Beyond good health, Russell Westbrook‘s ability to mesh with LeBron James and Anthony Davis will be the utmost important factor to the Los Angeles Lakers‘ success this season.

Regardless of what lineups the Lakers begin games with or how Frank Vogel staggers rotations, the Lakers will undoubtedly have Westbrook, James, and Davis on the floor together in meaningful playoff minutes and in crunch time.

As has been well-documented, Westbrook is among the least-effective high-volume three-point shooters in the 75-year history of the NBA. For his career, Russ has hit 30.5% of his 3.7 three-point attempts per game.

However, spacing will be essential for the Lakers, and they don't want to prevent Westbrook from taking open threes. In fact, Frank Vogel said his All-Star point guard will have the freedom to launch.

“Greenlight in catch-and-shoot situations,” Vogel said Tuesday when asked how the team is working to build chemistry between its Big 3. “And obviously, be smart and making opponents pay vs. unders” (a.k.a: when opponents go under screens). “And shooting enough to get rhythm threes without forcing it and without doing it too often. We just don't want to live off of that, but we want him to be aggressive in catch-and-shoot situations when those other guys have the ball.”

In 2020-21, Westbrook shot 35.6% on catch-and-shoot threes.

Westbrook has generally been one of the most unproductive off-ball players in the league during his career. ESPN's Zach Lowe has detailed his alarmingly low screen-setting rate in recent columns and podcasts.

Accordingly, Westbrook has been specifically working on his catch-and-shoot and off-ball game in workout videos that surfaced during the summer.

The Lakers will get their first non-practice glimpse of the Westbrook-James-Davis combination on Tuesday, as all three stars will suit up together for the first time in the team's preseason contest against the Golden State Warriors.

Russ has hit two of his five three-point attempts thus far in the preseason.