I am 100% sure we wont miss him production wise on the court, on contrary we should be much better offensively without him but i wonder about intangibles he brings.
Well, Ariza is tangibly about that life. Rockets are going to miss Ariza's penchant to stamp out b****assness.
Yes as a team we look and play differently but that isn’t always a bad thing. He played a ton of minuets, it will take several players to fill in and each player has different straights and weaknesses. Overall we be better because of our diversity and coach picking the right player or group of players at the apropreate time during the game. We were better last year when he was out, IMO. His playing time should have been trimmed down last season, IMO. I am looking forward to life after Trevor Ariza. I wish him only the best except when he plays us.
Yeah the Rox will miss him but they'll adjust. I'm still floored that a rebuilding team like Phoenix would spend $15 million in cap space on a thirty-something glue guy when they aren't close to contending. They should have gotten another young piece to grow with.
When Ariza's minutes were controlled, his production was solid. He had the right mentality and a NBA ring to back it up. He brought a defensive attitude to the team. He has also been one of the best passing lane defenders. Combine that with CP's passing lane defence and Capella's interior defense and it worked well. Ariza was one of the few guys on the team that would hold Harden accountable and he would listen to. He was a big part of the team chemistry that made the team successful. It's little things like these that don't get noticed until you don't have them anymore.
re-post of something I said I couple of days ago with Ariza as his primary defender, KD got held to 9-24, 8-22, and 6-17 in 3 straight games of that WCF series, and we won 2 of them that’s under 40% shooting from the field in 3 straight games in the playoffs...KD only shot under 40% from the field 4 times in 21 playoff games, and Ariza as his primary defender had 3 of those games it’s clear that the coaching staff valued him a lot, they wouldn’t have played him so many minutes if they didn’t...he was averaging 37 mpg in that GS series, and it would’ve been more if he didn’t play only 23 minutes in game 1 due to foul trouble...yes he went 0-12 in game 7, but after playing so many minutes and giving it his all defending KD for 6 games, he probably had no legs by that point
I don't know how future Rockets Ennis will compare to past Rockets Ariza. I know Ariza's game from his long tenure on the Rockets and I have looked fairly well into Ennis - however only as far as advanced stats, replacement players, opponent strength and sample size. I predict that if Ennis is on the floor with the same people Ariza was on the floor with, and he is backed up by the same people (or someone the calibre of LMM) then most of his defensive metrics will look worse while 1 or 2 will be ripe for stats-picking. However, if what we're doing is going to pull stats for Ennis coming off the bench - a total distortion of comparable opponents and replacement players - I'm not really interested in what those stats say because they don't address the issue.
Yeah we'll definitely miss all the little things Trevor brought to the squad. However, I did cringe anytime he tried to do anything offensively besides shoot the ball.
Ariza was an elite tunnel builder to the enemy's locker room. Elite Brick Layer at that. Hail Trev Ariza!
Yeah seems like he's been undervalued here especially after game 6 and 7. He did bring alot to the table. Hopefully Melo and Ennis step up.
Game 6 and 7....where his minutes were sky high because of CP going down, on an already undermanned rotation. Not surprising at all.
Yeah that 6 man rotation. Couldn't play Anderson even though we tried. LMM was a no show after his injuries. Green gave it his all but he seemed tired too.
