Lakers in search of spacing for Darvin Ham’s offense

TEMECULA – In Darvin Ham’s “positionless” offensive scheme, theoretically anyone can take an open 3-point shot.

In a Saturday morning scrimmage at the Pechanga reservation, Damian Jones – nominally a Lakers center – found himself open in the corner and fired. He was off-target, forcing his purple squad to run back on defense. But one miss isn’t going to dissuade him from taking a look now and then.

“I’m comfortable shooting there,” Jones said after practice. “I’ve been getting a lot of reps in. Throughout the years, my percentages have been getting better as I’m shooting them. So, it’s good.”

With their roster and desire for as much floor spacing as possible, the Lakers are going to need to find some shooting in unexpected places. Ham wants many Lakers possessions to feature one player by the baseline (the “dunker” spot) and four others standing behind the 3-point line.

Ham recently acknowledged that he has been working a lot with a group of Jones, LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Anthony Davis and Kendrick Nunn. While Nunn shot better than 38% from deep in his last healthy season, the overall shooting figures don’t seem to bode well for a team that found defenses sinking in and clogging up the paint – all but daring them to fire away from long range (they were 22nd on 3-point percentage last season at 34.7%).

But naturally there’s a lot of optimism in camp that the Lakers might be able to surprise some people. Jones went just 10 for 29 on threes last season, but Ham said based on what he’s seen from the 27-year-old center in practice and drills, he’s “more than capable” of sinking threes to keep defenses honest.

He cracked a joke at one of his former player’s expense: “No disrespect to Robin, but if I have Robin Lopez making threes, I’m sure I can make Damian Jones make threes.”

Of course, Jones’ chief role will be rolling to the basket, or manning the dunker spot to keep defenses attuned to his lob threat (he was 16 for 17 from the field in his previous 10-day Lakers stint in 2021). But that begs other questions: Is Anthony Davis (18% on threes last season) or Russell Westbrook (29.8%) convincing enough as outside shooters to create space inside?

Ham suggested it’s not so one-dimensional. Another component of his offense is the speed threat of James and Westbrook, who both were gunning at top speed off defensive rebounds Saturday morning. In addition to the four-out, one-in spacing of halfcourt possessions, Ham will be counting on his ball handlers to get defenses spinning and backpedaling and create seams or shots elsewhere.

“Those guys are still two of the most elite athletes in our league who can both handle the ball at a high level and attack the paint and the rim at a high level,” Ham said. “So that’s the reason for the four-out, one-in, just to keep that spacing open. And if they see different gaps they want to attack, they have the freedom to do that.”

Aside from the 200-odd people from the reservation watching Saturday morning, the public’s first peek at the Lakers’ progress will come Monday at home against the Sacramento Kings. Ham said he wants the Big Three to play “if possible” but will finalize that Sunday. The Lakers got full participation from Lonnie Walker IV, who has been limited in the past week with an ankle injury. Troy Brown Jr. remained limited with a back injury, and the team is still waiting for Dennis Schröder’s visa from Germany to be approved with hopes he’ll arrive in the coming week.

While the group and schemes are new, in one sense, Davis said he thought they seemed familiar: He’s been reminded of the Lakers’ 2019-20 season, when they started a two-big lineup with Davis and JaVale McGee and rode the momentum of a No. 1 seed to a championship. That might be a little much to hope for, even in the sunny early days of preseason. But Davis didn’t seem to shy from the comparison.

“You got me and (Jones) at the rim, Bron as a perimeter defender, Russ as a perimeter defender and (Nunn),” he said. “So, I think our strength is going to be locking down defensively and also we have a lot of free range offensively. Obviously me, Bron, Russ, K have been great all through training camp. DJ’s a lob threat, offensive rebounding opportunities. So I think we have a lot of different dynamics in that first group.”