It’s not a move that is going to make the Lakers any younger but Antawn Jamison’s signing does greatly improve the team’s depth. Rumored for a few days now, the news of Jamison and the Lake Show coming to terms on a one-year deal at the veteran’s minimum($1.4-million) finally broke today.
For Jamison it marks a drastic turn in his career. He’ll be coming off the bench for the first time in a reserve role. Oh…he’ll also be taking a massive pay cut having clocked a cool $15-million in Cleveland last season.
Jamison’s ability to play both forward positions while providing a much needed scoring punch off the bench will be highly valuable. The real hope is that he can rediscover his once steady shooting touch. Last season saw the former Tar Heel hit a new low posting a below average 40% from the field.
What would be even better is if Jamison could roll back the clock to his days as a near level elite scorer. In case you need further proof of how freakish a ball player Kobe Bryant is look no further than how far Jamison’s game has fallen off. Granted Antawn is three years older than KB24 but once upon a time these two had and epic duel in which both posted a 50 spot in the box score in the same game. That was actually part of Jamison’s back-to-back 50-point performances way back when he was a member of the Golden State Warriors.
In this day and age we’ll settle for a reliable scorer that can take pressure of the starting unit by helping the bench to maintain leads while also spelling Metta World Peace and Pau Gasol. And it would be nice if he could help stretch the floor a little but after last season it might be a stretch to ask that much.