Brandon Ingram feels more confident shooting 3-pointers, wants to take more this season

After a year of test driving his new jumper, Lakers forward Brandon Ingram is ready to shoot more 3-pointers .

With LeBron James on the roster, the floor for the Los Angeles Lakers is pretty high this season. However, in order to reach their full potential, a number of their young guys will have to step up in a big way, and no one has more pressure to do so than Brandon Ingram.

Ingram is entering his third season with the Lakers after being selected No. 2 overall in 2015. After what ended up being a nightmare rookie season for the 21-year-old, Ingram bounced back in his sophomore campaign and looked the part of a rising star.

Through 59 games with the Lakers last season, Ingram averaged 16.1 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game. He also shot an impressive 39 percent from behind the arc on 1.8 attempts per game (105 total), a whole 10 percent increase from his rookie season but on 82 fewer attempts.

His decrease in volume can be partially attributed to the fact that he missed 22 games for the Lakers last season, but it had arguably just as much to do with him getting used to the adjustments he made to his jump shot last season.

With a year of practice under his belt, Ingram told Bill Oram of The Athletic he is ready to take more three-pointers this season.

This season, he feels more comfortable. After all the buzz about a possible tweak to Ball’s much-studied jumper, Ingram may have made just as an important evolution from his first two years, when he said he “slung the ball to the rim.”

“This year I just feel more comfortable in 3-pointers,” Ingram said. “I feel like I can take more. I feel like it will make me a better offensive player. It all goes back to confidence.”

It’s a small sample size, but through three preseason games, Ingram hasn’t gotten off to an ideal start.

While he is making an impact offensively, averaging 17 points per game on 55.9 percent shooting from the field, he has yet to make a single 3-pointer in four attempts (1.3 attempts per game). But even if that minuscule sample concerns you, given context, it makes some sense.

For starters, the Lakers as a team aren’t shooting a whole bunch of threes. At 24.7 3-point attempts per game, the Lakers are shooting the sixth-least triples in the preseason despite averaging the ninth-most points per game (115.3).

That’s not to say they won’t shoot more threes in the regular season, but their primary focus on offense so far has been getting out and running in transition. In most of those cases, Ingram is guaranteed points if he just goes to the rim.

It’s also impossible and/or stupid to judge someone off of four shot attempts, and Ingram also hasn’t had very many good looks at 3-pointers so far. In transition, the Lakers have looked dominant, but their half-court offense needs work, to put it kindly.

Having LeBron James for more than 15 minutes per game should help that, as should having Lonzo Ball back in the rotation once he’s healthy. Until then, Ingram is just going to have to take what the defense gives him.

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