If It Ain’t Broke: The Lakers’ Offseason Moves in Spider Graphs

The Lakers only made one big personnel move this summer. And for L.A. fans, the Lakers’ acquisition of Ron Artest is a love/hate relationship.

Some laud the signing, pointing to Artest’s dedication to contributing on both ends of the floor. Other criticize his age and decision-making, and bemoan the loss of Trevor Ariza’s explosive athleticism and untapped potential.

The real result will come this season on the floor of Staples Center. But in the meantime, here at How To Watch Sports we solve things the statistical way, and Spider Graphs can give us some idea how much impact the Artest-Ariza swap might have.

If you haven’t seen Spider Graphs before, they’re a new way to reflect a player or team’s statistics in a visual way that gives you an overall impression of their style. If you’re unfamiliar with how to read them and how they’re created, read the quick Spider Graph explanation here before you go any further.

And just as a refresher, the top half of the graph is offense, the bottom is defense; the top right is perimeter players, and the bottom left is big men.

The Lakers are unique among the league’s elite teams in that their offseason moves were minimal. While the Magic, Cavaliers, and Celtics all made roster-shattering moves, the Lakers simply exchangeed talented small forwards straight across (via free agency) with the Houston Rockets.

To give us an idea how much each team gained and lost in the move, here is the comparison of Artest and Ariza’s 2008 statistics. These graphs use per-48-minutes instead of per-game statistics, to remove any discrepancies in playing time:

Really, we end up without too many surprises.

First of all, it’s no surprise that Artest has higher scoring numbers. It’s unlikely that he’ll have the same responsibilities in Los Angeles as he did in Houston, however, where he picked up scoring slack for the injured Tracy McGrady. He’ll be at best the Lakers’ third scoring option behind Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol, and perhaps the fourth or fifth behind Lamar Odom and even Andrew Bynum.

But we know Artest isn’t afraid of putting up shots, and he brings to the Lakers another offensive threat that can punish defenses if they play off him to double Kobe.

That said, It’s still likely that Artest and Ariza’s raw scoring numbers will be reversed next season as they fill each others roles on their new teams.

The biggest surprise of the graph is that Ariza’s defensive numbers outdo Artest’s. While Artest is a physical defender, Ariza is younger and quicker—and we see his ability to jump passing lanes reflected in his strong steals axis.

Does that mean Ariza is a better defender than Artest? Not necessarily—steals and blocks often come when acting as a help defender instead of an on-ball defender (where Artest shines). But it does mean that they’re at least in the same category.

So, both players have their strengths. But is it enough to dramatically shift the team one direction or the other?

Short answer: Not really.

This graph adds together the Lakers starting five, with Ariza in place for last year and Artest for this year. The other starting four are Derek Fisher, Bryant, Gasol, and Bynum.

What we can see here is a loaded Laker team that has swapped out one talented small forward for another. Any difference that Artest makes over Ariza statistically is incremental, and thus the 2008-09 and 2009-10 graphs are almost identical.

The biggest differences, then, will be the intangibles that Artest can bring. He’s a strong leader, and may fit quite well in to Phil Jackson’s ‘system.

Adding Artest certainly can’t make the Lakers worse. And even if the team doesn’t get much better, that’s probably still okay.

They did win the championship, after all.

This is the second in a series of articles analyzing the offseason moves of the league’s elite teams, each using Spider Graphs. Check out the Orlando Magic analysis here.