Ron Artest: Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers Take Good With Bad From Ron-Ron

Captain Obvious just arrived in Los Angeles and he has two big announcements for me to pass on.

First, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers have been inconsistent, at best, through 29 games this season.

Secondly, the Purple and Gold are due to welcome LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and the new-look Miami Heat to the Staples Center on Christmas Day for a much-hyped match-up.

Cue the latest ESPN advertisement for the game.

Lakers' Struggles Sideline Concerns About Artest

Back in Lakerland, the residual panic from a 98-79 drubbing at home to the mighty Milwaukee Bucks, sans Brandon Jennings and Corey Maggette, has nearly subsided.

Just in time for Phil Jackson to gripe to the media about another holiday headache for a Lakers team that's played in three straight NBA Finals and 12 straight Christmas Day games.

Lost somewhere in the shuffle, as he has been seemingly all season, is Ron Artest.

I know what you're thinking—how can a guy as visible as Artest—who once went on Jimmy Kimmel Live in his underwear, who drew a fine recently for driving a Formula One-style car around LA, who has turned his struggle with mental illness into a charitable cause—get lost in anything?

If nothing else, the guy's 6'7" and 260 pounds!

Yet that is exactly what has happened to Ron-Ron with the Lakers this season, a vanishing act that is partly his own doing and partly that of the typical circus that surrounds the two-time defending NBA champs.

The Lakers were supposed to be the dominant team in the Western Conference, if not the NBA, thanks to Kobe and Pau Gasol taking the summer off, Lamar Odom leading Team USA to gold at the FIBA Worlds, and Steve Blake and Matt Barnes joining the fray in LA.

However, the burden of Andrew Bynum's absence and the typical Lakers post-championship malaise has limited the team to a merely-respectable 21-8 record thus far.

Where, Oh Where, Has Ron-Ron Gone?

Hence, the bulk of the attention thus far has been directed toward the impact of Bynum's absence rather than the erratic contributions of one Ron Artest.

More specifically, Artest is in the midst of the worst season of his 12-year NBA career, with personal nadirs of 7.6 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 1.7 assists per game.

Never mind the fact that Ron-Ron is also averaging a career-low 27 minutes per game, thanks in large part to the presence of Barnes on the Lakers' bench.

It's no surprise that Artest's numbers are down once again, considering that he is now 31 years of age and, at best, the fourth option on a loaded Lakers roster. The concern lies in just how steeply his production has fallen, and the ways in which he continues to try to produce when given the opportunity.

Artest has drawn the ire of Lakers fans everywhere with his bevy of contested, off-balance shots amidst missed layups and wide-open three-pointers that turn into bricks the moment the ball leaves his hands.

Not that Ron hasn't made many such plays before, just that a greater percentage of Ron's "contributions", at least on offense, seem to be of the particularly maddening variety.

Ar-Testing LA's Patience

So often has Artest's play underwhelmed this season that some Lakers fans are once again calling for the return of Trevor Ariza, the slender 6'8" "sharp shooter" for the New Orleans Hornets whom general manager Mitch Kupchak allowed to leave for the Houston Rockets after defeating the Orlando Magic in the 2009 NBA Finals.

Such would suggest just how quickly fans in LA have forgotten the better parts of Ron Artest's basketball nature, namely his defense and timely contributions on offense.

What ever happened to his miraculous buzzer-beating lay-up to push the Lakers past the Phoenix Suns in Game Six of the Western Conference Finals and onto a seven-game series with the Celtics?

What ever happened to his brilliant performance in the NBA Finals, in which he shut down Paul Pierce for the entire series and lifted the Lakers to the 2010 NBA title with a remarkably shocking 20 points and five steals, including the go-ahead three-pointer, in Game Seven?

And while Artest apologists may point to past triumphs like these to justify his role on the back-to-back champs, his detractors may use those very same accomplishments to highlight Ron-Ron's inconsistencies, suggesting that he can and, presumably, should be performing much better with the swagger of a championship to boost his play to an entirely new level.

Others may point to various convoluted statistical matrices, such as Artest's player efficiency rating (PER) of 10.9 (below the league average of 15) and his win shares per 48 minutes of 0.081 (below the league average of 0.100), to confirm that Ron's play this season has been an eye-sore on both the court and the stat sheet.

Note to Lakers Fans: Ron Will Deliver When It Counts

There's no doubt that Artest is often frustratingly inconsistent, but too often it is the case that those who follow the Lakers overlook his positive contributions on defense.

Consider, first, that Ron is averaging a team-high 1.7 steals per game, tying him for 10th in the NBA in on-court thefts.

Consider, also, Artest's value as a defensive maestro, with the size, strength, and know-how to guard four different positions on the court, each of them with a greater competency than that with which most players in the league can guard just their own.

Furthermore, consider not only Artest's ability to guard the league's best and bulkiest wings—LeBron James, Paul Pierce, and Carmelo Anthony to name a few—but just how his assumption of those duties means that Kobe can save more of his energy for the offensive end, where the Lakers need him most.

Again, there's no doubt that Ron Artest has underperformed thus far this season and can do much better than he has.

He's proven throughout his career that he is more than capable of scoring 15 to 20 points on any given night, and though he's not the spry young athlete he once was, Artest hasn't exactly been hampered by injuries during his days in the NBA.

The big thing for fans of the Purple and Gold to remember is that he will play better—he will come through when the Lakers need him to.

There's a good chance that, with the entire country fixated on the Lakers-Heat game on Saturday, Artest will show the basketball world that he's still got it.

The only uncertainty, of course, is, if not now, when?