I don't think I had ever seen him smile before this season. Now he seems to be smiling and laughing a lot.
http://www.slamonline.com/nba/role-players-feature/#ChaLBkQoBojxUi8J.97 Know Your Role The NBA is more superstar-driven than ever before, but behind every big name is one—or more than one—unsung player who does the dirty work and comes through when the team needs him most. The advice came from Stephon Marbury. It was the summer of 2004 and Trevor Ariza, a lanky rookie forward out of UCLA, was struggling to find his place. The Knicks had taken a flyer on him with a second-round pick. They liked his 6-8 frame, his bounce and his length. But Ariza, like so many in the NBA, was unsure of how exactly to adapt. Growing up in L.A. he had always been the focal point of his teams, and even during his lone year at UCLA he was one of the squad’s stars. Then he entered the NBA, and that’s when he realized he wasn’t as special as he thought. If he wanted to stick, he’d need to come up with a new plan. During the preseason, Marbury, the Knicks’ star at the time, pulled him aside. “You have to figure out a way to stay on the court,” Ariza recalls Marbury telling him. “Your mentality, your mindset, they have to change. You’re talented enough, but you have to show that you can do things other than score.” It was an epiphany for Ariza, one that changed his career. Let others worry about scoring, he soon began to say. I’ll take care of the rest. And now here he is, 13 seasons later at the age of 32, not quite as spry as he once was yet still a key cog in a team with championship aspirations. What started as a survival strategy—“you quickly learn that everybody in the NBA can score,” Ariza says, “so if you want to be on the court you better figure something out”—has morphed into a mantra. “My job,” says Ariza, now flanking James Harden and Chris Paul with the Rockets, “is to knock down shots, play defense, provide energy and keep everyone having a good time.” For Ariza, this attitude changed his career. But for others of his ilk, that sort of thought process is built into the NBA.
Kuzma talk about Ariza: Is there a specific defender who locked you down and made life really difficult for you? KK: I’d say Trevor Ariza. I think Trevor Ariza is a really good defender. We had a game against the Rockets where I had 38 points and there was a point when they stuck him on me and it [got tougher to score]. I was like, ‘Wow, he’s a good defender.’ It’s tough to get shots off against him, and he does a lot of little things to make things harder on you.
Did you see this man’s defense tonight, especially against KD? He had the guy rattled! And what about shutting down Klay?! There’s not a guy on this team who could’ve disrupted him like Ariza did with his length. Showing his value again on the biggest stage!
