According to Twitter posts from Adrian Wojnarowski, the Rockets met with Trevor Ariza in Las Vegas on Thursday and are expected to offer a multi-year deal at the mid-level exception. The deal would not preclude Houston from also keeping Ron Artest, according to sources.- Via Yahoo! http://realgm.com/src_wiretap_archi...ckets_meet_with_ariza_prepared_to_offer_mle/#
My understanding is that the Lakers will match any offers for Ariza, unless they can get Artest to replace him. So I don't see us getting both players.
If we can get Artest & Ariza on board and have McGrady to trade anytim before the deadline I will feel real great. Especially if we can land an Amare caliber post for McGrady. I am not all that big on Ariza, he reminds me of Posey who is simply a role player... Ariza doesn't utilize his altheticism and he isn't as good as Battier. But if you give me a rotation of Ariza, Battier, Artest, thats just nasty.
We look desperate but I guess that's because we are... We have zero healthy centers. We have zero legitimate healthy scoring wings. Even if we land Ariza, he doesn't address either of those issues. He would be a good replacement for Battier but we still have Battier.
ariza isnt a restricted free agent though so while the lakers may match he may not come back for the same price or he may for that price i would think if 10 teams all offered the same money he would stay in LA but who knows maybe one team offers a bigger role on the team? personally if ariza and artest are somehow retained that means battier has to be on the move and i would not like that personally
call me speculative, but "to me" the indication that signing ariza would not preclude signing artest means bye bye battier