What Laker Should Get More PT?

Per 36 Minutes

*The idea is you take a players’ stats and average it out over 36 minutes to get an idea of what their production might be if you gave them starters minutes.

I think the rotation will go as follows:  Andrew Bynum should start again this year while Shannon Brown and Jordan Farmar will go back and forth over who gets the bulk of the backup point guard minutes. I also see Brown severely limiting Sasha Vujacic’s playing time and Luke Walton should get the reserve small forward duties. That leaves Josh Powell and D.J. Mbenga as more of an insurance policy in case one of our bigs go down. Meanwhile, Adam Morrison, the former #3 overall pick a few years ago, is the wild card. We still need to surround Kobe Bryant with shooters, so let’s see if Sasha and Adam pick up the slack. The Lake Show is looking at a strong nine man rotation for the 2009-2010 season.

This could be the return of the bench mob!

Andrew Bynum

17.8 ppg, 9.9 rpg, 1.8 apg, 2.2 bpg

If Drew was able to stay out of foul trouble, you can see how effective he can be. Even though he is maybe the third or fourth option on offense, he still puts up what amounts to 18 points per night. His 10 boards and two blocks are really what you want to see him focus on next year. The offense will come through put backs and ally oops, but it’s nice to know he does have a number of good post moves in his arsenal. He will still be part of the big three (big men) and I’m sure they will all take turns on offense. I see him getting back to his pre-injury self next year and let’s pray he has a full, healthy season.

Unless he really advances, Lamar Odom still needs time, so I don’t see more than 30-32 minutes.

Jordan Farmar

12.6 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 4.7 apg, 1.7 spg, 1.5 3pg

This will be the most interesting battle in training camp. The more I look at it, the less I think that either Brown or Farmar will take Fisher’s spot in the starting lineup, even though I predicted Farmar would even before last season. But, who will be his main backup? I think Jordan is certainly the more traditional point guard, who wants to penetrate and create opportunities for others, but he just needs to build up more consistency.

This could be the year he takes over backup duties and plays 20-25 minutes a night.

Shannon Brown

15.4 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 2.6 apg, 1.1 spg, 1.6 3pg (in 18 gms w/Lakers)

To me, he stands as the one guy who should without question get more playing time next year, depending on his improvement in the off-season. The triangle offense takes years to learn, but he still managed playing time to end the season last year without much knowledge of the offense, so you can see what might happen if he actually picks it up in training camp. I think the three-headed monster that is our point guard situation might not be ideal to the three players involved (including Derek Fisher and Farmar), but if they accept it, they can focus on going all out while they are in and really cause problems for opponents. Who knows, maybe each guy will pick up full court all game long.

At the very least he will split time backing up the point and Kobe Bryant, possibly playing 12-15 minutes per game.

Luke Walton

10.1 ppg, 5.6 rpg, 5.5 apg, 1 spg

You either love him or you hate him. The classic “system” player. Well guess what, the $4.8m man is in the perfect system. The triangle calls for bright players who can pass, shoot, and play multiple positions. Say what you will about Luke (like whether he deserved a 6 year, $30m contract two season ago), but the guy can play, and fits in well when surrounded by talent. Anyone that doubts his production — and I think he has more value outside of his stats — realize his 10/5/5 in 36 minutes puts him up there with any other seventh or eighth man in any one’s rotation…and he might be our 10th guy.

20 minutes per game is more than enough.

Sasha Vujacic

12.8 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 3.1 apg, 2.1 spg, 2.3 3pg

Me being a shooter, I can attest to how tough it is to get any kind of rhythm when you are playing limited minutes a night and Sasha only got 16 mpg last year. It is difficult to tell where The Machine goes from here. Do we chalk last season up to an off year (39% from the field, 36% from three), or did he play exceptionally well at the right time (45% from the field, 44% from three the year before, his contract year; he also hit 31 threes in 21 playoff games that year)? I think Brown might get more minutes backing up Kobe, just to make room for him, which will only put more pressure on the foreign gunner to produce in limited minutes.

8-12 minutes until he proves he just had an off year.

Josh Powell

12.8 ppg, 9 rpg, 1.4 apg, 0.9 bpg

It’s funny how everyone passes over a guy like Powell, but goes crazy over a guy like Brandon Bass. Powell’s numbers are very comparable to Bass’ per 36 minutes (15.7 ppg, 8.4 rpg, 1.3 bpg) only Powell will cost the Lakers a little under a million dollars next season, while some team will be willing to dump the full mid-level on Bass in the range of $5.8m. Powell can rebound, play serviceable defense and has a killer pick and pop game out to 20 feet.

15 minutes is his limit.

Didier Mbenga

12.1 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 1.8 apg, 2 spg, 4.8 bpg

You can see right away that Mbenga stands out for his defense. He is not in for very long stretches, so maybe that is why he goes all out and gets steals and blocks. If he got more time, it is safe to say he would not be able to sustain the pace he plays at, plus, he gets a lot of fouls, so I doubt he would ever be able to average five blocks per game. However, in short spans, he is a great back up.

He can give you a solid 5-10 minutes per game.

Adam Morrison

8.2 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 2.5 apg (in only 8 gms w/Lakers)

You know there is not enough minutes to go around and Mr. Gonzaga might be the odd man out. Unless his outside shooting really improves, he picks up the triangle real quick, and he dispels the slow white guy can’t guard anyone myth, then I don’t see him getting much time.

5-8 minutes could be earned; if not just to see what he’s got.

Thug Life

So, in light of the past 48 hours, I have decided to scrap parts four and five of my series, Busy Off-Season.

I was all ready to put together an article showing how the Lakers needed a gritty veteran big man. Despite winning a championship last year, we were missing that tough minded individual. A thug if you will; or at least an enforcer. Never did it occur to me that this would come in the form of Ron Artest.

While there are certain inherent risks when signing a guy like Artest — will he charge after a guy in STAPLES for giving him a funny look — you certainly can’t deny the man’s talent. Only a few seasons ago, he was playing in Indiana and moved his way into the MVP race with his all-out play on both ends of the court. Everyone talks about how versatile Lamar Odom is, but have you seen this guy?!?

At only 29 years of age, and still in his prime — having never really had a contract to match his skills — he chose to sign with the champs for the mid-level exception, which is enough proof for me to think that he wants to go to a winning situation and make it work. I realize this is not a good year to expect a huge contract and that is more what forced Ron into this situation, but now that he is here, I want to believe that his only concern will be to win a ring. He is older and wiser and has come a long way since his Detroit ROCK City days.

The two proposed mid-level deals that I mentioned before are:  Three years, $18.5m, or five years, $33.5m. This will not affect the Lakers ability to re-sign Lamar Odom, however, since he is our free agent and we own his Bird-Rights; meaning we can sign him for whatever it takes, regardless of whether we are over the cap. (Everything you would ever want to know about the NBA’s salary cap can be found here, including Bird rights and soft cap).

With the news that Ron Artest will for all intensive purposes be a Laker come July 8th, the Lake Show will get the best perimeter defender who is built like a tank. At 6′7, 260 lbs Artest is a force to be reckoned with and he’s got a mean streak to go with it (and we’ll take it). The one thing you know he will bring every night is an intensity and a great desire to win.

For all his ‘problems,’ playing on the court has never been the issue. He averaged 17.1 ppg, 5.2 rpg, and 3.3 apg, as well as 1.5 spg and a career high 2.2 3pg, shooting 40% from behind the arc in his lone season in Houston last year. He is a unique talent, a rare specimen of brute force and skill. Not only does he outweigh Al Horford by 15 pounds, he can defend everyone from Tony Parker to Kobe Bryant to dare I say he could put up one heck of a fight bodying up Shaquille O’Neal.

As far as the rift on the court you saw last season between Ron and Kobe, I think it was more due to competitive juices (and Ron wanting to get under his skin). I don’t see them being a problem together. Even with all the trash talking and elbows flying, there is a mutual respect you could see between the two. Besides, I think Kobe and Phil Jackson will be able to control Ron’s antics off the court and on the court he’ll be just fine. You figure Dennis Rodman was much more difficult and distracting than Artest, so I think it will be child’s play for Phil next year.

My Uncle was actually the one to break the news to me the other day when he heard it on LA’s sport talk and he immediately questioned me about Ron Ron’s shot selection. It’s true, he has never had the best selection, and never really shot a great percentage from the field (42% for his career; only shot above 45% in a season once). However, what I saw last year, especially in the playoffs, and especially after Yao Ming got hurt, he became the number one option. At that point, he proved he is not the type of player that can carry a team and I think he felt he had to do too much, thus the poor shots. Luckily for the Lakers and Artest, he won’t be expected to be the number one, or even number two option thanks to Kobe and Pau Gasol.

I still want to recognize the fact that things can go one of two ways:  Either he focuses less on scoring and more on defense, accepting his role, or he can’t handle all the attention that Kobe and Pau and even Lamar Odom will get and ends up shooting way too many shots because he is not getting enough. While he only played in a few games last year with Yao and Tracy McGrady — the clear cut one and two guy — at least he showed he could step back and fit in.

I was the first to say the most important thing the Lakers need to do this off-season is sign Trevor Ariza, and while I hate to see him go, I am glad the Lakers resisted over paying for him. I thought based on where Ariza is at in his young career, as well as the poor economy and few teams with the money to spend or want to spend, that he would end up with a four year, $20m contract. The Lakers were willing to give him a five year, $33.5m contract and he felt like that was a slap in the face. For everything Ariza does, it is the things he doesn’t do (no handle, can’t create his own shot, not a lock down defender) that make me think he wasn’t worth any more. Then you factor in the fact that he needs a player like Kobe to get him good looks to be effective, and he is only worth the mid-level.

Besides, Artest is 10 times the player than Ariza is now and showed that, while he has worlds of talent, he can also just be one of the guys. In 27 games in which Artest played third fiddle to Yao and McGrady, he averaged 14.1 ppg, 4.7 rpg, and 2.8 apg. He also shot 38.6% from the field in those games versus 40.1% on the season. He may have scored three fewer points per game, but took fewer shots, as you would expect. The team still was 17-10 (.629) and could have been much better if guys stayed healthy and got more time to gel together on the court. I have no worries whether Artest can make it work on the court.

My concerns, if any, are over his health. His teammate from last year, McGrady, is the one known to be brittle, but Ron has actually never played an 82 game season in his 10 years in the league. He has only played 70+ in four seasons (although two others he played in 69 games). He has missed an average of 21.6 games per year. Okay, so 72 of those games were due to his year long suspension, so really he has missed an average of 14 games a year due to injury. I think that’s just more a result of his physical play, and being in his prime, I’m not too concerned (plus the Lakers can always fill in his spot with Luke Walton for a short period of time).

The amazing thing is that Artest will fit into the triangle perfectly. He can bring the ball up, distribute, create for others or himself, post up, step out and hit the three (did I mention he hit more than two a game last year and shot it 40%). Best of all, Kobe will never have to defend the other team’s best player. And if we do face a team like the Spurs in the playoffs, we can put Artest on Richard Jefferson and Kobe on Manu Ginobili (or visa versa) and shut those two down.

There could not have been a more important signing and I am going to go out on a limb here:  The team the Lakers will put on the floor next year will without question be the most talented team ever assembled…at least on paper. Factor in Kobe (30), Artest (29), Gasol (28), and Lamar (29) are all in their prime. If Andrew Bynum stays healthy and continues to improve, that will just be icing on the cake!

As long as the Lakers re-sign Odom to something reasonable ($8m a year), this team will most certainly have a three to four year window to win that many rings, even with the rest of the league improving.

I want to leave you with a good point made by ESPNs Ric Bucher. While everyone will agree that the Lakers may not have won without Ariza — and the fact that he is young and only going to get better — this swap for Artest is certainly a better move for the team in the short term. The Lakers don’t have to wait for Ariza to get better, they can now rely on a ‘chiseled-vet’ and a known commodity.

Shannon Brown, an Important Part of the Future

Part III of the five part series, Busy Off-Season. Lakers need to find a replacement for Derek Fisher…could Shannon Brown be the answer?

What a busy week the NBA just had.

Sure the draft was pretty uneventful, but how exciting is it when three of the top teams in the league all make major moves and upgrades beginning with the Cavaliers stealing Shaquille O’Neal away from the we-need-to-drop-salary-and-quick Suns. Give credit to the Spurs too for breaking out of their safe shell and actually being ultra aggressive. They made a big move turning a few nobodies into one Richard Jefferson, who I think embodies the Spurs system — both in his calm demeanor and his ability to play defense. They will welcome his fresh legs and versatility. Then you have the Magic, who just lost to the Lakers in the Championship game and seemingly lost their glue guy, Hedo Turkoglu, who balked at their qualifying offer, making him an unrestricted free agent. However, they bounced back in a hurry by trading away useless Rafer Alston and promising youngster Courtney Lee and getting back Vince “I’m-32-and-still-have-a-ton-to-prove” Carter.

With the rest of our immediate competition upping the ante, could you imagine a situation in which the Lakers do not resign Trevor Ariza or Lamar Odom?

Better yet, what about this young kid Shannon Brown?

Now, was he the reason the Lakers won the 2009 NBA Championship? No. Was he a vital cog in the engine that is the new Lakers dynasty? No. So, you may be wondering why I am devoting an entire article to a guy who barely played in 39 games for us?

The answer is, I saw all I need to know that he will one day play a very important role in the Lakers future.

A big question that keeps coming up this off-season was who is the Lakers point guard of the future? Ironically, Brown and Jordan Farmar both came into the league in 2006 and were selected 25th and 26th, respectively. Jordan was drafted to eventually take over the reigns, but in his first year he barely managed 15 minutes per game behind Smush Parker. The following year was a better situation. Fisher was back in town, which gave Farmar a one or two year window to learn, grow and mature behind a consummate pro. It also helped that the Lakers drafted yet another point guard, Javaris Crittenton with the 19th pick, which really motivated Jordan to push himself, as he eventually doubled his scoring output from his rookie year.

Blessed with an explosive first step and a 42-inch vertical that allows him to finish at the rim, he seemed well on his way. However, he has yet to sustain the few flashes of brilliance here and there, and his third year progress took a hit after a December injury sidelined him for a month. Even when he came back, his shot was as shaky as his defense and his confidence seemed at an all-time low — he has yet to get it back, shooting just 31% from three in the playoffs.

Meanwhile, Brown struggled to find minutes after being drafted by the Cavaliers. An injury in his first year stunted his growth and he made a number of appearances in the D-League. From there, he got traded to the Bulls and eventually signed a one year deal with the Bobcats. After a solid game vs the Lakers, he was traded again, but this time to the City of Angels. He rode the pine for most of February, March, and April, but in the final five games of the season, Phil Jackson must have saw something in practice that made him decide to let the newcomer be the first guy off the bench. Brown rewarded Phil with a number of highlight reels as well as a solid stat line: 7 pts, 2 reb, and 2 ast in only 16 minutes of play.

Then came the playoffs. Could he have been playing for a new contract? Or, was he just happy to find himself contributing positively to a championship caliber team in the playoffs? (My guess is the latter).

Either way, I feel this is almost as important a sign for general manager Mitch Kupchak, as the signings of Ariza and Odom. I see the selling of two of their three draft picks as a clear sign they want to keep Brown. By not adding a young player, Brown (only 23 years old), becomes that much more important. Every team needs young players to sustain success. Besides, he simply showed me too much during the final two months of the season to let him slip away.

We also know PJ loves big point guards and at 6′4, 211 pounds, Brown is just that. He is also extremely athletic, can defend, and oh, did I mention he hit 48% of his threes in the playoffs? I can envision a future lineup of Brown and Ariza giving us unparalleled athleticism, the likes the league has not seen.

Granted, there might be another team who feels he could be had for cheap and offer a bit more, but I don’t see there being too much competition for him. I believe, regardless of the incredibly small sample size we have to go by, that he is at least worth the risk. I could see a three year contract worth $5.5 million. It won’t break the bank or stop us from re-signing any of the other major players, but it will guarantee he has at least a fair shot at becoming Derek Fisher’s replacement.

Maybe he won’t become an all-star, but I expect big things from the kid.

Not bad for a guy who was just a ‘throw-in’ on the Vladimir Radmanovic and Adam Morrison deal that was really only made to save Jerry Buss a few measly millions.

Lakers Expose Their Achilles Again

The Lakers closed out the Jazz which was no surprise to anyone. I’m sure Jazz fans were hurt, but, let’s be honest, it was a 1-8 first round match up. This round was more or less a warm up for the Lakers, but it did show some interesting facts and, at times, the Laker’s Achilles heel.

Farmar is Far From Getting Some PT

Jordan Farmar lost all his playing time towards the end of the season and didn’t see any of it come back in the first round. Shannon Brown’s solid performance in round one (50% from the feild and 66% from behind the arc) doesn’t help Farmar’s chances.  Farmar spends most of the game sitting next to Adam Morrison. During the regular season I wrote an article about Adam Morrison’s future as a Laker. It seems now, more then ever, that Morrison’s acqusition was a salary cap move.

Bynum Needs To Step it Up

Bynum might be the wild card next round if the Lakers play Houston. He will get minutes because of Yao but will be produce? As a big man, he has to rebound; which he hasn’t done in the last two games, averaging 3 rebonds a game in the series. He will probably take a lot of Odom’s minutes who has been balling out of control.

The Laker’s Achilles Heal

The Lakers once again showed the achilles heel; giving up big leads. Although it seems like they man handled the Jazz, they let Utah cut the lead to 93-86 with 4:37 left. I hope Trevor Ariza’s concerns are addressed in the next round, “We’re happy that we got the win but, but I don’t think we’re happy about how we won so we have to pay attention and stay focused on closing games out.”

Adam Morrison performs, but does it matter?

If you can't beat LA, join LA

In only ten minutes he shot 2-4 from the field (including one three), had 4 rebounds, 1 assist and 5 points. Personally, I like the way Kobe was coaching him on he court and, perhaps even better, Morrison was listening and responding. Morrison is a big guy, 6′8, and has proven to be a red hot shooter while in college. Phil Jackson has been known to like tall guards who can shoot and I think Morrison, if he learns to play some defense, could fit in well in the triangle offense.

However, acquiring Morrison could, more likely then not, be a salary cap move for the Lakers. Adam is in the third year of a four year contract paying him $4,159,200 a year. There is a team option for his 4th year (2009-2010 season) for $5,257,228 that I doubt the Lakers will pick up unless he shows potential. However, it doesn’t look like he is going to get minutes anytime soon, so let’s hope he shines at practice. I personally like Morrison and hope he shows potential, but I think the Lakers will use the money to keep players like Ariza and Odom at the end of the season.