Ron Artest's offensive chances have decreased this season. There is no denying that empirical fact.

Artest is averaging 9.9 field goal attempts per 36 minutes and 1.7 free throw attempts. In his first season with the Lakers, those two categories were at 10.2 and 2.6, which represented a sizable downgrade from when he was with Sacramento and Houston as one of their primary scorers.

In 09-10, his total offensive opportunities were in line with Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum, while ahead of Shannon Brown. This season, Odom has taken on a much bigger offensive role and Brown has also surpassed Artest. Given what Odom and Brown bring to the team offensively, this has been to the benefit of the Lakers.

Artest's role in the Lakers' offense has evolved/devolved into a token spot-up shooter. He is getting far fewer chances in the post and even fewer opportunities in ISOs. To put it bluntly, Artest scores when the primary objectives of the offense are taken away, or if he's wide open for a jumper when his man collapses onto one of the bigs or is taken off of him to Kobe Bryant.

Bryant will always draw the better defensive wing, which should leave Artest with favorable matchups that he's capable of exploiting on the offensive end. But given how efficient Bynum and Gasol are, in addition to Bryant's capabilities to completely create his own offense when things are breaking down, Artest suffers from the simple old adage of 'not enough basketball to go around'.

Artest spoke about his role in the offense quite a bit in December, deflecting the importance of his reduction in opportunities in early December and then admitting he still can't understand the Triangle a few days later.

On the defensive end of the floor, Artest remains as excellent as ever against the game's best wing scorers off the dribble. He shows a little slowness in rotating against shooters, a sign of his advancing age. But there is no doubt of his indispensableness when the Lakers reach the playoffs and need someone to defend Kevin Durant, Paul Pierce or LeBron James over a seven-game series.

There isn't another team in the NBA where Artest would provide them more value than he does to the Lakers. Look around the NBA for 10 seconds; it really isn't close.

No team would want an in-his 30s-Artest for much more offense than he gives the Lakers and the title contenders, who are the only teams who might be desperate enough to gamble on him, are already well stocked at his position.

This is why the Lakers and Artest will be stuck with each other for at least the remainder of the season, and why we need to remember not to take everything he says and thinks at face-value.