Its not about having Shaq or Jefferson particularly. Its about teams that got better giving up nothing. Jefferson makes the Spurs much better for a longer period of time than the Shaq move, and I believe that Vince gives the Magic exactly what they needed against the Lakers. A dynamic wing whos not in love the the three. Its not the year by year cost of Ariza. Its what its going to cost us for production, and length. It will be an albatross. Ariza has zero ability to create his own shot, has no post up game, and once he doesn't have Gasol and Kobe eating up double teams giving him wide open three's, lets see how that goes for him. You guys are in love with one post season from Ariza. ONE decent stretch. He is invisible on offense. Him, Shane, Chuck in our starting rotation next year (assuming Chuck plays Yao's role or they slide Scola over) is going to be UUUUUUGGGGGGLY. Better get used to alot of AB iso's.
That's the whole point. Next year HAS to be ugly, otherwise the Rockets get into a deeper hole. Competing for the #8 seed would just be foolhardy at this point. And the whole "something for nothing"...the nothing is because their contracts are so fat (Jefferson is what, 15 mill a year?). Houston can't afford to take on anymore of those contracts. As for Ariza, he's a step in the right direction. Makes it a bit more flexible; he's a good piece to have whether or not Morey decides to throw in the towel and go for a complete rebuild or tries to keep Houston competitive in the short term, with the hope that 2010 and the return of Yao will spur the Rockets onto greater things.
Exactly. Ariza is the perfect player to have around because he makes an equal amount of sense in either a "win now" or a "rebuilding" scenario.
No way this guys is worth what the Rockets paid for him in this market. As much as I wasn't high on Gortat, C was the Rockets' biggest position of need and still is. Ariza thrived in the Lakers' system by playing off of the big names, but I don't know how well he's going to do when he's not surrounded by elite level talent. This move does prove one thing and that is that Battier type players or those better than him are readily available through free agency and other minor transactions as opposed to lottery picks. This also probably means the end of the Shane Battier in Houston.
Are you trying to make it look worse than it is? 04-05 NYK 80 05-06 NYK/ORL 57 06-07 ORL 57 07-08 ORL/LAL 35 08-09 LAL 82
I've been reading alot of posts from people saying that Ariza is a younger and better player than Artest, correct me if im wrong, but I don't think that I Ariza create his own shot at all during the year unless it was a drive to the lane. Most of his points seemed to come because teams were focusing in at Kobe. Although, at times, Artest did some pretty stupid stuff on the floor he is atleast capable of scoring.
i think artest and morey made a secret agreement. artest agreed to sign with the lakers after they showed interest and will slowly deteriorate any chemistry the lakers have and screw kobe over
It would be cool if someone could provide a nice synopsis of this Insider article by Hollinger - http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insi...mnist=hollinger_john&page=artestlakers-090702
I can't remember the last time I saw a de facto trade in free agency, but today it took only a couple hours for one to happen. This afternoon on the West Coast former Rocket Ron Artest agreed to a deal to join the Lakers, and then later this evening came the news that former Laker Trevor Ariza had agreed to join the Rockets. The two players play the same position (small forward) and signed for similar money (the full mid-level exception), so it basically comes down to two teams' differing needs and what those players can provide. From L.A.'s side, they're plugging Artest into Ariza's role at small forward as a floor spacer, transition finisher and occasional inbound-pass stealer. In terms of stats, this works. At small forward, L.A. mostly needs a floor spacer, and as far as floor-spacing ability goes, Artest is superior to Ariza -- he shot 39.9 percent on 3s last season, Ariza 31.9 percent. Ariza shot much better in the postseason, but he's at just 29.9 percent for his career. So although it's possible he made a lasting improvement late last season, it's at least as likely that he was just having a good month. Overall, Artest isn't as efficient as Ariza offensively because he tends to force terrible shots, but that's likely to be less of a problem in a system in which he's the fourth option behind Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum. Additionally, he's a good passer who might see his assist rate bump significantly in L.A. Ariza is also a better rebounder, but Artest more than offsets that with his defense -- not that Ariza is a slouch, as any Denver Nuggets inbound passer will attest, but Artest is among the very best on-ball defenders in basketball. That difference is likely to become particularly important should the Lakers find themselves facing Cleveland in next year's Finals, where a certain LeBron James is likely to be the focal point of the Cavs' offense. Artest is one of the few players in the league who can match James physically, so he'd be a tremendous asset in such a pairing. This move already is making some Lakers fans uneasy. Any time a championship team makes a prominent personnel move, a significant chorus says, "Why mess it up?" But in truth, nothing messes it up more than standing pat. Bryant isn't getting any younger, and the arms race in the East between Orlando and Cleveland had to get the Lakers' attention. Artest will give them an ace defender to send out against James or Vince Carter in the Finals, not to mention the likes of Manu Ginobili, Carmelo Anthony and Brandon Roy on the Lakers' likely road through the Western Conference playoffs. The big risk, here, of course, is that it's Ron Artest and, as he showed in Indiana, few players can be more destructive to a team's hopes. But there are a couple of things working in the Lakers' favor here. First, he's been reasonably well-behaved since leaving the Pacers. Second, his worst ball-hogging habits tend to pop out when he's the go-to guy -- but as a role player, he should be extremely effective. And most importantly, they have Phil Jackson. Perhaps nobody in the history of the game has dealt more successfully with problem cases than Jackson, most notably when he coaxed three extremely productive seasons out of Dennis Rodman with the Bulls. L.A. appears to be getting Artest at reasonable terms, as well -- a three-year, $18 million deal that likely will end up being about half what Ariza gets on the open market (in total dollars). There's a reason for that, of course, as nobody can trust Artest to behave himself for the full tenure of a long-term deal, or the full tenure of a 10-day contract for that matter. But in the Lakers' case, it's a reasonable gamble as they try to get as much as possible out of Bryant's and Gasol's prime years. For Houston, on the other hand, it wasn't. Their time horizon has been pushed farther out into the future by the injuries to Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, making the brighter future of Ariza a more important consideration than the greater present value offered by Artest. Houston committed five years the full mid-level for Ariza (an estimated $33.5 million), which is risky -- just look back at the history of players getting the full mid-level exception. The difference here is that most of those players were in their late 20s and early 30s, where is Ariza just turned 24 a few days ago and should still be in the middle of his prime at the end of the contract. He also fills in a glaring hole at small forward left by the departure of Artest and the free agency of McGrady, though he's not the offensive initiator that those two players were. Signing Ariza (or keeping Artest, for that matter) does come with two major downsides for Houston. First, it puts them into the luxury tax for this season, though they are close enough to the line that they can likely wriggle out of it by the trade deadline by paying somebody to take Brian Cook off their hands or another deal of that ilk. Second, it cuts into their cap hoard for 2010. Houston projected to have enough money to sign a player to maximum contract next summer; now, depending on next year's cap number, the Rockets would probably have to cut Chuck Hayes and renounce Kyle Lowry to get far enough under to make a run at native Texan Chris Bosh or some of the other plum free agents out there. But for both teams, it looks like the right move. There was no reason for the Rockets to bring back Artest in a situation where they weren't going to be competing for a championship immediately, and with Yao out indefinitely the Rockets are definitely taking a step back. And for the Lakers, it was a good proactive move to ward off post-championship complacency. Too many times teams stand pat after winning a title and watch things fall apart a year later -- Miami in the summer of 2006, for instance, or these very Lakers in the summer of 2002. L.A. realized it needed to rearm to keep up with Orlando and Cleveland, and today it upgraded one of the two positions where it didn't already have a star.
