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The Los Angeles Lakers are the worst free-throw shooting team in the NBA. They are wasting a lot of bonus points, as they are making just 70.2 percent of their shots from the foul line.
Lakers head coach Luke Walton isn’t oblivious of how bad his team’s performance at the charity stripe, and when he was asked about it, he sounded far from getting very much alarmed by it, per Spectrum Sports.
Luke Walton talks with @LakersReporter about the #Lakers overcoming their free throw struggles and carrying momentum from Thursday's win into Charlotte. pic.twitter.com/gGGQyHRe1P
— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) December 9, 2017
Article Continues Below“We’re not there yet. Obviously, if this thing continues, like I’ve said, it’s not a talent thing, or skill thing. Our guys are very capable free-throw shooters. We’ll have to look at some other options. Maybe we’ll meditate before a game, maybe we’ll bring somebody in. To me, the way you fix things in sports and basketball, you just work harder at it. When you work harder, you gain confidence in something and you become better at it. So we’ll stick to the traditional path for now.”
Out of the Lakers 15 losses this season, six were decided by six points or less. These are losses they could have likely averted if it weren’t for their poor free-throw shooting job.
Per TeamRankings.com, the Lakers have a -2.7 average scoring margin, which could have easily been a positive number had, say, Brandon Ingram and Julius Randle, fared better at the line. Ingram and Randle lead the Lakers in free throw attempts with 5.4 and 4.2 per game, respectively, but neither of them is shooting better than 66.9 percent at the free throw line.
There’s only so much Walton could do to address the situation. At the end of the day, it’s all in the hands of his players how they are going to improve their strokes.
