After the Los Angeles Lakers’ brief exhibition season, head coach Frank Vogel has pinpointed the team’s transition defense and efforts at the free-throw line as the primary areas that need to show improvement.
Vogel said free throw shooting and transition defense are two areas of focus for improvement for the Lakers, though he does think they’ve made progress there.
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) July 28, 2020
Exactly how much progress the Lakers have made in the short time that they’ve been back together is uncertain, but those key areas could spell the difference between another disappointing campaign and potential NBA championship.
Prior to the March 11 shutdown, the Lakers’ performance on the line was underwhelming and put them 28th in free-throw percentage among the 30 NBA teams.
One of the reasons that free-throw shooting could become important is because the Lakers rank 10th in the NBA for total free throws attempted.
Veteran Dwight Howard has spent much of his career struggling when it comes to connecting on free throws as he’s only converted on 49.4 percent of his attempts this season.
Improvement by LeBron James in this department would likely be even more beneficial to the Lakers, considering his overall ability to lead an offense. Prior to the shutdown, James was only hitting 69.7 percent of his free throws.
In the area of transition defense, Vogel’s concern was evident last week from comments by Anthony Davis, with the Lakers trying to address the issue in their team practices.
Any changes in those two areas won’t come overnight, but if improvement does occur, it could give the Lakers an excellent shot at their first NBA title in a decade.
