Here is what ariza did for the rockets that justified a mle deal: Complimentary to martin and brooks. He was the one guy who could actually guard 3 spots. Not to mention once the martin trade was made, he dropped back into his role as 4 or 5th option. Not only that, he's 24-25, and put shane on the bench. Having shane on the bench,he could come in with chase and still maintain some defensive presesnce. What we have now are all sg's and 1 sf. I've said this all the time, mle contract are only bad if the guy is either hurt alot or cant do anything. Mle contracts are the easiest contracts to move. People act like his contract was like the injured Yao's contract or micheal redd and its not. We're talking about 25% up or down in trading for this guy. That anywhere from a 4m to a 7m contract. Take into account his age and i still think it was a backward move. They had to do it because they signed lowry and scola for more than they planned.
Yao I'm guessing they saw coming...that didn't take much sorcery. I'm not sure if they saw the others happening or not...but bottom line is, they're not losing well enough )) for it to matter. Being in the middle-bottom of the pack isn't tanking.
totally agree, if you were fretting over ariza being paid $2MM more than his worth, you're being cheap.
but this is all we have. our "favorite Rockets personality" is a gentleman in a suit who we like to believe has the rest of the league right where he wants them.
I think you're under-selling Trevor a little as just being a defensive specialist comparable to Chuck and Shane. He's more active on offense than Shane and Hayes, plus he's twice the athlete and has extraordinary length for a SF (which happen to be 2 things this team is missing). Take all that together and you have much more well-rounded player than Hayes or Battier. Not to mention he's 7 years younger than Shane. His main issue is shot selection, which he appears to have corrected with the Hornets much as he did at the midway point with the Rockets last season. Stats since 2011 began: 13.3 ppg, 45%FG, 38%3P, 6.1 rebs, 1.4 tos, 1.9spg Mind you, he's also playing 38 minutes per game on the number one rated defensive team in the league. I actually think Shane has been playing pretty well this season, but one announcer mentioned something that made me think the Rockets could use a little more consistent offensive production/activity out of 3 position. I believe it was something like the Rockets are 13-7 when Battier scores double digits.
I dont think he was being paid 2m more than his worth. He signed a mle deal at 24 yrs old coming off big shots on the biggest stage. He was paid as a role player. Good role players dont stay on rookie deals,they make mle money. What saying is some posters act like mle money is major. They like to point this out with the stro and gay for shane trade. How many times was stro traded after the rockets traded him?3,4 times? 25% plus 100k is easy to move for a player sub 30. Brad miller and his mle deal will probably be alot harder to move because of his age. I remember salmons signing a mle deal as did hedo after their rookie deals. They eventually outperformed those deals.
Bottom line: $17M for defensive specialists is simply too much to carry. I know you're not exactly Shane's biggest fan and probably would have preferred to move him instead. I disagree. In that situation, once you realize you've made a mistake (signing Ariza), the logical move is to consider your options -- and as you mentioned, moving MLE level players isn't the end of the world. What scares people off is the length of those contracts (compounded with the uncertainty a new CBA brings) which is why Ariza needed to go. We don't need to be paying a defensive specialist that's completely braindead/clueless on the other end of the court until 2014. When deciding to keep 2/3 -- Shane and Chuck on deals that both expire this season was the easy choice.
Ariza is best in transition and when spotting up. He has next to no ability to dribble, create his own offense or put the ball on the floor. His spot-up shooting is erratic. The only saving grace he has is that he plays with the best pure PG in the game which enables him to take advantage of all those fastbreak and transition opportunities. Overall, I get what you're saying -- I just see a player that would have been better off resigning in LA and sticking with his prior reputation as championship level role player that knows his limitations.
I think it's very interesting that people b**** at Kevin Martin's defense. Against the Lakers who was hidden against the other team? LUIS SCOLA NOT KEVIN MARTIN? Scola was matched up against Artest so he wouldn't have to really guard anyone. Battier was on Odom which meant Kevin Martin had to get Kobe Bryant.
baller, a defensive specialist can only do one thing and most dont average double figures. Ariza is just a basketball player more than just a specialist. Jeffries is a specialist. Bruce bowen was a specialist. Ariza has shown that he can make plays in crucial sitiations both offensively and defensively. That is huge because alot of guys shrink and dont want to be the goat. Someone made a thread about courtney lee hesistating on his shot. He's scared of making and taking big shots. Look no further than the choking in the championship and the free throws. Some guys step up and some shrink.
I love all you people acting like our offense would suffer by having Ariza. Newsflash: our offense is better because KMart is heathy, our center went from the worst offensive center to above average in 1.5 seasons, and we made a huge upgrade at the PG position. We are after all talking about replacing BATTIER with Ariza, not someone else who actually has an impact on our offense. Anyway, the biggest difference that I've noticed from Ariza's departure besides defense has been rebounding. We fell 6 spots in rebounding this year and that's with a good rebounder like PPat getting some minutes.
The worst thing that ever happened to Ariza was agreeing to the contract we gave him. That officially ended the days of Trevor Ariza: The Championship Level Role Player That Knows His Limitations. Ever since then he's been a disaster. Good riddance.
This is the second time he's had to guard Kobe. I'm glad to see his effort and improvement. There have been times that he's been called for fouls, which I thought were called more for his reputation as a poor defender. But he's moving his feet and having good anticipation of where the offensive player will go and he's been able to block some shots. He's actually becoming a decent defender, not a liability. Of course, hardly anyone except Shane and a few other players can defend Kobe well. That was RA's mistake/"experiment" to not use Shane down the stretch. I myself thought that was a dumb move.
