Great, he's finally received minutes on a crappy team and has produced in 2 of 3 games against 2 opponents. Big deal. Talk to me when we play a team that can play defense.
Mr. 'RocketsPimp', are you even a Rockets fan? This is no "crappy team". Portland certainly isn't one either. We just outplayed them straight up. Just be happy we won against a quality playoff team and stop being so bitter. Ariza is a Rocket and all Rockets fan should support him.
I did not know whom to direct this. Now I know...... :rolleyes Portland has players who can block shots. I am not saying it's a lock that he can go on shooting like that. BUT he already proved a lot of guys wrong who says he is a mere role player. Yes. A role player who can get scorching hot.
Ron Artest is too slow to keep up with him but can bully him down low. Both of them have good hands. So let the stealing show begin.
Actually, the Blazers were 13th out of 30th last year in defensive efficiency. Not elite, but certainly not a team that "cannot play defense."
seriously? I'll disregard the crappy team comment. As for Ariza, he's getting paid mid-level money. If he averages 12 points a game and plays high energy defense, he'll be worth his contract. I certainly don't expect anything like this pace to continue, but I wouldn't be shocked if he pulled off 18ppg. Wouldn't expect it though and certainly wouldn't be justified if I got mad that he didn't.
ron would put up these numbers if he was in the same situation ariza is on right now on the rockets......................... the only difference is.....ariza doesn't need 30 shots and 35 percent shooting to do it.......and ariza can coexist with tmac perfectly unlike this guy who fled to the lakers... maybe artest is just a timebomb morey sent to the lakers....he didn't even allow the lakers to hav this explosive entity for free--33million, in fact
The Traiblazers are actually very good. They are in the top 4 teams for fewest points allowed. All of the top 4 teams are playoff teams. They allow even fewer points than the Rockets. The top 7 teams in fewest points allowed in 2008-09 1) Cavaliers 2) Spurs 3) Celtics 4) Blazers 5) Hornets 6) Magic 7) Rockets
Perfect illustration of why points allowed per game is a poor measure of defense. Go listen to their post game interviews, and they'll admit (correctly) that their defense isn't good enough. The reason they gave up few points last year was because they played at the slowest pace in the league. Less possessions -- less opportunities for the other team to score. In terms of points allowed per possession, they were average. And amongst playoff teams, well below average.
Oh I love you idiots. Ariza and his MLE contract needs to be producing at Kobe levels? and you are probably one of the ones that thinks Anderson and his $2 million contract isn't worth it because he is not producing the same as Yao Ming? Would you like a list of the players who make more than him in the NBA and are far far worse players? Unlike the slow old nutcase who we basically swapped for Ariza and the ball hogging past his time T-Mac, Ariza can hit shots but does not force crap, that is the one thing I noticed tonight, he had room to get off shots over a guy but he wasn't open enough so he passed. The guy has shown he can step it up to help us win now and when the big boys are back this year and next he certainly looks like a guy who will play the team game but can step it up when needed. Remember he is on MLE, its not like we gave him a max deal, now thing about it before making such moronic comments.
I love it you morons. 3 games in, on a team without it's tops scorers and ya'll are on his jock. Let's see if you're still there when he isn't hitting his 3's at an uncharacteristic rate. Talk to me in another 30 games (sans T-Mac). If he's still performing at half of this output, I'll be here to eat my crow.
Man the OP sure rushed to judgement, if only he had waited 3 games to proclaim Ariza great like the rest of us... We have a much better sense of perspective.
That's one thing I noticed last night. Ariza DOES NOT take a bad shot. If he wasn't open enough, he passed it out again. He'll remain consistent. Won't get you 33 points every night, but I can easily see a 15-20 ppg, 3 rebounds and assist average from him. That's good for an MLE contract.
Ariza's 3-point shooting since regular season last year (including playoffs, this year's preseason, and 3 regular season games). It's a "last 10 games" moving average. I put a red line at the start of the playoffs last season. Since the start of last year's postseason, over a span of 34 games, Ariza has averaged 1.8 out of 3.9 made threes per game, shooting at a 47% clip. And its not like we're talking about one, contiguous hot streak. This is end of last year, beginning of this year. It would be unrealistic to expect Ariza to shoot 47% for the rest of the season, of course. But I think the trend indicates pretty strongly that he's a good 3-point shooter. If he can shoot somewhere in the 37-39% range, that'll be very good for us.
