Okay, we're in mid-season right now in the NBA and I think its time I give my opinions about the players on my Lakers for this season!
I'm starting with Kobe Bryant, who plays shooting guard and is the team captain of my Lakers. Right now, he has consistently played well, being the one who does his work and garners the most points for us most of the time. I'm glad that his injured right index finger has not affected his playing that much. Personally, I don't see much he has to improve since he often gets many assists, at least about 5 per game. I hope he continues to lead my Lakers to the 16th championship for NBA finals!
Next is Pau Gasol, who plays as either center or power forward. I consider him the king of rebounds for my team, having consistently getting at least about 9 rebounds per game. He also scores very well, usually getting the second highest points for my team. Still, he can probably improve on being slightly faster with the handling of the ball, but it's understandable though, given his usual positions.
Next is Andrew Bynum, who also plays as either center or forward. He is definitely one of the most improved players since last season, where his playing was affected by his knee injury that gave him difficulties to handle the ball. He can sometimes gather the most points in a game, and he is generally considered to be one of the top scorers in my team, usually getting second or third most points per game. However, he is notorious for his inconsistency in game scoring. According to Roger, my best friend, without Gasol, he usually handles the ball well, but not so well with Gasol in the court due to lack of space. Despite this, you can argue that if Gasol is not the king of rebounds for my team, then Bynum is, getting at least 6 rebounds per game. He should probably stick with increasing the number of assists, it will help my Lakers a lot.
Next is Ron Artest, who plays as a small forward, taking over the old position left behind by Trevor Ariza, who moved to Houston Rockets. He is one of our top scorers, averaging 16.1 points per game. He is regarded as one of the best defenders according to Roger. However, the shoulder injury he had during December of 2009 affected his playing significantly, usually scoring only about 2-5 points before being pulled out. Despite this, he seems to have returned back to normal over the time. Like Bynum, he needs to improve in assisting, usually getting only about 0-2 assists per game, which with improvement, can increase our communication significantly.
Next is Derek Fisher, who plays as the point guard for my team. Ever since the 2000-2001 NBA season, which is when I first officially supported Lakers, I've seen him as one of the best players when it comes to him handling the ball and 3-point shots. Right now, even at old age, he still has both of those characteristics, to a lesser extent with the handling, though. He is my team's best 3-point shooter, succeeding 37.4% of the time, which is higher than most of the other teammates on the Lakers. At age 35, he's become overwhelmingly less consistent and slower than usual. Despite this, as a familiar teammate of Kobe Bryant, he is still a major factor of various games when it comes to his 3-point shooting, the best example being in last year's finals, where we won game 4 against Orlando primarily for his 3-point shots.
Now, onto our bench. Lamar Odom is the best of our backups, capable of scoring at least 15 points per game and can often contribute to the game should one of our starters do poorly in our games. As a backup for forward positions, he has one of the best assists averages for my team, with an average of 4.2 assists. He can probably improve in his consistency still, as it's not as good compared to Gasol and Bryant. Shannon Brown is generally our second or third best of our backups. He has some of the most insane dunks that I've seen in the games, including the recovery dunk from Bynum's miss in free throws and his thunderous dunk on Chris Andersen of the Nuggets during last playoffs. For that, I call him the master of dunks. He can use improvements in assists though.
Jordan Farmar is one of the other best bench players. He is known for sometimes scoring many points from his 3-point shots, which can be a game-changer. However, he most definitely needs improvement in his consistency, as he, Vujacic, and Bynum are some of the most inconsistent players on my team. Sasha Vujacic is at times a good scorer as well, but he, along with Farmar and Bynum, are the most inconsistent players on my team. He also needs to work more on his defense, it isn't as good as it could be. And Luke Walton is generally a good scorer, but his defense is awful compared to other players on Lakers, sometimes even letting my opponents score past him.
As for Mbenga, Powell, and Morrison; they haven't play enough for me to give out opinions. They need more play time so I can judge how they are doing.
Overall, my Lakers is doing very well like last year, despite a few weaknesses my team has. I hope we can beat Cavaliers' best record in the league at some point! It will benefit us with the home-court advantage for the entire playoffs!
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