PHX pursuing Trevor Ariza (UPDATE: Ariza signs one-year, $15M deal with Phoenix)

I’m saying it doesn’t matter now
The Phoenix Suns Fans hate Robert Sarver
Guess what ?

 

@pgabriel > Jaggy

 

@what

 

I was going to look up why this thread was reborn. I don't have too much of a problem with you saying that Harden and Morey deserve blame for the Rockets' downfall. If that's your point, then I agree that it's all a part of it. Bad moves plus bad chemistry plus bad behavior - sure. These things impact many teams.

I was commenting specifically of this thread about Ariza being re-signed. I think Tilman's cheapness/poverty has cost the team more than just a few picks. But whatever, it's been established long ago. Personally, I would be much more cool with it if he wasn't such a bombastic jackass used car salesman who was always talking big game while slashing costs left and right. I personally accepted his position in an interview long ago about being one of the poorest owners in the NBA and how that could effect his decision-making. He was on truth serum for a day. His team though - he can do whatever he wants.

 

I mean Trevor Ariza has done jacksquat ever since he got traded, went to teams like Hawks and Portland and been a non factor so I think people are just overreacting about not keeping him. If he not good enough to help the Hawks he aint helping the Rox.

Im just comparing Fertita to Les Alexander I dont see anything extremely worse. Alexander also never paid the tax but nobody called him cheap. Fertita is objectively paying more than Alexander for the same squad (due to nba cap rules increasing) but he is called cheap now. There was 0one season Alexander spent 5M on extra picks but Morey whiffed on all those so that never happened again. I guess thats something Fertita has never done so there's that, I guess.

Fertita is far from being the poorest owner in sports he owns the team completely others are just heads of conglomerates. Rox have never declined getting a star like what happened in Indiana with AD/PG. They have also mever traded lotto picks for cash like what happened during Sarver days in PHX.

 

The fact is after 2018 , the wing players were too damn small to defend consistently and to get 50/50 balls consistently. When Ariza & Luc were gone You had a team full of undersized players on the wing. They never replaced those guys. They compounded it by losing CP3’ s shooting talent/skill in the Westbrook trade. And trading Capela for that micro ball BS was just idiotic and led to the team unraveling. They never recovered from downsizing on the wings. Hell, if you ask me, the team is STILL too damn small.

Size & Skill on the wings allows you to have versatility that is needed to win in the NBA. The Rockets should load up on these types now that they are picking higher in the draft.

 

I don't think anyone is arguing for the position that Ariza = chip. I think the position was/is no Ariza = saving money that cannot be spent elsewhere so it was purely about money, not opportunity cost; re-sign Ariza = roster spot of value that became Oubre that became 2 FRPs. Also, it is because of Tilman's ego to own 100% of the team that makes him one of the most cash poor owners in the NBA. But whatever. His financial issues have been well documented. We can agree to disagree if you don't think it's a constraint. I don't like Alexander either - he stole those trophies, but again, his team. As much as a Ballmer type owner annoys me, I am jelly of fans of teams with Ballmer type owners. They can talk big and back it up with few financial constraints.

 

Well done! One of the better/best Tilman primers I've seen on line:
you definitely:

 

This take is so dumb, so beyond stupid, logic that now at least we know you're trolling.

anyone say shannon anderson was the missing piece to getting a chip? Let alone from the actual star of the team? Has Anderson ever been the best defender for the best team in the league that year?

Phew c'mon tinman...this is Scottie pippen 99ers quality...step it up to hakeem/Rudy/Carrol...stay away from the barkley/pippen 99 stuff...you can do better though, even in trolling. not your best stuff

 

Because, there are dominos, moves leading to the moves, hockey assits, basically in any type of basketball situation, fight, real world the first domino to fall, the actions that led to something being dysfuntional...still with me?

Thats why, so during Bzdelik, he was our associate head coach(cost more, more responsibility) leadin our defense that was based on switch everything. ARiza was a locker room vet, Former champion, leader and voice on defense and also in the locker room where harden and paul both respected him and he was able to keep them in check...following me? That means it worked better, the team, teh cohesion, with him as the glue that kept harden and Paul wanting to play together or at least believing play, just lke many great duos who werent best friends, that they can win a ring as they are close.

And that goes to Chris Paul's own quote I put, that he him self did not blame harden...he saw Ariza was the glue of our team, our biggest missing piecec on why we didnt ahve the same chances at 18...begining of the crumbling, still following?

Then he once again repeated that this week saying people talk about me and harden only(just like you, steven a, and people who aren't able to see anything outside of basic elementary addition/subtraction) and he once again said that PJ and Ariza were the "ex factors" of the team.

Just like right now in phx, devin booker is the best player. Chris paul is the heart and soul and x-factor, as are Crowder and Ayton too. It always takes a team, depth, as I mentioned with history showing rings that wouldn't have happened if it werent for some veteran role players not worth the headline or contract.

This is important, bc now we're rebuilding a new team..lets not make the same mistakes. Cmon man, its not that hard. There are quotes, form the plyers, from tilman so on and himself. ITs an odd thing its like showing a Girl or guy their bf/gf is cheating on them or lying to them with proof and they sit here and shake their head in ignorance. ITs alright man, rockets are bigger than tilman...yes, bigger than harden, paul, MDA, morey too...its ok

 

Bro...honestly I've never seen anybody else type this much without saying anything lol. And I write wall of text myself but you gotta be coherent and on topic.

You started it off with WB so stick with that first, yeah? Dont go on tangents about PHX and cheating bfs and whatever that isnt really related to WB cuz that's your point right?

Sure Ariza was an X factor in 2018 but in 2019 he was an ex factor already. Dude is officially washed up. De Andre Ayton is like 23 or w/e, Crowder is 31 and Ariza is 36, father time catches up to everyone. We havent seen him even play like a rotation player, I HIGHLY doubt he would've helped the team win a ring.

Bzedelik...maybe you forget but that dude was highly unprofessional, he quit on the first day of the season, right after they messed up the trainibg camp. You said CP3 was the heart and soul, Cp3 was the guy who brought in Melo who was the reason Bzedelik quit, right? I dont quite understand what mistake are you talking about? Dont let your stars bring their friends on their team? Is that the mistake? Lol. And we did bring Bzedelik back, right after Morey fired Melo. Then we ended up firing Bzedelik again after the season cuz he didnt do ****.

Not resigning Ariza to 15M+ isnt a mistake. Dude hasnt played to rotation level even on other contenders. If chemistry is all you need teams would just get bffs from playgrounds and play them at the same time.

 

You cant really look at other teams and we say well we would've got X if we had that dude. We had Cp3 and we had to pay assets to get rid of him, OKC got Cp3 and got assets for him. You are saying people here are blaming Tillman for not spending over the cap so we can get picks assuming Morey is as good as OKC's gm? Morey's known spending picks not trading for picks. He's been trading picks away even before Fertita.

At the end of the day it's up to GM ability to turn trash into treasure. People here are blaming Fertita when they should be blaming Morey for not getting something out of Ariza. The tax only gets paid at season end right? So if Morey had a plan he could have resigned Ariza and then turned him into assets before going under the tax right at the trade deadline.

Morey is a good gm, but what makes you think he is at Presti level? Presti has consistently turned bad deals into assets thats why they have like a gazillion picks by now. Morey hasnt shown any ability to get deals done he had Ben Simmons and opportunity to trade him for Harden but couldnt close the deal. The deals he made last year consisted of trading future firsts (lol) for Danny Green and Seth Curry. He is the dude who turns assets into contention pieces he isnt the dude who turns crap into future assets. When's the last time he turned a bad contract into picks?

To assume he'd turn garbage Ariza to Oubre+2 firsts is just dumb. Thats like saying if the Rox had Kwame Brown they'd be able to turn him into Pau Gasol.

 

The Rox had like 8 wings last year you want like 12 wings on the roster?

 

people still trying to argue that not bringing back Ariza was a good move…

sigh…smh

 

there are some people that are so blatantly wrong they are ignorant to the point they stink of **** but get used to the smell. Ignorance is bliss I guess. Forget what top 5 ALL time PG and soon to be champion says, internet dummies are who we should listen to

 

this is twice CP3 has brought up how important Ariza was to the team…it is quite clear and obvious that he was vital to the dynamic of the locker room, and on the court, it’s not like he was some scrub either…he was significantly better than anyone we had trying to play the wing until we acquired Covington almost 2 years later, and Covington required trading away Capela

I’m seeing posts talking about “If chemistry is all you need teams would just get bffs from playgrounds and play them at the same time”…Really? It’s clear that Ariza was 1 of the main ones holding it down and keeping things together.

Chris Paul on Ariza

“People don’t realize, that’s the biggest thing that we missed. That was tough when we lost [Ariza] because he sorta was like the glue. He was that glue for our team.”



These comments about Ariza hold significant weight. CP3 was in the trenches, but people that aren’t in the locker room, on the team plane, in practice, etc know better about just how crucial Ariza was?

 

Most of those things you've written I've never said, lol. Again, we can agree to disagree, but I'm just saying you are making fair points that Morey deserved blame for moves that didn't work out. I don't agree with you if you think Tilman deserves no blame for being frugal with no opportunity cost. So, it's not like if Ariza didn't re-sign (which is what this thread is about), Tilman would be able to spend the money elsewhere. They were already over the cap. It was a pure money move, like many others to come later.

You say it's wrong to assume that Ariza would get trade return as a Rocket (Oubre, who became 2 FRPs). That's an okay point, but I just disagree. My counterpoint is that Ariza was wanted by multiple other teams after not re-signing as a Rockets. It think the better guess is that Ariza would get value in return (like Oubre). He was not the greatest thing - he was just an asset that was no brought back purely because of money.

Don't care about Morey or Presti comparisons. But you die on this "Tilman deserves no blame" hill. I think you're wrong and I'm pretty sure most everyone thinks he deserves at least some blame, but whatever. It's not like it matters anymore. The past has happened and the team moves on.

 

Lol, I agree that ariza wasn't wroth his contract if all you think is the formula stats/production=salary and you deduce the human part of the game. The chemistry, the cohesion that all has to come together to make a team win year in and year out. Thats why a title is so elusive. Thats why you have guys like lebron for some reason citing Mike Miller as a part of the reason he left miami, theres a reason to this day while Chris Paul is sitting in the finals podium with all the eyes on him and saying Trevor Ariza's name AGAIN as the X favctor for that team. Thats basketball savant Chris Paul who has no reason to tute ariza's horn or talk about the Rockets, but there he is explaining the nuances of the game. I guess listen or disagree at your own will? Or you really just buy tilman's shil that they should've "stepped on their throats" and that he was going to teach chris paul how to be a killer...

So yes, Ariza got a big contract when we didn't have leverage...go See Cavs, Klove, Tristan, Jr all used lebrons window and cashed out contracts that WEREN'T worth it. Go see how Raptors paid an aging marc gasol 50 million. None of them are guaranteed finals just like Nuggets, JAzz, Suns weren't guaranteed anything this year, but you spend big when you have those rare windows. Thats nba economics.

Ok, and you get the example I gave for Ayton. He said that chris Paul was the best thing for his career, not bc of chris paul's assists to him, bc off the court he was in his face, demanded more from him, and was his locker room Vet. Ariza...once again, was Harden' and Chris paul's vet..he kept hte glue going, he brought the best out of our team without quantifying it. OK, I'm not sure why thats hard/ you never had a coach, teacher, or teammate who was a leader and had a voice that kept things in line? Personalities aren't stats, Ariza served that role for us.

So ariza got that contract and remember there is no future cap ramifications, it was a one year deal. that means its also an expiriing tradeable contract. So then they were able to trade for kelly oubre. The whole point of trade assets is you can make soething out of it, otherwise you lose nothing and you can't replace the contract.

-Are you following that? this isn't about AriZa 15 MiLlion...this about team building, nba economics and assets. We were in our window one game from the finals, then we either pay up for ariza as he has leverage like the guys above, or we sign and trade him...or we lose him for nothing, thats what we did



then furthermore, we can use TPE/MLE to sign something else right? We ignored both

OK don' worry we have draft assets possible too...nah we used those to get under the cap

We also signed guys at the bare minimum...who we still traded for ...NOTHING but savings while they were playing

So you blame morey right?
So morey, some say hes a smart guy, self sabatoged his own team, his own assets that he talks about and accumulated, and just drew a blank? Its not his money, he has no reason to save it if it doesnt give him flexiblity elsewhere. He doesn't have any reason to trade players who are actually in Mike's Short rotation for nothing...he doesn't have incentive to trade picks for savings he'll never see or use, those savings went to the owner

So the if the owner who you are managing their company gives you the budget and says I need you to save here and so the manager, gaining nothing from these moves, executes that....then you blame the manager?

Remember, its almost common knowledge RW didn't fit Morey's STyle. Then furthermore you have Tilman on radio ver batim saying his front office was "weak" and he had to push the trade through.

So unless Morey and Harden's goals by the evidencec of 90 percent of our own transactions was about saving the owner moneyn, then no they weren't the guiding forces here. Are they blameless? no, everyone in the team came up short. but the moves I'm showing above were all moves that don't help the team, don't help teh Gm, not the players....and even us fans, prices raised on us, these type of savings-particularly tax- only go into one mans pockets.


meanwhile that man has verifiable lies, from accidentally trading picks he called a fluke, or saying we went all in when I'd love to see any evidence that we went all in(90 percent of our transactiosn were to save money)

Do you know the story of bzdelik? Tilman negotiated with him. He didn't want to pay him associate coach money, so he retired. Then tilman said he "convinced him" to come back...notice how our Preisdent(tad brown), Morey, Bzdelik all use the same kindness to tillman of "spending time with family" then somehow take other jobs? So maybe if the common denominator that led to a CEO, GM, Asst GMs, Coach, Asst coach, Stars, Vets ALL wanted out of Houston all of a sudden, maybe you can go look up how often this happen. "https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...amn-turmoil-unsettling-vibe-surrounds-rockets you can also read this too, which is when tilman negotiated with
MDA...once again he volunteered to the press, he got caught bold face lying to everyone once again...not a good luck, you're talking about unprofessional...find me other stories of owners pulling out these lies like tilman? PLease do. If anything its at the bottom of the barrel like Sterling and Dolan.

Alright heres another article on what morey had to deal with that wasn't status quo:

And that was the one thing that Morey never really had. According to the cap numbers at Spotrac, which go back to the 2010-11 season, the Rockets barely went over the luxury tax (just $3.65 million over) in their one season (2015-16) as a taxpayer. The Warriors spent $49.63 million in penalties over the last five seasons, while even the small-market Thunder spent $33.73 million. There was no excuse for Houston to not open up the checkbook. This is a franchise located in the fourth-biggest metro area in the U.S. that has had a superstar in the prime of his career. Alexander sat on his hands while Houston’s rivals went all in, counting on Morey’s ability to use advanced statistics to turn water into wine.

This refusal to spend money became farcical once Alexander sold the team to Tilman Fertitta in 2017. Fertitta spent so much money ($2.2 billion) to purchase the Rockets that he may not have had the liquidity to go into the red to build a title contender. Houston was a laughingstock around the league for the amount of juggling it had to do to stay under the tax. The best example came at the trade deadline last season, when Morey used a future first-round pick to shed the salaries of Brandon Knight and Marquese Chriss. There was no basketball reason for the move. It was just done to cut costs. It’s not that Knight and Chriss would have helped the Rockets. But there were certainly a lot of better things that Morey could have used that pick for.

Houston also spent that season in a bizarre staring contest with Danuel House Jr. House is the kind of diamond in the rough that Morey routinely uncovered in Houston, an undrafted free agent on a two-way contract who would become a starting-caliber wing. The problem was that players on those deals can spend only 45 days with the NBA team during the season before their contracts have to be converted. Money in Houston was so tight that Morey had to send House back to the G League when he wouldn’t sign a below-market long-term deal. He replaced House with two players he signed off the street (Gerald Green and Kenneth Faried) before bringing him back right before the playoffs. It’s not like House was asking for the world. He signed a three-year, $11 million contract in the offseason. But even that was more than Morey could offer at the time.


Houston’s limited financial flexibility became an even bigger issue last season after the trade for Westbrook. With the team’s two best players costing a combined $76.7 million, it became almost impossible for Morey to fill out the roster while staying under the luxury tax. Morey and head coach Mike D’Antoni had to conjure up production from players other teams didn’t want. Jeff Green went from being cut by the Jazz to being a crucial piece of the Rockets’ small-ball attack in the playoffs. It was the same story with Austin Rivers, who had been on three teams in five seasons before landing in Houston, and Ben McLemore, who had one foot out of the NBA before the Rockets turned him into a 3-point sniper. All were more valuable in Houston than anywhere else in the league because Morey identified what they could do well and put them in roles that didn’t ask them to do much else.