It's Official : The Rockets have gotten BETTER this offseason

Respect alone doesn’t win you championships. We already have CP3. Youth has eluded Ariza and was unable Ron perform in wcf. An 0-12 production from your starter in the biggest game of the season sucks. He needs some retirement money.

 

Yes, I'd be much sorrier to see Ariza go if he had hit a single ******* shot in Game 7, but hey, best of luck to him in the desert. The next long guy with a terribly inconsistent jumpshot is looking at Ariza's new contract and thinking, "If I go to Houston, I can get me one of them, too."

 

we outplayed the warriors without moute contributing anything... We lost the series because Chris Paul went down. Don't get it twisted

 

wut

 

Exactly, and this dude wants to talk to me about Luc's shoulder. Who cares, he was literally non-existent. If he wasn't healthy enough to play he shouldn't have been out there, someone else could have been more productive in those minutes.

 

Do you have any way to prove that though?

 

Sounds like another poster trying to convince himself. Did it work? If so, good for you.

I don't think this sways anyone that already has their mind set. I'm not "the world is falling" but I can't say with a straight face that on paper this team is better than last year's. Not yet.

 

Harden at his worst defensively still had nice steal numbers. AI wasn’t a good defender yet averaged over 2 steals a game every year. Lebron did not have a good season defensively this past year yet still averaged 1.4 steals and 0.9 blocks. You can rack up a couple of steals or a block or 2 while still taking numerous plays off defensively and not having high BBIQ on that end.

Gerald Green will never be close to Ariza defensively, Idc how close their block or steal numbers are to each other. Ariza is longer and much smarter on that end. He follows the game plan, and his rotations are always on point. There is a reason why Ariza is tasked with being the primary defender for the opposing team’s best wing player and Gerald Green will never have that responsibility.

 

People are overrating ariza so much. His defense has slipped so much the past few yrs. Lucs defense will be more missed than ariza but then rockets didn’t even have him in the playoffs anyways

 

luc was definitely the most overrated player on this board last year. It was funny after the second dislocation seeing so many people freak out and say the rockets run was over.

 

Errrr... no.

 

All I remember is that everyone freaked out when we first lost Ariza, and then when he left to come off the bench for Washington it was like he was never here. We didn’t miss him at all on either end.

He is one of my all-time favorite Rockets, but I’m interested to see a young, hungry knife-fighter like James Ennis in his place.

 

Some fans forget how durable Trev is. He was the only player on the Rox that MDA/McHale could play at any given moment, any stretch of the game....without worrying.

If your main argument is "Game 7 vs. GS, Trevor sucked!", you're only going to miss him more. Please consider why he kept shooting that game (let alone the amount of shots)...that gives you a bigger picture of the droughts in the game.

Anyway, this is not the finished version of the 2018/19 team, so it's way too early. Actually, it's ridiculous and insulting to put Gerald Green in the same lens as Ariza. I love Gerald "Welcome Home" Green, but he doesn't give you the intangibles that Trevor gave the Rockets. It isn't close.

While I understand the perspective that he's lost a step (he entered the league very, very young), you're not going to find many players who fit into their supporting role like Trev did.

He was happy in Houston, but he needed security. He took advantage of an offer, and I'm happy for him. And, just an FYI, this may not be a permanent "goodbye." Don't be foolish.

Xo

 

Ariza for Ryno at the deadline, you say?

 

It was a joke. I’m sorry you typed that.

 

So many folks on here talked bad about Ariza for a few years. Now that he's gone, the tone is totally different. Too freaking funny. Bwhahaha

 

And many have also commented on how important he is for the Rockets...Ariza is not Lebron; he is not a perfect player and his contributions are mostly not tracked by stats, so he is polarizing.

I see his contributions when you pay attention to him denying a pass, pushing a player out of their favorite spot before they get the ball, then bodying them up, holding on to a player's jersey so he doesn't get away from a screen (and not seen my most refs...), getting on the floor to grab lose balls, always giving 100% and trying, when all of his teammates are giving up, etc, etc. Not to mention what happens behind the scenes and has been reported by reputable sources. A lot of this stuff happens off the ball, so it's easy to miss.

On the other hand, he is not a good offensive player when he has to put the ball on the floor, and is a streaky 3 pt shooter, and that is rightfully seen by most posters.

The question is whether, next year, if we don't fill that void, some of these same posters who are thinking his contributions can be replaced by Gerald Green, Ennis and MCW will be singing a different tune. Then it will make more sense for you to make your statement "So many folks on here talked bad about Ariza for a few years. Now that he's gone, the tone is totally different. Too freaking funny. Bwhahaha".

I'd be happy to eat crow if that is not the case, but I'm skeptical. Hopefully it won't even get to that point and Morey has something up his sleeve to actually (although not officially) make us better.