Los Angeles Lakers: Post All-Star break player rankings

3.) Avery Bradley

This may come as a bit of shock to most of you, but Avery Bradley is the third best player on the Los Angeles Lakers. You can argue with it all you want, but when you take into account what he brings to the team on both ends of the floor, there really isn’t anyone else who is as well-rounded as he is.

As part of the ‘LeBron at point guard experiment’, the team slotted in Bradley at the one guard, mostly for the purposes of matching up defensively with the opposing team’s guards. However, Bradley has excelled in this ‘pseudo point guard’ role, navigating high screens with Anthony Davis, hitting mid-range jumpers at a 46% clip (87th percentile), while still providing reliable shooting from deep at 37%.

Bradley has also gotten better as the season has gone along, and in the month of February, averaged 11.4 points on 50% 3-point shooting, with a +10.9 plus-minus. Bradley’s tenaciousness on the defensive end is perhaps his biggest contribution to the team, as he is a constant pest for the opposition, hounding the ball-handler every chance he gets, and overall making life very difficult for them.

Bradley is unquestionably going to be an x-factor for the Lakers for the rest of the season, and going into the playoffs, as the team is going to be leaning heavily on his defensive prowess and 3-point shooting. Seeing as how he has been consistently improving throughout the season, we can assume that his current level of play will carry over into April/May.