Despite Lakers shooting more threes, Scott still not embracing them

Head coach Byron Scott didn't want the Los Angeles Lakers shooting threes this season.

In a curious statement before the season got underway, Scott decried the long-ball, saying that it wasn't a way to win championships. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Scott believed his Lakers would be able to function without threes, and he didn't want the team to take more than 10-to-15 attempts from outside each game.

The Lakers started out playing that way, averaging just 15 attempts over their first six games. All of those games were losses, and the team has slowly begun to attempt more triples as the season has moved along. In what should surprise nobody, the Lakers' offense has improved.

It seems the more threes the Lakers take, the better their offense has played, generally. In games in which they've taken at least 20 3-point attempts, they've scored 108 points per-100 possessions. In the others, they've scored just 106.1 points per-100 possessions. As much as Scott wants his team to attack, that's tougher to do without the threat of the long-ball, and threes open up attacking lanes.

That doesn't mean Scott is embracing the triple.

"Not really," Scott said Thursday. "It's still not, to me, a remedy to winning championships."

The Lakers probably shouldn't be concerned with what wins championships at 10-22. Overall, the Lakers rank 13th in offense (while ranking 24th in percentage of field goal attempts that come from outside), and it's the defensive end where they're far from anything resembling a contender.

Really, it was just never realistic to limit threes given the roster construction, since Kobe Bryant loves to fire away and Nick Young, Wesley Johnson and Wayne Ellington are all key rotation players with solid strokes.