Since Kevin Martin arrived, Ariza's assists, FG %, 3P %, steals, and rebounds have gone up. He's playing to his strengths as being an athletic defensive minded player who makes winning plays playing off of other scorers. You're not seeing him jack up bad shots anymore, you're seeing him create for his teammates off the dribble. He catches some heat from people on this board sometimes, but i'm officially excited about having a 25 year old championship player who plays both ends well...are you?
The thing about Trevor as a role player, which is what he is, is that he'll show up on both ends of the court, on defense AND offense. He won't be a zero in the box score or stand in the corner on offense.
A lot of us already predicted this. I will say this. I was hoping at the beginning of the year that Ariza could develop into some sort of semi-star(the Igudala/Gerald Wallace type). So he was disappointing in that regards. But as Morey the genius said aptly, even if Ariza did not improve, he was still well worth his MLE salary. At the very least, we now have our Battier replacement.
Ariza is a more athletic version of Battier. He is not an all-star, and he is not paid to be.. Among the MLE players, he is definitely one of the better ones in terms of value
Except he is no where near battier in terms of on ball defense. I would NOT let ariza guard the oppenents best player
I don't think Battier needs to groom a player that has already come through when its counted the most.
Let's not go overboard now. I think most ppl agree that closing out a game has not been the Rockets strong suit for a majority of the season... It's about consistency. What we're really hoping for is if they could keep this up and do this against an above .500 team that they didn't just trade players with.
I think he's talking about the fact that Ariza absolutely starred in the playoffs last season for Los Angeles. An essential starter in their championship run.
yeah but his role was much more limited and specific on the Lakers than here. On the Rockets he's expected to do much more and be more versatile. It's not surprising that the less he's asked to do, the more efficient he becomes as he's used to smaller roles.
A big thing in all of this is that Trevor has moved to his more natural position. He is a small forward. Most guys there isn't a big difference between the sg and sf positions but for Trevor it does. Especially in Rick's system where the shooting guard is asked to handle the ball and create. Those aren't two of Trevor's best traits on the court. He will only get better with Yao back next year and Kevin is the right guy next to him.
It didn't matter what position he played,its a wing player. His improvement came in the form of having a legit scorer and pushing him down the priority list. Adelmans offense doesn't require the sg to handle the ball anymore than any other position on the court. He had clyde and christie who were pretty good ball handlers. Clyse developed into a good decision maker with the ball and I played against christie in college and scouts were calling him a point forward then. If the rockets had martin earlier, trevor would have probably been playing like this all year.
Been saying this would happen since we got him. He's a role player, not our go-to guy, which he was trying to be. With Martin, and hopefully Yao next season, he will do great.
I would bet money that, next year when Yao is back, this board will be lauding him as a great defender. Ariza is a VERY good defender, but when you don't have a legit big man to clog the paint, you don't look as good. It's just like CBs in football. You could be the best coverage guy in the league. But, if your defensive line can never get pressure on the QB, the WR will eventually get open somehow. Hell, Battier doesn't look quite as good as a defender this year. Without that big man taking away the paint, the offensive player knows they can be aggressive at attacking the middle of the defense and be active in trying to get past their individual defender. They have no fear. Remember this also, Ariza played a year and a half in LA with Bynum and Gasol both inside. He was used to being more aggressive going for steals and playing the offensive player a certain way knowing he had help. It's been an adjustment for him this season. Everyone wants to judge Trevor on this season, but it's next season we'll see just how good he is and how good he fits with this team. Hell, i wouldn't be shocked if he was a legit candidate for defensive player of the year next season.
I agree with that because Kevin is the ball handler when the point guards don't have the ball. Before it was Trevor who had the ball when Aaron didn't. Trevor is playing more off the ball and his turnovers are down because of this. Still disagree with you on everyone holding the ball the same amount. Shane held the ball far less than Trevor did even though both were "wings". The addition of Kevin has just allowed Trevor to do things that he is more comfortable doing: Shooting set threes and cutting without the ball to get open. And the move to sf has helped that and being pushed down the offensive priority list is helping as well. Rick used those guys (Clyde and Doug) as ball handlers because they were able to do that. He was hoping that Trevor would follow and do that as well. Unfortunately, it just wasn't working.
It still is annoying when he camps out at the three raising his hand demanding the ball. I think the full MLE was a lot for him, but at least he isn't sucking it up.
41.34 fg% / 30.06 3 pt % / 79.17 ft % / 5.875 reb / 4.25 ast / 2.125 TO / 1.62 stl / 1 blk / 11 pts However, the stats are mostly deflated from some absolutely abysmal shooting in 3 games he had from the field. -Feb 20th vs NO Ariza went 2-10 from the field and 1-7 from beyond the arc -March 9th (1st game back from injury) he went 4-13 from the field and 3-7 3 pt range -March 17th vs MEM he went 2-7 from the field and 0-2 from 3 pt Just for curiosity's sake, I omitted those 3 games from the averages and his averages rose (obviously) to 50.26 fg % and 36.66 3 pt % So what I'm taking from this is that Ariza will put up solid %'s more often then not, but he will still have some terrible games from the field. It's also possible that his %'s were lowered due to recovering from injury as well
For the FG%, 3P%, and FT%, it is 41%, 33%, and 77% since the trade. You took the averages of his percentages each game, which will be off because he doesn't shoot the same number of shots each game.
