By the trade deadline I would have said not signing either Ariza or Artest would have been better. Since we acquired Martin I've gotta admit, Ariza settled into a nice role. Personally, I'm curious to see how he does next year. If nothing else, he could be a nice trade piece at some point if he keeps up his after tradeline play.
As long as Artest gives them a better chance than Ariza I'd say it was a success. If you were the DD on the Lakers board though, it would be an utter failure because Artest is a cancer and has never won a ring.
He will stop the Lakers from winning one this year too. Let's not make stuff up....lol... I forget exactly what round was Trevor Ariza picked again? DD
i'm not so sure Artest gives them a better chance than Ariza. i think they wouldve been about the same with Ariza as well. still a lateral move imo.
So if the Lakers lose, it's because of Ron Artest? Absurd! Does that mean Ariza was the reason they won last year?
I believe that Ron Artest is a cancer and will ultimately destroy a team's chemistry. In that regard, Trevor is better than Ron, however, Trevor is not worth $7 million a year, IMO. And I don't think either one is essential to winning..... Thus the Neither one comment....I would prefer the Rockets have neither one..... DD
As far as this team goes: Ariza > Artest Brickshot < Artest As long as Ariza suits up and Mr. Brickshot stays the hell home then we're better imho. If we ever see Brickshot again.....we're screwed.
In hindsight, I think the Lakers would rather have given the artest contract to ariza because he's clearly lost a step and hasn't added anything to them defensively. Those remaining years on his contract are going to be a pain. i liked the ariza signing last summer and i still like it now. he definitely still has room to grow in terms of decision making and his skillset is fine. he makes 3s off the catch when he has room/time to step into his shot and he can't do too much off the dribble, but at the very least he can pump fake and go to the rim when the defense is rotating. also a better passer than i thought he'd be. where are people getting that artest was a locker room cancer?
Fair point. The catch however is that it took Ariza about three years to become a good player - before that he was sitting on the bench for Orlando and New York. We don't have three years. This year is from my perspective do or die, and the Ariza signing was a preparation for this year. Signing a second round draft pick may possibly be a better move over the long-term move, but as long as we have the goal of winning the championship with Yao, we have to take the certain benefit of a wingman who's proven to be pretty good over the highly uncertain benefits of second rounders, an area where not even the GM God-King can master.
Simmons had an article at the end of last year where one of the things he discussed about was that Artest was a MUCH bigger headache than most people thought he was, and that the Rockets did everything in their power to shut rumors down. Furthermore, Clutch also said that Artest was a problem at the midseason of 2008-09, though he never really went into details. I view Artest as a leader and necessary for the Rockets that year, but re-signing him would have been a complete disaster.
2009-10 $5,854,000 2010-2011 $6,322,320 2011-2012 $6,790,640 2012-2013 $7,258,960 2013-2014 $7,727,280 He doesn't make 7M a year, and doesn't average 7M a year. Quick, the past 3 years, find a player that signed for the MLE that will be playing in his prime during the course of the contract. Little risk, high reward if Ariza pans out. Compared to the Ron Artest's, Rasheed Wallace's out there, who's on old legs. We all saw what Ariza was being a 3rd/4th option with the Lakers. With Yao back, Kevin Martin, and maybe Chris Bosh, I don't see how Ariza doesn't excel once again. Sorta like how he did once Kevin Martin came aboard, easing up on his load.
That true,however this question in my opinion is irrelevant because Ron was never going to stay with us once Yao went down.
I've read all of Simmons's stuff and heard of rumblings, but at no point did it seem like a "we need to get rid of this guy now" situation. To call him a cancer he'd have to have actually impacted other players in a negative way. I never got this impression at any time. I've always felt like the Rockets have a good locker room with a good mix of vets/young players with good work ethics. on a different team, ron might've caused trouble, but with yao and battier as the leaders of the team, it didn't seem to happen on the Rockets. Lots of teams have immature guys, but as long as you have leadership, it doesn't really matter. The Rockets didn't have guys who looked at Ron and went "oh, so I can act like that". I always felt like they laughed it off. Maybe I'm understating what a distraction he was to other players, but do people feel like his personality/locker room presence actually made us worse last year or the Lakers worse this year? It's a minor distraction, professionals deal with that and sometimes it even helps.
I asked you earlier DD, why is Artest a cancer? I don't get that, the Rockets had more chemistry and unity in the locker room than they have in a long time when Ron was here.
