I'm kind of shocked that the Lakers are taking on this kind of risk with Artest. They have the talent already and are likely the favorites heading into next year. Ron was on his best behavior in Houston, and I think he's matured a great deal, but there's still a lot of potential for him to cause some disruption in LA. Doesn't seem like it's worth the gamble for the Lakers, but that's on them. Ariza isn't a creator, but he is a playmaker. He causes mismatches, gets in passing lanes, and blocks shots. He's a high energy defender that can make things happen. He's got his limits, but he's a lot more than just a good defender.
Let's give Morey the benefit of the doubt here. Trevor is 24 twenty four One of the best peremeter defenders in the league. Already the most athletic guy on our team Shane can't last forever.
Weather you realize this or not yet. This contract is a junk contract. Book it. And Keeping Artest wouldn't of hurt us more than this contract does in 2010. And psssst. 2010 is no guarantee of anything. Especially with the way things are going with the Rockets now. What bone are we going to throw those Big FA's...lol. TMac??? Yao maybe if he sticks, or isn't injured again. A championship caliber team? You think we have anything to Lure a LeBron, or Wade to Houston with. Get real.
Rasheed is about to sign with the Celtics. It's time to rebuild. No big three we just have to try and get better by getting younger.
I would rather not sign anyone and keep our current roster. I hate Ariza after the foul on fernandez. We are wasting money, if we dont make any more moves
sorry for the mistake, i meant signing, it's probably because ariza and artest switched teams that i accidentally typed trade.
It is the playing time AND the role in itself. Cleveland already has a SF by the name of Lebron. They have West who plays the 2 for them. Ariza would have been the 3rd option...at best there. Same with Portland except he has mroe competition...Batum and Outlaw...and he'd still be just a role player playing defense and hitting 3s. Ariza wants his shot at being more, I can't blame the guy. The Laker fans are saying he's the benefit of playing with Gasol, Kobe, and Odom...while that may be true. Ariza has his ring already, he wants to prove to the NBA that he can be a all-star caliber player most likely. And if he does prove that, then he gets a bigger contract when this one expires.
The shot blocking is a misconception, actually. His season average was 0.3, his career average is 0.3, and his single game career high is just 2. That's actually pretty sad for a long, athletic SF like Ariza.
From what I read on the Houston Chronicles Gortat is close to signing an offer sheet from the Mavs and Orlando will have a week to match the offer. If we're on the Mavs situation we would have to wait a week before finding out if we could get Gortat or not. 7 days is probably a long wait that we could probably miss signing top free agents on the market. Morey went to the next best thing to do which is to sign Ariza. I just hope we could still get a quality big man through a trade. Remember the Clippers last year got Camby from the Nuggets just for a 2nd round pick if I'm right.
Ariza's contract is not hefty enough to majorly impact anything. You want Shaq's contract or Jefferson's contract on the books? For what reason? Even if we got players of Shaq's or Jefferson's caliber, we'd be in the worst case scenario possible; a middling 8 seed team without a high draft pick or playoff success AND we wouldn't have enough for 2010 even if we wanted to do something.
Sorry kind sir. I'm on my phone and quoted the wrong person. Bottom line let's give Morey the benefit of the doubt here. More HRs than strikeouts
Wing defenders dont have to be shot blockers they should just be good at forcing bad shots and turnovers.
What are you afraid of? If we don't pull off some kind of big trade in the next several weeks, we are likely going to be a lottery bound team. Accept it. We will rise again someday if you are willing to stick around. The Rockets won 2 championships about 15 years ago. Some teams have never come close to winning 1. Only 2 franchices have a ridiculous number of championships. The rest have a handful or or less. All teams go through ups and downs. It's a natural cycle and we are about to go through one of the downs. Try to look at the bright side of the rebuilding process. Maybe we'll land a Brandon Roy type player or better in one of the next few drafts and suddenly we'll be a team on the upswing like the Blazers. A lot of good could come out of this. We were spinning our wheels with the McGrady/Yao thing. Signing Artest wasn't going to overcome our foundation crumbling and he's getting old. Ariza is young with upside. Expect more moves like this in the near future.
04-05 NYK 80 05-06 NYK 36 05-06 ORL 21 06-07 ORL 57 07-08 ORL 11 07-08 LAL 24 08-09 LAL 82 What's with so many missing games? Injuries or benchwarmer?
First of all, he was a second round pick...he didn't play in every game when he first came into the league. But more importantly, some of those numbers are from the same season but split up because he was traded.
Um... 2 things: (1) Artest didn't want to stay HERE for $5.6million dollars per season. If he wanted to say here, he would also have wanted to get paid. But fact is he wanted to go to LA and play with Kobe. We had no possible way of keeping him other than offering big money and many years. (2) Rasheed Wallace is turning 35 this season. Yes, we COULD have got him for 5 years $33million - but do you want him on your roster when he's 40? We're done for this season with TMac and Yao out injured - so it's rebuild for 2010 time - when Yao will be fit and TMac will be a FA - but one we can go over the cap to sign. We've brought in Ariza - who is essentially the more-athletic-but-worse-shooting version of Battier. Is it even remotely possible in your mind that we might move Battier on before this season ends (or even starts?) and effectively get the younger version cheaper and save money for the 2010 cap? I reckon it's possible!
