Good Stat or Bad Stat?

The season is only 11 games old for the Lakers, but already some alarming statistical trends are emerging.  Some are good some are bad.  Let’s bust out our calculators and dive into these stats to try and get to the bottom of these trends:

Lamar Odom has attempted 27 three-pointers in 11 games – Bad

This one is a problem on multiple levels.  For starters, LO is only hitting 29.6% of those three-pointers.  Clearly, that just isn’t going to work.  If he wants to continue hoisting treys at twice the frequency he did last season, then he better start making more of them.  As a career 31.4% three-point shooter that seems unlikely.  The bigger problem though is that one-fourth of his shots have been from downtown.  Lamar has turned himself into almost a strictly perimeter player and not a particularly good one.  Yeah, he can shoot the J decently for a big man, but his real offensive streak is taking slower bigs off the dribble and going to the rack, not launching 25-footers.  That passive mentality isn’t going to fly when he returns to the bench and will be counted on to provide an offensive spark.

Andrew Bynum has 8 double-doubles in 9 games – Good… for now

Bynum is off to a great start.  His 8 double-doubles are just incredible when you consider he had only 16 in 50 games last year.  If this keeps up, he’ll easily become the starting center for the Western Conference in the All-Star game and quite likely win Most Improved Player.  I, however, am withholding full judgment until Pau Gasol gets back in the line-up.  Drew is playing nearly 40 minutes per game right now which is really inflating his numbers, so he is bound to drop off on that front alone, but he is also going to have to share low-post shots with Pau too.

The Lakers are getting a combined PER of 8.2 from their point guards – Horrendously bad

An 8.2 efficiency number is freaking terrible.  If you check out John Hollinger’s list of player PERs there are 58 qualified point guards and only five of them have PERs under 8.2… and Derek Fisher is one of the five.  This basically means that the Lakers are getting literally almost nothing from their point guards, especially on the offensive end.  No team can be highly successful playing four-on-five on offense no matter how talented the other four players are.  Which brings me to my next stat…

Hey, Fish, less writing, more working on your jumper.

The Lakers are 19th in team offensive efficiency rating – Bad

Yeah, you read that right, 19th.  The season is young, but that is a horrible ranking for a team that has so much talent that they should never be out of the top 5 in offensive efficiency.  While the Laker defense hasn’t been great this year it has been good enough making the real culprit in all three Laker losses their utter ineptitude on offense.  How did it get this bad?  There are two main reasons that follow as such…

Derek Fisher has failed to make a shot in 3 games this season – Insanely bad

He plays half the game at the point and has failed to knock down a shot in three different games.  That is embarrassing on so many levels.  On the season Fish is now shooting a measly 32% from the field but at least he can’t guard anyone either.  It is bordering on the point where the Lakers would be better off just having nobody playing the point guard position rather than having Fisher out there.

Kobe is only averaging 2.9 assists per game – REALLY bad

Yes, it is true, Kobe is fallible.  The dude is a scoring machine this year and his new post-up game has been a revelation, however, it is also proving to be detrimental to the rest of the offense.  With Kobe spending so much of his time with his back to the basket, he is failing to get others involved in the offense.  Let’s remember that the triangle offense doesn’t use a true point guard, so the wings have to function as distributors too and Kobe isn’t doing that this year and it is clearly evident with his worst assist average since his first two years in the league.  It probably is also partly due to the fact that none of the long-distance shooters for the Lakers are shooting particularly well, but there is an obvious problem that Kobe is having a hard time passing out of the post and/or his teammates don’t know where to be when he is in the post.  Everyone is used to a more drive-and-kick style from Kobe and it looks like it is going to take awhile before the offense adjusts to Kobe’s new post-centric mindset.

This is where you are supposed to pass now, Kobe.

Shannon Brown is a net -32 when he is on the floor – Bad

The plus-minus stat is a bit misleading in that it can be influenced by a player’s teammates, but this specific number speaks volumes to why Brown hasn’t completely knocked the horrid Jordan Farmar out of the rotation.  Not only does it show that Brown isn’t exactly playing like the tough defender he was back in the post-season, but that his recklessness on offense is undermining the greater good of the team.  A little discipline on both ends of the floor is what Shannon needs to get back on the positive side of this metric.

The Lakers are 10th in team defensive efficiency rating – Good

This is really just to make my point clear that defense isn’t really the Lakers’ problem.  They definitely have room to improve on the defensive end, but to be in the top third of teams on defense is more than acceptable for pretty much any team.  Granted they struggle in transition and can’t slow down quick point guards, but the Lakers defense is definitely statistically solid and is arguably carrying the team right now.  Yet the team is still 8-3.  Imagine how could this team will be once the offense comes around.

Tags: Andrew Bynum, Derek Fisher, Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol, Shannon Brown, Statistics