The Lakers roster evaluated and the best opportunities for improvement

Posted on LG.net on 1/10/06.

At 82Games.com, each player is given a rating (PER) for he did offensively at each position he played, a rating for how his man did while he was in there, and the net difference between the two. I find the net PER the best one number summation of how a player is doing. Here is how the Lakers are doing:
PG -4.1 (Parker -4.7, Vujacic -3.5)
SG +6.7 (Bryant +16.3, Profit -9.8, Vujacic -7.6)
SF +2.0 (Odom -0.3, George -1.9, Bryant +17.7, Walton -3.2)
PF +1.8 (Odom +8.2, Cook -1.0, Walton -7.6, Brown -10.6)
C -2.2 (Mihm -0.6, Brown -3.4, Bynum -9.4, Cook +7.8)
(The players are listed in order of minutes played at the position and I only list ratings where the player has played at least 5% of the possible minutes at that spot)

As you can see:

• Bryant is carrying the team
• Odom is second best, doing much better at PF than at SF
• Mihm is a little below average
• Smush is getting outplayed
• Brown has done poorly so far, particularly at PF
• Cook and George are the best of the bench players, essentially holding their own while out there
• The rest of the bench is weak to pitiful

At the same time, this is hindsight and driving while looking out the rear window is a recipe for disaster. Mihm had a better December than November, the Lakers are hoping Parker can be more consistent, Brown has had 3 solid games in a row, and Vujacic is playing solid defense while he is in. So, hopefully a lot of the negatives will go away with time and experience.

But if you were wanting to improve the Lakers based upon performance so far, here are the best opportunities for improvement:
#1 PG
#2 Back Up SG