LOS ANGELES – With five players sitting out for the Los Angeles Lakers during their 136-108 loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday night, it provided the Lakers’ young guys and two-way contract players with an opportunity to play. Since signing with the Lakers back in November, Drew Timme has already helped the team win games, and he’s continued to expand his offense since he’s been in the NBA.
Following the Lakers’ loss to the Spurs, Drew Timme spoke about how he really had no choice but to work on his offensive game if he wanted to stick in the NBA. In particular, he needed to develop a consistent 3-point shot. He acknowledged that back when he was in college, he didn’t always see himself as someone who was going to ever have a dependable shot from distance.
“The more the league started to change, it’s obviously adapt or die. It’s Darwinism. If you wanted something and you want to get to this level, you have to do whatever the trend of the game is,” Timme said. “And the trend was obviously more and more threes. It was hard in college, obviously I was working on it. But it’s hard when you’re so good at scoring in the post. . .it’s hard when you’re trying to win, to work on your game as well.”
During Timme’s freshman year at Gonzaga, he took only three attempts from 3-point range, something he joked that at least two of those were halfcourt heaves. As his college career progressed, he gradually began to shoot more from behind the arc. In each of his remaining three seasons of college basketball, he didn’t take less than 20 total attempts.
During his NBA rookie campaign in 2024-25 with the Brooklyn Nets, Timme took 35 attempts from 3-point range, connecting on nine of them. He started this season with the South Bay Lakers in the G League after the Nets waived him near the end of training camp. It was with South Bay where he really began to show he could be a long-range threat.
Since signing a two-way contract with the Lakers, Timme has taken 17 3-point attempts, connecting on 41.2 percent of them, the highest 3-point percentage he’s ever hit at any time in his career. For him, it boiled down to identifying what he needed to work, and attacking that in the offseason.
“Just taking the time in the offseason to really work on it and dial in on it. Just playing a bunch of pickup and being uncomfortable,” Timme said. “It’s been a lot of tinkering and changes with this, but it’s in a good spot right now. I just got to continue to stay with it.”
