Los Angeles Lakers point guard Lonzo Ball has seemingly turned around his long-range shooting this season as he’s gone from shooting bricks to pure money from three-point land.
He’s becoming a clutch three-point killer in his rookie season after struggling early and getting a lot of criticisms for his all-around poor shooting.
Although he won’t start hitting fade-away threes like Kobe anytime soon, Lonzo has been sinking a lot of threes lately, which is remarkable considering that at one point in the season he was shooting less than 30 percent from three-point range.
But with the new year Ball has turned into a whole new player as he’s now shooting an elite 43.9 percent since January. He’s now doing a lot of different things like using more the catch-and-shoot plays.
He’s now getting one more catch-and-shoot attempts per game and sinking about 60 percent of his shots on those plays. He’s still shooting at a high volume as he’s now more in rhythm and more confident as he’s even venturing to shoot in clutch situations to help the team win.
He’s shooting four catch-and-shoots threes out of 5.8 three-point attempts per game. He’s also taking more step back three-point shots which he is already good at. On step back three-point shots he’s hitting 71.4 percent for the season.
Now that he’s improving his long-range shot he’s becoming the kind of player that Magic Johnson had in mind when he drafted him second overall in last year’s draft. He’s turning into a complete weapon as he’s averaging seven assists per game and seven rebounds per game while raising his defensive play.
Although he remains inconsistent and may continue to suffer cold spells from long range occasionally, remember he’s still just 20 years old, and continually refining his game.
Now that he’s figured that he should tailor his shooting to his strengths expect those struggles to last even less when, and if he struggles again.
