Originally Posted by Lee356

I watch a lot of Laker games these days, ever since Ariza joined the team. (Although Ariza has been injured lately). My assessment of the Laker bench is a whole lot less kind than yours.

I like Ariza a lot. Lots of hustle. Lots of rebounds. Lots of defense. But I will take Amir any day. On offense, Ariza can knock down an open shot upon occasion, but he is too streaky to help his team much as an outside shooter at this point. Other than that, Ariza is a far weaker offensive player vs. Amir. On defense, while Ariza is pure hustle, he is simply small as compared to Amir. Of course, Ariza is being used as a small forward, while Amir is playing power forward for us. But Amir could play the small forward positon just fine, and outclass Ariza as a defender completely. (While Ariza is not going to play power forward for you.) In all, Amir is just the bigger, stronger, faster, quicker, far more talented version of Ariza.

Vujacic is not someone who the Pistons would have on the team. Not enough defense. On offense, he is a streaky shooter. Walton impresses me not in the remotest, in any way, not with any aspect of his game. Farmar is getting his game together this year, enough to be an acceptable backup, and nothing more. Radmanovic has been in a slump forever. He is showing signs of coming out of that slump of late, but even if he makes some of those outside shots, that is the extent of his game; very one dimensional.

I will hold judgement on Turiaf for now, as he is coming off that heart surgery. But I will say so far, that the only thing he has done to amaze me in anyway is to come back from that heart surgery.

In sum, when the Lakers starters sit, what comes in to replace them ain't pretty. Farmar and Ariza are the best of the lot, with Ariza being the only one I would pay to see play basketball.

Our four younsters off the bench, Stuckey, Afflalo, Maxy, and Amir, are each well ahead of Ariza on defense, who is by far the best of the Lakers bench on D. On offense, all four of our guys beat all theirs. In all, there really is no comparison, we have the better bench, far and away.

Yes, Hayes is part of the bench. If I had to rank him with the rest of the players mentioned above, I would rank him toward the bottom. His shot is not consistant enough, and his defense is not sound enough. Specifically, I would rank him behind Ariza, Farmar, and Turiaf, tied with Walton, and ahead of Radmanovic and Vujacic.