Lakers make key move to return to top, sign Ron Artest

With the NBA free agency beginning, the top notch players in the league have been jumping ship and landing with other squads. Besides Shaq being sent to Cleveland and Vince Carter being sent to the Magic, along with rumors of Ben GordonBen Gordon and Charlie Villanuava signing with the Pistons, there really haven’t been any big changes for the team who won the NBA Championship. That is, until now.

The Los Angeles Lakers have found a way to court Ron ArtestRon Artest, known in recent years as one of the NBA’s biggest problems. Though Artest is often at times very verbal and a bit over the top towards the referees, teammates and fans, one thing is for sure, he can certainly bring a lot to an already dominant team. With an anticipated squad returning with Bryant, Odom, Bynum, Fisher and Gasol (amongst others), Artest brings along a swing-player in himself—most likely to replace Ariza, who reached an agreement with the Rockets—that not only puts up an average of 17 points and 5 boards a game, but also brings to L.A. his great defense.

Artest gives the Lakers more freedom and versatility, not only offensively, but defensively as well. Offensively, he not only gives the Lakers another scoring option, but also someone who can bring the ball up in certain situations (he did it in Sacramento and Houston) if they were to run set plays involving Fisher. This may even make teams respect the fact that Kobe BryantKobe Bryant isn’t the only shooter on that team, not like it will make a difference anyways because Kobe is still going to score at will, but it may turn Kobe into more of a passer, something Kobe could learn from the MVP LeBron JamesLeBron James, who manages to put up big numbers while rebounding and getting other teammates involved. Defensively, Artest brings an average of 100 plus steals a season when he plays in anywhere between 69 to 72 games, that’s about 2.1 steals per game over his entire career.

With the signing of Artest, it seems to me that Odom will now come off the bench—that is if he chooses to stick around. But I guess the bigger question for Lakers fans is will Artest be sticking around for most of the games this season? With 48 technical fouls and 16 flagrant fouls to go along with 5 ejections over his 12 year career, it’s tough to say if his bad-boy mentality is over after receiving 4 technical fouls last year. Maybe he just needs to win a championship to put a smile on his face?

All in all, with the number of teams making moves to try to strengthen their squads to make a run at the top spot in the NBA, the Lakers knew they couldn’t wait very long before they reacted, and tonight, they added a very good piece to their championship team.