Darvin Ham’s big request of Anthony Davis heading into 2023-24 Lakers season

Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham has high expectations for Anthony Davis’ volume from beyond the arc this season.

The L.A. skipper wants his star big man to shoot six 3-pointers per game. Although Ham is skeptical that Davis will actually do so, he wants the 30-year-old to let it fly from deep.

“I want him, if he can — I know he won’t do it, but maybe he’ll shock me — but I’ve requested to see six 3-point attempts a game,” Ham said. “Three per half, at least. I wouldn’t put that on him if I didn’t think he was capable.”

Ham’s comments certainly indicate that he’s confident in Davis’ ability to knock down triples at a solid rate. If Davis were to take six 3-pointers per game and knock down a couple of them on average, defenses would have no choice but to respect him as an outside threat.

The veteran’s 3-point shooting hasn’t been great in recent years, and his confidence in his shot has perhaps dwindled in the process.

In his first season in a Lakers uniform, he was respectable from beyond the arc. He knocked down 33.0 percent of his shots that season, which was roughly in line with his career average at the time.

But in three seasons since then, he has knocked down just 23.8 percent of his shots from deep. Along the way, his volume from 3-point range has significantly decreased. After taking 3.5 triples per game in his first season with the Lakers, he has averaged 1.8 per game since.

The dip in volume could indicate a confidence issue, so perhaps Ham is trying to give Davis some confidence back when it comes to his 3-point shooting.

Davis has never averaged more than 3.5 attempts per game from deep, so if he were to take six per game this season, it would certainly come as a bit of a shock to many. But Lakers fans would love nothing more than for the eight-time All-Star to become a stretch big once again, so he certainly has a lot of folks rooting for him in this department.

The Lakers will open their season later this month against the Denver Nuggets in a rematch of last season’s Western Conference Finals.