Los Angeles Lakers: Power ranking the current players on the roster
10-9: The Two biggest disappointments
10. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
I love KCP’s name. Say his name 3 or 4 times. It rolls off the tongue like a rock going down a mountain. Anyway, dude’s been awful this year. He’s reminded me of a zombie, except instead of aimlessly trying to find human beings to bite into, he’s aimlessly wandered the basketball court throwing up bricks and playing uninspired defense. His advanced stats paint the same ugly picture:
Value Over Replacement Player (VORP): -0.1, which is 11th on the Lakers
Box Plus/Minus (BPM): -2.9, which is 10th on the Lakers
Win Shares (WS): 0.5, which is 8th on the Lakers
Player Efficiency Rating (PER): 10.5, which is 11th on the Lakers
KCP’s shown signs of life over the last four or five games, and his 3-point field goal percentage has actually risen north of 30 percent. I hope Caldwell-Pope continues to pick it up, because he’s a talented player.
9. Brandon Ingram
This guy’s been the biggest disappointment on the Lakers and one of the worst players in the league. Here are his advanced stats:
Real Plus Minus (RPM): -3.08, which is 410th out 430 players in the NBA. At least he’s 4 spots ahead of Jordan Clarkson.
VORP: -0.3, which is last on the Lakers
BPM: -4.3, which is 12th on the Lakers
Win Shares: 0.2, which is 11th on the Lakers
Brandon Ingram takes 54 percent of his shots from 3-feet to the 3-point line, which is the dead man’s zone. In today’s NBA, the best players take the majority of their shots from inside of 3 feet or from outside the 3-point line. I hate watching Ingram dribble the ball for eight seconds and then heave an off-balanced shot from 18 feet. I hate it!
Ingram also averages four rebounds per game, two assists per game, and 0.64 steals per game. As of right now, Ingram doesn’t do a single thing better than a replacement player, thus his horrid advanced stats.
I like Brandon Ingram. I think he’s a hard worker who’s passionate about the game. He’s got the talent to become an All-Star, but he has to stop taking bad shots and start making winning plays on the basketball court just like his teammates Lonzo Ball and Tyson Chandler.