Where to begin on Antawn
Jamison? Veteran player, former 6th man of the year still looking
for a championship; he signed with the Lakers for the veteran’s minimum of 1.4
million dollars a season.
I’m going to ignore how bad
he’s been in preseason, since nobody cares about preseason; instead I’m going
to focus on his final season with Cleveland. At first glance, the former
Cavalier had a decent season shown by his basic numbers of: 17.2 PPG, 6.3 RPG
and 2.0 assists per game. Digging a little deeper reveals that Jamison
only shot 40.3% from the floor, only made 68% of his free throws, while
attempting more than 16 FG’s a game.
Digging even deeper to more
advanced metrics shows just how declined and below average Jamison was last season.
On one hand, Jamison looks
slightly above average. His PER rating was 16.1; league average is 15. But the
rest of the advanced metrics indicate that Jamison has declined to be below
average in almost every way possible. Jamison had his lowest True Shooting
Percentage in his career at 48.1%. His Effective Field Goal Percentage was also
his lowest in his 14 year career at 44.7%. Jamison’s Offensive Win Share was
fairly mediocre at 2.1 and his Defensive Win Share was 1.0. His total Win Share
was a middle of the pack 3.1. Again, he looks fairly average and I wouldn't be
concerned if not for his Win Share per 48 minutes. WS/48 indicates how many
wins this player contributed in 48 minutes of play. Jamison’s career WS/48 is
an above average .112 when considered that .100 is league average. Last season,
however, this drops to a very below average .70. This, combined with how
clueless he’s looked during preseason, is something the Lakers and Lakers’ fans
should be worried about. He’s not going to get any better at age 36, and he
could prove to be a burden as the 82 game season goes on.
I believe these numbers go
up next season, simply by playing with Steve Nash; however I would not bank on
Jamison truly helping the bench all that much other than hitting the outside
shot with some consistency to help spread the defense.
If Mike Brown wishes to
avoid disaster from his bench, Jamison must come in with at least 2 of the star
players on the court, it doesn’t matter which combination of players, be it
Kobe Bryant with Dwight Howard or Steve Nash with Pau Gasol, Jamison needs this
to be at his most efficient, and help improve the bench play, not hinder it.
Hopefully, Brown recognizes a declining player, and doesn’t expect more from
Jamison than what he can provide.
The Lakers had an excellent off season, and made a huge signing of the former 6th man of the year to bolster the bench, expecting an absolute steal for the former Cavalier. Jamison may not be what the Lakers were hoping for.
