The Lakers played four games since last week's edition of Lakers Trends and while the results were mixed (going 2-2), the trends have been somewhat positive. They kicked off the week with a thrashing of the Charlotte Bobcats; followed that with an impressive road win in Denver; and then proceeded to lose two winnable games in the final minutes against the Utah Jazz and Philadelphia 76ers. Obviously, losing their last two games, especially when victory was within reach with 5 minutes to play, puts a damper on the week. However, the underlying improvements were present and the general direction of this team was positive, even if the movement wasn't of a significant magnitude. Who knows, maybe I am grasping at straws, but lately there hasn't been much positive news in Lakerland (unless you are in charge of updating Kobe's name on the various milestones list) so any sign of hope is worth clinging to at this point. That is what we have this week, hope.

Check out this week's trend update below the jump...

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The Lakers finally were given a gift from the basketball scheduling gods this week as they were provided with two days off, twice in the same week. In what has been, and will continue to be, a very packed schedule with no time to practice, the Lakers really needed a few days off to regroup. The results of the past week were something of a roller coaster ride. It began with the Lakers finally beating their Staples Center roommates after losing the three previous meetings this year (two in the preseason). The Lakers then hit the road with newfound confidence, including a more assertive Pau Gasol. Their next game was supposed to be a cake walk. They played a Bucks team that was missing two of its best players and did not have a main rotation player over 6'10" to defend the Lakers bigs. This had one SS&R scribe saying there was "No Reason to Fear the Deer". The Lakers then fell flat on their faces. They were running out of excuses and the following night they had to play a much improved Timberwolves team which Vegas viewed as the favorite. Surprisingly, the Lakers finally had a dominant offensive performance from each of their big three at the same time, leading the Lakers to a rare road win. The roller coaster finished up on the week, but not everything ended on a high note. The big question this week is what happened to the rebounding?

Check out this week's trend update below the jump...

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That was about as lousy of a week as I can recall for the Lakers. We knew the games would be tough to win given the opponents and the locations but we all thought the Lakers would at least put up a fight. There isn't anything wrong with losing in Miami. There isn't anything wrong with losing in Orlando on the second night of a back to back. What is wrong is getting completely blown out in both games and resembling a team that is closer to the Washington Wizards than a potential NBA champion at this point. The shooting completely went awry on the road trip through Florida. The Lakers then returned to friendly confines of Staples Center, found something of an offensive game, only to see their elite level defense completely abandon them. It seems almost impossible at this point for the Lakers to find success on both ends of the floor simultaneously as the leagues best consistently do. With these results, it should not come as a big surprise that this weeks trends are pointing in the wrong direction for the Lakers. The big question is how far have they fallen?

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What a busy week it was for our beloved Lakers. The greatest franchise in all of sports completed an exhausting 5 games in 7 nights. The week began with Kobe Bryant morphing into The Black Mamba and dropping 48 points on the poor Phoenix Suns. They continue to pay the price for knocking Mr. Bryant out of the playoffs twice, even if 90% of the team has since moved on. Kobe continued his brilliance over the following three games by eclipsing the 40-point mark each time. He looked like Kobe Bryant circa 2006. Then he, and the rest of the Lakers, succumbed to fatigue in the final game against Dallas. The game was nothing more than a battle of attrition as two of the oldest teams in the league looked simply to survive. It was old faithful Derek Fisher who came through at the end and carried the Lakers to victory in what is certainly going to be exhibit A for why teams shouldn't play 5 games in 7 nights. So what did this memorable (and then hopefully forgettable) week mean for the purple and gold in the statistics that drive success? Continue to the jump and find out as we look at the second installment of our Lakers Trends series.

Before getting to the data, let me quickly recap what this trends series is monitoring. We are monitoring the Four Factors (shooting, turnovers, rebounding, and free throws) that drive success on the basketball court. We measure these four factors both offensively and defensively and track the Lakers relative to the rest of the league. The simplest way to read the chart is "The Redder, The Better". For a more detailed explanation click here. On to the charts...

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Want to know which direction your Lakers are headed? Then this is the place to be. We now present our new "Lakers Trends" series. Each week we will update the following information to provide our loyal SSR readers with the current state of the Lakers and how they are trending. (Hat tip to the Basketball-Reference website for providing all of the statistics.)

The following trends focus on the "Four Factors" and the overall offensive and defensive ratings. For those unfamiliar with the Four Factors, Dean Oliver (author of Basketball on Paper and pioneer in advanced basketball statistics) determined that the four factors to basketball success were (in order of importance):

1. Shooting – Field Goal % adjusted for the added value of three point shots
2. Turnovers – Percent of possessions resulting in a turnover
3. Rebounding – Percent of available rebounds grabbed
4. Free Throws – Ratio of free throws taken to field goal attempts

These Four Factors combined produce a team’s offensive and defensive ratings (points per 100 possessions). It is these aforementioned statistics that we will be tracking and presenting weekly.

Each statistic will be presented in a two-dimensional graph with the defensive statistic on the vertical axis and the offensive statistic on the horizontal access. The better the defensive statistic, the higher up the chart a team will be. The better the offensive statistic, the further right a team will be. The best teams will be located in the upper right and the worst in the bottom left. To aid in this presentation we have colored the background of the chart so that the best teams will be those in the red areas (think red hot) and the worst will be in the blue areas (think ice cold). In addition to plotting all teams on the chart, we will also be tracking our beloved purple and gold throughout the season to see which direction they are moving. These initial charts show the change from week 1 to week 2 via the dotted white line.

So without further ado, on to the trends…

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The playoffs are here and the Black Mamba is on the attack. He's scored 30 or more points in two of the three games so far, bringing his career 30-point playoff game total to 80, second only to Michael Jordan's 109. Kobe Bryant has played in 201 playoff games in his career so he has exceeded the 30-point mark in roughly two out of every fivegames. In order to pass Jordan at that pace, he would need to play another 75 playoff games. To put that in context, the Lakers played 67 games over the last three playoffs. Kobe and the Lakers would need quite a run the next few years to make that milestone obtainable. While the odds may be against Kobe for that record, there are other playoff records well within striking distance.

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I wasn't particularly happy with Kobe Bryant's game in yesterday's victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves, 90-79.  My criticisms of the Mamba would fall right in line with the usual talking points ... not doing a great job of involving teammates, taking shots that were more difficult than they needed to be, lazy defense against the one player on the other team who was playing really well, all the normal stuff.  But his line on the night was hardly terrible.  24 points on 18 shots with 45% shooting, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 turnovers.  As Kobe goes, it's a decidedly "meh" stat line, but also nowhere near disastrous.  His slow shooting performance gradually improved in the 2nd half, but overall, it was not one of his best efforts.

Instinct tells me that this was a game in which Kobe Bryant very well could have hurt his team's offensive performance, but the stats don't really bear that out.  After all, 18 shot attempts is less than his season average, he shot a decent percentage for a perimeter player, and his assist total (3) is on the low end of average for him, not great, but also well within the margin of expectation for a guy who averages roughly 5 assists per game.  However, if we remove Kobe from the equation, or more appropriately, overlook him, we know the overall offensive performance was terrible, and I think Kobe deserves a lion's share of the blame for it.  For all the times we've seen stats used to paint Kobe in an overly negative light, here is the rare counter.  Kobe's stats weren't too bad, and yet I'm making the argument that his play was that bad.

The whole thing got me thinking about how we measure Kobe's performance statistically in the first place.  For years, people have used Kobe's relatively low assist totals compared to his peers as a measuring stick for how selfish he is and how he sometimes hurts his team offensively by failing to utilize his teammates.  Laker Nation counters with talk of how the Triangle limits a player's assists by involving the entire team within the offense.  But has anybody actually looked at whether Kobe's assists have anything to do with his team's success?  Well, I did.  And near as I can tell, you can tell absolutely nothing about the Lakers offensive performance, or overall success, by looking at how many assists Kobe Bryant gets in a game.

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A week ago, my esteemed SB Nation colleague Tom Ziller created a Black Hole Index. If you haven't already seen it, you should check it out, if for no other reason than to appreciate an aesthetically awesome chart.  The chart plots the NBA's top guards on two axes, one representing their usage rate, and the other representing their assists per shot attempt (including free throws). Not surprisingly, the chart shows Kobe Bryant as one of the biggest black holes in the league.  Considering Kobe's high usage rate, and relatively low assist numbers, this is in no way a surprise.  Nor, as Tom points out, is it particularly an insult.  For the rare player of Kobe's talent and ability, being a "black hole" is only an indictment in the court of public opinion. It passes no judgment on a player's value, no direct equivalency to his ability to help his team win games.

And yet, despite the author's plea for it to be seen simply as an observation, not a judgment, we Laker fans can't help but rise to the defense of our superstar.  The comments are filled with the familiar refrains that are seen whenever Kobe's reputation is slandered with words like "selfish" and "ball hog".  Stuf like "Assists don't accurately measure Kobe's passing ability because the Triangle prevents him from getting as many assists as other players." and  "It's unfair to measure based on assists because Kobe's teammates may not be as adept at converting a pass into a bucket".  And there's always "MJ was an even bigger black hole than Kobe."

To be clear, there's a very decent possibility that our defenses on the matter are absolutely correct.  No one can know whether Kobe's teammates convert assist opportunities as well as others, and we can be certain that Kobe's career assist totals would be a bit higher if Kwame Brown's hands weren't made out of Teflon.  It's hard to ignore the fact that Phil Jackson's Triangle based offenses rarely have anybody even remotely close to a league leading assist total, and yet the offense itself creates a high number of assists. These statements are potentially valid counter-points to the analysis presented.  They are also impossible to prove with the limited form of statistics made available to the common man.  Well, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, and when life gives you shitty statistics, you create better ones.  Using last night's game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics, that's exactly what I tried to do.

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