(Photo by John McCoy / Getty Images)
The Los Angeles Lakers have been fantastic this season without Avery Bradley.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported last week that Los Angeles Lakers guard Avery Bradley would not return to the team during the restart of the NBA’s Disney World. Bradley is not returning due to concerns with his family, as his son has had trouble recovering from respiratory diseases earlier.
I can’t say enough: good at Avery Bradley and more power for him. Family comes first.
This leaves a hole in the Los Angeles Lakers, which initially seemed to have a big impact on the team. After all, Bradley is a solid player on both sides of the pitch and is the perfect guard point to start alongside LeBron James as he doesn’t need the ball to be successful.
However, in the following days with more time to understand what the team will look like without Bradley, it doesn’t seem so bleak. An important note that we mentioned here at Lake Show Life is that Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was really well this season and that the Lakers, statistically, have been better with KCP on the pitch and Bradley off the pitch.
There is another stat that went around that made Laker fans feel more comfortable not having Bradley; the Los Angeles Lakers are 13-1 when Bradley hasn’t played this season.
While this is absolutely true, that number is a little misleading and Laker fans shouldn’t take complete comfort in thinking that the Lakers are doing well, if not better, without Bradley. The team is really talented and really well trained, so it will overcome this obstacle, but it is still an obstacle.
Why the Los Angeles Lakers record without Avery Bradley is misleading:
First of all, let’s take a look at the teams that the Los Angeles Lakers have played without Avery Bradley. Bradley lost the November 5 game against the Chicago Bulls before losing a 12-game stretch from November 15 to December 8.
Three of these 14 games were against teams that had not been invited to the 22 team bubble and six others were against teams that had been invited to the bubble but are less than .500. Therefore, nine of the 14 games were against loser teams.
The five exceptions are two games against Oklahoma City Thunder, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz. Those are solid teams and the Lakers’ lonely loss in this stretch was against Dallas.
Not only was the program easy during this stretch, but the Lakers as a collective unit caught fire from beyond the arc. This had nothing to do with Bradley not playing, the team simply started making more three-point shots and enjoyed the best shooting range of the whole year – something we can’t just rule out of the team without Bradley to Orlando.
The Lakers fired a combined 40.3 percent from beyond the arc from November 15th to December 8th and fired 43.8 percent from beyond the arc in the single game lost against the Bulls. Those are both much higher compared to the team’s 35.5 percentage point this season.
Shooting over 40 percent as a team is really difficult to do. The top team in the league this season is firing 38.3 percent as a collective unit.
The team was no longer taking three points without Bradley. The Lakers averaged 31.5 three per game from November 15 to December 8 and attempted 33 against the Bulls. Their seasonal average is 31.4 per game.
Some guys just caught fire. KCP fired 44.7 percent from the three in that stretch, Alex Caruso fired 40 percent and even Rajon Rondo fired 54.5 percent from three out of 2.8 attempts per game. He is shooting 32.8 percent from beyond the arc throughout the season.
The reason the Los Angeles Lakers were winning without Avery Bradley had nothing to do with Avery Bradley. Because even if Bradley had played, the team would still have taken the warm hand from three, since it was one of those natural hot throws that occur during a basketball season.
So don’t be too confident of the Lakers without Bradley, unless you expect the team to shoot over 40 percent from three in the playoffs.
