With the Los Angeles Lakers‘ round one playoff exit now in the past, it’s time for the team to figure out how to ensure it doesn’t happen again next season. A major issue they’ve had over the last couple of seasons is that they haven’t been consistent at shooting threes. They finished 21st in the NBA in 3-point percentage during the regular season and things didn’t get better much better in the playoffs.
This offseason, the Lakers need to find a couple of strong shooters. However, perhaps they look to the NFL to solve the problem. Las Vegas Raiders defensive lineman Darius Philon volunteered quarterback Derek Carr as the shooter the Lakers need. The three-time Pro Bowler quarterback said he’d be game if they would let him.
I would if they'd let me
— Derek Carr (@derekcarrqb) June 4, 2021
Obviously, the NBA and NFL seasons have a lot of overlap so this would be impossible to pull off. Carr, a lifelong Lakers fan, is joking but it would be very interesting to see an NFL player take a stab at the NBA. We’ve seen a number of NBA and NFL players try baseball but never an NFL player in the NBA or vice versa.
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Carr Can Actually Ball
While it’s silly to think Carr could go into the NBA and hold a candle to even the deepest bench players, the quarterback is actually a solid hooper. He’s showed off really good dunking ability in the past.
Carr also showed off his shooting ability at a Golden State Warriors game a few years back.
That’s even to mention that NFL Total Access named Carr as the starting shooting guard in All-NFL basketball starting five.
We saw @K1 on the court so we decided to make our own Starting 5 🏀 pic.twitter.com/DQtRPmplw1
— NFL Total Access (@NFLTotalAccess) April 13, 2021
Carr is no slouch when it comes to playing basketball. That said, it doesn’t mean he belongs in the NBA anytime soon.
Rob Pelinka Knows Lakers Need More Shooting
Jokes aside, the Lakers really do need to add shooters this offseason. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope got off to a hot start at the beginning of the season but was wildly inconsistent for most of the year. They can’t rely on him to be the top shooter. Vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka is very aware of how important shooting is in the modern NBA.
“You can never have enough shooting,” Pelinka said Friday. “So it’s something that is always at the top of our mind whether we’re building or constructing a roster. And I think it’s important, too – part of shooting is having special players that create the shooting space. And for us, that comes primarily from LeBron [James] and Anthony [Davis]. And of course, you bring up the series, but when you take someone like Anthony out of the games, it changes the spacing and the shooting success.
“And everyone knows – LeBron talked about it last night – we knew when he had a high ankle sprain that it would probably not be until the offseason that got 100 percent. But the success of our shooting is driven by those guys creating the space, and because of the things we faced with injuries, some of that space was altered.”
Having a dynamic, consistent shooter on the Lakers could do wonders for the team. Plenty of shooters exist and Pelinka needs to find the right ones that fit the team.
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