This... I'd say poor team defense contributed much more to Klay's successes than Trevor's individual D... even if it has regressed...
Yeah, I can definitely see that. Brewer totally screwing us over did nothing to relieve Ariza and Harden's minutes this season.
There's no mystery here. The advanced stats are bad because the team defense is bad. His ranking among teammates is good. Further evidence is how magically Beverley, Howard, Capela, Brewer, D-Mo all look worse than ever on defense too. These things don't just happen overnight, in one summer. It's obviously the defensive coaching that has been atrocious. Having said that, yes of course Ariza is declining a bit. He's getting old. The good news is, Morey signed him to a declining contract. We'd be stupid to trade this asset unless we're filling a major need. There is ZERO reason to dump him. Btw, the secret to getting consistency out of Ariza has been known for half a decade now. It's rest. He doesn't play well when he plays a lot. It's been the case with him for a long time. It's uncanny how much better he plays when his minutes are managed or when we have more rest between games. IMO even if we get Durant, I'd rather play Durant at the 4 and keep Ariza at the 3 until we find a better 3 & D SG/SF.
He should be a back-up, not a starter. Ariza has been horrible offensively in this series and gets torched by Klay regularly. No thanks, but rather take Aminu over this guy at this point.
We don't have enough team defense so Ariza and company has to use more energy to make up for it causing us to get burn at the end
You realize we don't play the Warriors 82 times a season? And that Klay Thompson is the 2nd best SG in the world? And that Klay Thompson averaged 30ppg vs the Blazers this season?
