Lakers: Frank Vogel Pulls Out High School Coaching Trick

Vogel addressed his team's poor free-throw shooting in practice on Monday.

The Lakers have a litany of issues that have affected their 2021-2022 season: injuries, poor defense, lack of team chemistry, and last, but not least, god awful free-throw shooting.

Free-throw shooting has been a sore spot all year for the Lakers, but it's been front and center in the month of February.

The Lakers charity stripe struggles have gotten so bad that head coach Frank Vogel had to go full high-school basketball coach on Monday. 

Per The Athletic's Bill Oram, Vogel made every Lakers player make 25 free-throws before they could leave the practice court.

At the end of practice, the portion media is allowed to watch, Frank Vogel blows his whistle and tells Lakers players that everyone needs to make 25 free throws before leaving the court. Been a bit of an issue, don’t ya know? pic.twitter.com/N71JAZAmOg

— Bill Oram (@billoram) February 14, 2022

In the Lakers losses to the Blazers and the Warriors, they shot a combined 60.9% from the free-throw line. They lost each game by two points. In the Warriors game, LeBron missed two of three free-throws with less than three seconds left to seal LA's 117-115 defeat.

On the season, LA is converting 72.2% of their free-throw attempts (29th). For the month of February, they're shooting 63.0% (30th). To add insult to injury, the Lakers are fourth in FTA per game (27.0). Meaning, they've been epically unable to capitalize on one of their few strengths.

At this point, the Lakers (26-31) need wins and momentum. Beating an elite Western Conference team like the Warriors could've kick-started a sputtering purple and gold squad. 

Now, winning a basketball game come down to more than just making free-throws. 

It's just impossible to ignore how egregiously inadequate the Lakers have been at a very controllable facet of the game.

Apparently, their head coach is well-aware.