TRENDING First CFP rankings NFL execs talk trades What MLB's labor proposal means Week 9 Waiver Wire NFL Power Rankings Story by Story by Is the Lakers’ red-hot offense sustainable? LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 2: Luka Doncic #77 and Austin Reaves #15 of the Los Angeles Lakers high five during the game during the game against the Miami Heat on November 2, 2026 at Crypto.Com Arena in Los Angeles, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2026 NBAE (Photo by Adam Pantozzi/NBAE via Getty Images) | NBAE via Getty Images Jacob Rude · SB Nation Wed, November 4, 2026 at 5:08 PM UTC · 8 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Back-to-back wins helped get the taste of a really frustrating loss out of the mouths of Lakers fans to start the week. The absurd play of Luka Dončić also helped us forget as well.
It's a fun time to be a Lakers fan, evidenced by Bill Simmons' anger about the Lakers. Anything to take his focus off Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown feuding, I guess.
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It might feel like the Lakers have an unsustainable offense, but I think some pretty encouraging numbers push back against that. So, let's dive into this because there is a lot to this.
First, let's look at the threes. Sure, many of Luka threes don't seem sustainable except that it's Luka taking those threes. But outside of that, the team is getting quality looks from beyond the arc.
The team is ninth in 3-point rate with 46% of their shots coming from beyond the arc. That's a drastic change from last year when they ranked 22nd at 39.4%.
More notably, the team was dead last in catch-and-shoot 3-pointers attempted and made last year and 24th in 3-pointers attempted overall. This season, it hasn't even been that drastic of an increase in volume, but it has improved. They're 16th in 3-pointers attempted, 25th in catch-and-shoot 3-pointers attempted and 19th in makes.
The biggest changes are that they rank second in 3-point percentage, first in catch-and-shoot 3-point percentage and eighth in wide-open 3-point percentage. And yet, they still rank just 15th in the percentage of their points coming from threes.
That's because they're still getting to the rim, too. Last season, they were basically, across the board, the best team at scoring once they got to the paint. It's the benefit of having LeBron James with Luka and Austin Reaves, two great finishers at the rim.
LeBron is, obviously, gone now. But for this specific stat, they replaced him with Walker Kessler, who has feasted at the rim as a roll man. Add in Collin Sexton and Quentin Grimes, two players north of the 85th percentile in field goal percentage at the rim, and you see why the Lakers rank second in the league in field goal percentage at the rim and first in field goal percentage in the paint.
To perhaps lay this out a little differently, the Lakers opened the season with Walker Kessler flourishing in the pick and roll. Teams rightly decided that wasn't sustainable, so they started blitzing ballhandlers on ball screens and working to take away Kessler as a roll option.
The result is open 3-point shooters and the Lakers now have a team capable of punishing teams who leave them open. Certainly, they won't keep shooting this well, but this is also the type of offense head coach JJ Redick wants to run. He wants a modern offense that puts up lots of threes.
So, don't expect a change, but also don't be quite so worried about it being unsustainable.
LOS ANGELES, CA – NOVEMBER 1: Walker Kessler #14 of the Los Angeles Lakers blocks the shot of Collin Murray-Boyles #30 of the Toronto Raptors during the game between the Toronto Raptors and the Los Angeles Lakers on November 1, 2026 at Crypto.Com Arena in Los Angeles, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2026 NBAE (Photo by Juan Ocampo/NBAE via Getty Images) | NBAE via Getty Images
Let's jump to the other side of the floor now and look at the defense.
The good news is that when you have an offense as good as the Lakers have had, you don't need to be great defensively to win. The bad news is, notably, bad defenses don't typically win at the highest levels.
As commenters pointed out, two areas are at least partly responsible for the poor defensive rating: turnovers and rebounding.
The Lakers currently rank 27th in the league in turnovers and 27th in opponent points off turnovers. Teams are taking advantage of the Lakers being sloppy.
They also rank 26th in offensive rebounds allowed. Not surprisingly, they rank 29th in opponent second chance points.
Defensively, they're great in lots of areas. They're fifth in steals, fourth in blocks and second in points off turnovers. They're mostly middle of the road or slightly below average in opponent field goal percentage (17th) and opponent 3-point percentage (23rd). And that's not based on shooting luck, as teams are hitting 38.8% of their open threes.
The more this group gains chemistry and familiarity, the better they'll look defensively as well. It's not as simple as fixing those two aspects and being a good defense, but those are the two glaring outliers right now.
The rotations have been pretty ironclad with Luka and Ausint since last year. Luka is going to play the entire first and third quarters and half of the second and fourth quarters to come in at around 36 minutes.
Austin will have his minutes broken up a bit more as he'll leave late in the first quarter, return to open the second, then take another break in the middle of the period before returning to close the frame. Then, he repeats that in the second half.
That has been the rotation for the last two seasons for those two. It ensures that one of them is always on the floor, which is the right approach, and keeps both of them around 36 minutes per game.
When you have two elite on-ball players, you want to give both chances to maximize that skill. Austin is a great off-ball player as well, but giving him his own lineups and time on the floor without Luka, and vice versa, means the Lakers will have a full 48 minutes of an All-Star-level player on the floor.
There will be concerns about both of them after the injuries last season. But the Lakers also need them on the floor as well and 36 minutes per game isn't an unreasonable expectation for a star.
The more likely route for them to get rest is nights off throughout the year. The team already rested Luka once and I imagine that'll happen with some regularity this season.
It's definitely fair to be put off by Quentin Grimes' slow start. Like many, I thought he would get a starting nod to open the season. But perhaps Redick and his staff saw what fans eventually saw when the season started, which was a fair amount of indecisiveness and uncertainty.
The good news is that we are only three weeks into the season and Grimes looked better in the most recent game. It's a matter of him eventually playing more on instinct rather than thinking through the game, which you can tell he's doing right now.
I actually think it'd be better for him, and the team long-term, to be in the starting lineup. It gives that group another creator and dynamic player who can drive or shoot. But it's hard to make the argument to start him based on how he's currently playing.
We're still quite a bit away from being too worried about Grimes. Instead, I'd rather celebrate finding two big wins in Ziaire Williams and Matisse Thybulle so far.
First, I think in this specific play, their judgement was that Thybulle was in an illegal guarding position and committed a foul before any push off occurred. Because there's simply no way to argue there wasn't a push off.
Secondly, as will most things that are a point of emphasis to start the year, I don't suspect it will carry on into the season much. Stars aren't changing how they play to accommodate the rule change. It'll just continue business as usual.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social .
Source: Sports
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