Great point, he's the upgrade over Shane with our intent to obtain a replacement for Tmac who can score and create his own shot. However, we are killing his confidence by giving him a "BRIGHT" green light to shoot every time.
Why? So he gets to suck for an entire year? I mean, I know we are not going to win anything and it is a year of growth, but come on, we are talking about fundamental things like: Dribbling Passing Staying in front of your man on defense etc... He is piss poor at so many fundamental things....he has a long reach, but that is about it.....the rest is really bad. Honestly, he is no Shane Battier, Shane is smart, plays within his game and is fairly efficient all over the floor. Shane is by far the better basketball player...... Personally, I hope we trade Trevor, and keep Shane at least for next year, because Yao is expiring, and we may have to start all over, and Shane is expiring too.... DD
DD, Wow, I never thought you would be so blinded by Shane. Let's be honest there isn't one GM that would take Shane over Trevor right now. Trevor is young and skill learning. Shane is done. He can't score unless left wide open and Shane would look worst than Trevor if he was given the option of being a go to scorer. Shane has done a lot for this team, but his play outside of defense (which has sufferred lately) has been poor at best.
I am not blinded by Shane, I know his limitations, but every single GM in the league knows his value. He plays within the team plan, plays excellent defense and doesn't make mistakes that cost his team. He is a better player than Trevor, not as athletic, just a better player. And you are wrong about Shane and scoring, he has a nice post up game, a decent mid range shooting game and an excellent 3pt shooting game. Trevor, has NONE OF THE ABOVE !!! And you just said Shane can't score unless he is wide open, well Trevor can't score WHEN HE IS WIDE OPEN ! And honestly, I think we can only afford one of them, as they are both non-factors on offense for the most part, but at least Shane is a good defender. I am sorry, Trevor is just not as good a basketball player as Shane is..... And please don't bring out the tired, he has a ring, excuse...Jack Haley has a couple too. DD
if posters quit responding to DD you wouldn't have to deal with his tirades. It's too easy for him folks, he has too much ammunition and just keeps pounding and pounding his chest on his personal soapbox AKA the GARM.
Tirades? LOL - is that what it is? You just can't handle the truth Reek, Trevor is not a very skilled basketball player, period. Tirades.....I love how when people don't like others opinions etc....they call them a tirade.... I know people are hoping he develops, but he is in his 5th year in the league, can you name one player that suddenly learned how to dribble after being in the league for 5 years? I think he is what he is.....and that is a 20mpg role player, and you should not be paying them full MLE money, that is how you get a team into cap space hell. I like to talk Rox, if you can't handle the heat then get out of the kitchen. Only the strong survive. DD
Haha. It's true. No one can outlast him. He probably has more post than all the people responding to him combined. One man wrecking crew indeed. He can simply repeat his words until everyone else is too tired to type.
How easy was it to move Rafer? It is not as simple as you make it out to be. Because when you move them, you need to take on something else.....to get Lowry, we had to suck up Cook, and it took 2+ years of trying to trade Rafer and a perfect storm of a situation in Orlando.......too. If Trevor keeps shooting this badly, and showing his weaknesses, he will not be a desired commodity at his price point. The Lakers were doing EXACTLY the right thing with him, limiting his minutes, and hiding his deficiencies. But of course you like him Leeb, he can jump high....who cares if he can actually play the game well..... DD
The basic fact is that he has relied mostly on his natural advantages (size, speed, athleticism, wing-span) to get him into the NBA and to earn him a ton of money. Sadly, he hasn't improved very basic things (dribbling, shooting, FT shooting, making layups in traffic) which quite frankly points to a lack of motivation and practice. There is no way someone as inefficient and ineffective as Ariza should be the "go to" player on a team. As DD correctly points out, he should be a role player. Think Luther Head ... a guy who couldn't dribble, pass, or think. He is a fantastic shooter, but because he can't handle the rock, he is now almost out of the NBA. Guys like Ariza and Hayes who have limited *basketball* skill should thank their lucky stars they are getting paid huge amounts of money despite their lack of practice on the basics of basketball. Unfortunately, these guys *start* and play a lot of minutes for our favorite NBA team.
Because who do you want to attempt to create things? Brooks already gets a large amount of shots, so it's not him, and Budinger is definitely not ready for such a role. We want a creating wing, and frankly Ariza is the best out of many not very good options. I don't like Ariza going one on one, but given our massively limited offensive options, it's our best bet. And while I normally like your points, DD, your tendency of swamping the opposition to Death by Post Count is particularly irritating even when I do support you, especially when you make it sound like Trevor's a mere role player. I frankly think at this point purely on the basketball court, Trevor's a better player (Battier's more valuable to the team given his leadership role) as we demand a lot more out of him than we do of Shane.
Personally I would rather have it that no one create's for themselves other than Brooks. Adelman's system is setup so that there doesn't have to be anyone that needs to setup for themselves. Name one person on the Adelman's Kings team that had the ability to create for themselves play after play...NO ONE. We need to get it into the post more (Scola) because we do get it to Landry enough and he produces. Bud is pretty much a cheap man's rookie version of Peja with better athleticism, so he needs more playing time to spread the floor. Ariza's style of defense will never replace Battier's, Ariza may be up there in steals per game, but take a look at how many chances he takes at getting those. I think he averages almost 2 steals a game, but if he takes 8-10 attempts, than 2 steals isn't worth it. He goes for the long shot when he should be playing solid defense without trying to do too much. We got him to be a key ROLE player when Yao comes back, they need to cut Ariza's minutes because you can tell that he gets really winded, stop letting him go 1-1 and run the offense. Slash, post, cut, mid range jumpers, that is how the offense should run, not 1-1 with a bad shot, 3-14, 7-16 is not a part of AD's Offense.
So lets go back at look at last year as some kind of keypoint. Shane shot 9-32 on the road for 5.6ppg. Trevor was 42-91 on the road for just over 10 ppg. I can imagine morey took into account a young player playing better when it counts the most. For mle money, it was and is worth replacing shane with trevor.
I pay more attention to raod playoff games than at home. The reason is all role players play better at home, but the true contributors step up and play better on the road. Can you honestly with a straight face can say shane has done anything on the road in the playoffs ever? Its not about jumping high, the nba is full of guys who can jump out the gym and a value guys that can play the game, but this isn't baseball were some fat slob can play at a high level. Sometimes guys just have to make plays with their natural abilities. Thats why basketball has probably the greatest athletes and thats nothing to be ashamed of. Do you think dream would've been as good if he wasn't athletic? What about jordan? Also athletic isn't always about jumping high. Its about having explosion,quickness, and power and having the ability to transfer that to the court. Steve nash is a great athlete to me, he can't jump out the gym, but his footwork and suddeness allows him to be effective.
I am not against that, fine. However, I think locking up Trevor for 5 years, when you don't know what will happen with Yao next year is not a good way to manage the contract situation. I would rather have let Shane and Yao come off the books together and see where we are at that point. While Trevor contributed to the Lakers, he was not crucial to their success, in fact he was a bit player. I understand what Morey was thinking, I just believe they thought Trevor was better than he really is....and be honest Leeb, the guy is just not that great a basketball player. Take Trevor off the Lakers and insert Shane and they win last year anyway, and probably much easier. And we overpaid for him, IMO. BTW - I don't think Shane or Trevor is a complete basketball player, but I also believe you can have only one of those contributing to a team....and we have 2 of them starting.....that, is poor asset management IMO. DD
The problem is that Ariza is being asked to be a replacement McGrady when in reality he is more like a replacement Robert Horry. As much of a legend as big shot Bob is for his post season heroics, he often disappeared for huge stretches of the regular season. His career best scoring average was 12 points a game, and most of his career he averaged less than 7 points. He certainly was not capable of being a teams primary scoring option, and would have been at least as maligned as Ariza if he had been put in that position. But I suspect most fans here would not have a problem if the Rockets signed Horry in his prime to a mid level contract. The Ariza signing is much more for future seasons than for now. Neither he, nor anyone else on the team is untradeable if there is a move that will improve the team, but I don't expect them to trade him just to get rid of his contract. It's just too early to look at Ariza in "retrospect", unless it is in the context that in retrospect he should not be one of the top 2-3 scoring options for your team. Very few mid-level players are. Cutting his minutes down by 5-10 minutes would do him good though.
No way the Laker's win with Shane starting in place of Ariza. Ariza played out of his mind in the playoffs and Shane hasn't come close to doing what Ariza has done in the playoffs. Name the playoff series or game, that Shane showed up on D and O. DD be honest with yourself when making that assessment. Your beginning to sound like Calvin Murphy in your assessments.
So i guess the fact trevor basically doubled shane production makes you think the lakers win it easily? Ok, if you say so. Look, i think in a development year, chase and trevor should be starting right now. Shane is what he is and thats not a lot these days. The fact trevor is the 3rd option in the starting lineup is crazy in itself, but when hayes and shane are starting also, that makes it difficult. If chase was starting in place of shane, trevor would bump down to the 4th option which is where he should be. You said they overpaid, i disagree because its mle money. I'm not saying there are times when guys outplay the mle, but for the most part, he's paid right in line with his age and production. Shane is the highest paid starter annd have been the 3rd highest paid player on the team since he has been here and we gave up a lotto pick, thats overpaid. If either are part of a deal, it wouldn't bother me one way or the other.
