game. During that '19-20 season, he averaged 3.5 attempts per game. Too many more than that, and Davis, an elite offensive rebounder and interior finisher, would risk spending too much time away from the basket.
Hilariously, Davis shooting 15 threes in a game would probably traumatize old heads like Shaquille O'Neal and Charles Barkley. You know what? Fire away, AD.
