Heck yes, and he should be........he is just learning that his spot in the pecking order is not quite what he thought it was, or should be. Sometimes life is hard in the jungle. DD
At least McGrady only put one hand up when he'd call for the ball. His body language is absolutely atrocious, and last night was the worst example. By the way is there anything more meaningless than Ariza making his 2-3 dribble forays into the paint ,only to pick up his dribble once even the slightest bit of pressure is applied?
more meaningless? Maybe playing T-mac at 50 percent. but yeah, his body language is awful. He looks bratty and acts like he's a victim. This is great that the team is locking him out because I have a feeling management has been hesitant. Locked out by committee is better than none at all.
“We’re not playing the way we’ve talked about playing,” says Adelman. “We’ve walked the ball up the court. We need five people running up and down the court and we’re not doing it. We’ve got to change that. We can’t have one group playing one way and then the next group playing different.” Adds Battier: “We’ve had slippage in the chemistry department. You can just tell by the way we play. We haven’t been as unified at both ends of the court. You can say that with pretty good confidence because the second group that comes in, the guys off the bench, have great chemistry. They play together, they move the ball, they space the floor and they rely on each other to play good basketball. “I think the tendency for the first group right now is to really try to do it themselves and try to carry the team out of the slump. We’re not doing it out of malicious reasons; every guy feels that they can help the team and raise the level of play. But we’ve gotten away from trying to do it collectively instead of individually and it’s resulted in some pretty bad basketball.”
This has been my beef. It's not his skills, or lack of. It's not his shooting. It's his attitude that I am worried about. I said about a couple of week ago that I was beginning to suspect that the "go-to" status was getting to Ariza's head. He body language since then has confirmed that. I hope he is not going to be Mike James Part II. Adelman has got to do something about it, or he is not as smart as I think.
Battier is calling somebody out on the starting line up. I assume he is not talking about himself. I can't imagine it's Hayes or Scola. So the only guys left are Ariza and Brooks. Well, Brooks was on fire. So that's you, Ariza.
I think they are trying to see if his game can elevate beyond being a solid role player. I am not seeing it. Having Yao there will definitely help, but his body language and decision making are really disappointing. I like that he wants to be the man, but he just doesn't have the game for it. If McGrady would have been more patient even Adelman would have had to have given him some of Ariza's minutes.
I guess Ariza's teammates couldn't tolerate him anymore. Before, they probably thought this was just a temporary thing. When Tmac was back, Ariza wouldn't be the core. But, now, Tmac was dismissed. They decided not to tolerate him anymore. I think Morey and Adelman need to do something before it is too late.
If you have to ASK or DEMAND the ball in this offense...clearly YOU'RE the problem. Hell, even CHUCK HAYES gets a few shots up with ZERO offensive ability!
I keep hearing about how this is an "experimental year," for Ariza and that he will be good in a sidekick roll to Yao. I'm not sure why anyone would want a sidekick that can't pass, can't shoot, can't dribble, and appears to be incredibly immature? Having Yao isn't going to make Ariza markedly better. Looks like Morey might have effed this one up.
In my opinion, Ariza's behavior and performance on the court is just as bad as T-mac's "Toronto" game last year...at least, T-mac was both physically and mentally crippled. Ariza doesn't even have physical issues bothering him, yet he's nearly as bad as the one legged T-mac we saw last season. I understand playing T-mac will supposedly ruin the learning of the young guys and disrupt Adelman's system and our playing style right now, but how can we be sure if T-mac doesn't sniff the court for more than 7 minutes a game? And from his 7 minute samples, he was pretty much playing in the system. So why not see what will happen if he averages 14 minutes a game? 21? 30? Take the minutes from Ariza, obviously. It will help Morey in his quest to trade T-mac's expiring for a superstar, something we badly need since Ariza is not 'the one', obviously.
Bring back McGrady? Too late for McGrady to come back and that sucks. His minutes would have definitely increased and at least he has more skill than Ariza. Something needs to change for this team. Hopefully a trade...
Thank you CLutch. It is really good to see. People will say he is learning etc but I don't feel that way. He just thinks he is a star and maybe he even feels like he can do things and take shots Kobe does for LA. The reality is this guy is an average role player and pretty bad shooter. And he is put in a position where he is supposed to be 'that guy'.
Not that i disagree with a lot of what is being said about Ariza, BUT Adelman's comments do state the starter's are not running enough and instead holding that ball. That doesnt only apply to trevor though. If you watch the play where AB passes to scola in the post, he did slow down the play and allow the defense to set themselves. Ariza was open for a quick 3 and whether we like Ariza's shooting/shot selection or not, that is the type of shot the team wants. On the break where he passed to Landry, it was a good pass, but more than anything landry bailed him out on that one because Ariza was the guy ahead and did have an open lane to the rim and Brooks didnt get it to him. I know u dont want Ariza leading the break, but brooks could have hit him late on the break closer to the rim so he doesnt need to dribble much. So i think AB deserves some blame as well, at least from what i saw on the vid, maybe scola/shane/hayes do too, but nothing there to point out.
The only thing wrong with his body language is that it doesn't move to the basket. Because only god knows why he's trying to attempt to shoot 3 pointers when his 3pt % is around 32 FU@#$g percent.. The guy needs to stop shooting it from above the arc because for the past 5+ years he's had a horrible 3pt% Rockets stop trying to make him a 3pt shooter and get his A#@ to the rack.
