The organization has some ideas for this year that will shape the future and we are seeing that play out before our eyes with each game. They surely have a better plan in place and idea about where they are headed than you pretend to think you do. By the way, I feel better knowing you've got that "eye" for All-Star talent and you're here to share your insight with us all.
I just don't get why people rip on Ariza so hard - he's a good player being forced to fill shoes he can't possibly fill. Let Ariza be Ariza - he'll figure it out.
I agree, this is why I use Clutchfans only for Rockets information or to provide information I discover. There's so much criticism and hate on players in this site and less appreciation of what players do well. But I guess that's natural. Whatever I just get sick of the Tmac or Ariza or any other player bash threads.
no one is bashing ariza. like i said many times, i still love this signing and he'll be very good for us once we get stars. all i'm saying is he'll never develop the 1-on-1 skills to be above average. what he should do is perfect the skills he already has. i liked how ariza played tonight. he really only tried to go 1-on-1 2 or 3 times. if he stayed within the offense and use more of the offense to get himself open, he'll be a very effective offensive player. so far this year, he's one of the worst offensive players at his position.
You can't blame a guy for trying to improve his weaknesses. If there's one thing he learned from Kobe, it would be to always improve on every aspect of the game. Look at how Kobe tried to learn from the Dream this past summer. Ariza just wants to become a better player. Sure his best skills still have some room for improvement, but he also wants to improve his weaknesses to become a better all around player. I think he'll develop that over time. I mean this is the first time he's ever been thrown into a situation where he is needed to score often. Give him some time, you never know he could become a Rudy Gay. If not, then that's okay. He will be an exceptional role player.
kobe already had a great post game. learning from dream helped him perfect it. post game wasn't a weakness of kobe; it was already a strength. you don't see yao trying to improve his outside game, do you? he struggled mightily earlier on with adelman and thus had to resort back to the post. sure, with more reps, ariza could become a little better at it. but i don't foresee him being an above average 1-on-1 player. believe it or not, the sets of skills required to be a pretty good 1-on-1 player are pretty rare. the thing is, when we get yao back and possibly another star, we're not going to ask ariza to do any, if much, 1-on-1. he's going to be a 4th or 5th option. so why not perfect the skills that will be needed then? spot up, catch-and-shoot, penetrate off of a post pass... those will be abundant with the return of yao. nevertheless, tonight's game was a positive. trevor did very little on his own. he was miserably bad again when he tried, but those were kept to a minimum (meaning < 5 possessions). with this system, the game can be very easy to ariza.
He's right. Who didn't know Chris Gatling and Jamaal Magloire were all-star talents the moment they saw them play?
As much as I grimace when Ariza tries to put the ball on the floor and try to get by his man 1 on 1, you gotta give him some kind of credit for TRYING to expand his game. Yes, improving/perfecting the things he does very well right now it good and dandy but the guy is still relatively young and has the opportunity (with Yao and McGrady out) to experiment and test himself. Hell, I remember a young player who played a couple of seasons in Toronto that had NO ONE drooling over his scoring prowess but rather on the potential on what he could become. Then he went to Orlando as a free agent and boom. Am I saying Ariza is going to turn into McGrady? Absolutely not. I'm saying, if there's a place and opportunity for a young player to improve his all-around game, this is it.
So it is ok if Ariza tries to learn on the court but not ok if mac rehabs on the court seems like a double standard.
tracy played POINT-FORWARD . he already had the ballhandling abilities in high school. and he showed off his 1-on-1 game in year 3 (he could have been more than a 15pt scorer that year). there was a reason tracy was signed MAX MONEY after only averaging 15 pts a game. people did see him becoming a star. nobody is thinking ariza would be that, or else he would have gotten more than the MLE.
Oh I know McGrady's ball-handling was/is infinitely better than Ariza's but it was went the guy went nova as a scorer in Orlando is when people were like "wow". IIRC, McGrady as a Raptor played outstanding defense alongside his cousin and was never looked at as a superstar scorer or the potential to be one until he went to a team that had no one to score.
One of those players is going to be a foundation piece for the next several years, the other may never contribute to the team again, and is almost certain not to return next year.
Did you, personally, see it? Or you're basing his star-in-the-making status on what happened in Orlando? All I saw was a pretty good young player with a very high ceiling getting massive amount of money thrown his way by a team that had caproom saved for Tim Duncan and Grant Hill and only when Duncan decided to stay in SA, was when said young player got that max deal. McGrady didn't flourish and come into his own as a scorer until he went to Orlando. Again, I'm not trying to make parallel comparisons between McGrady and Ariza because Ariza has more than just a few holes in his game but he still has the time and the room to improve on his game. He's a decent shooter from the perimeter but has trouble putting the ball on the floor. So what could he do to improve his game? Learn how to play 15 ft on in (e.g. post-up, work screens to get in position to shoot, etc).
i enjoyed watching vince carter, the beast, back then. and i saw a star in the making in tmac in his 3rd year. you knew he was being held back because vince was so good. he basically played PG when vince was in the game, and tried to score when he was out. he was an all-around player already in his 3rd year. orlando or toronto, the next year, tracy would have taken a huge step stats-wise.
Again, I have never said that McGrady wasn't a good all-around player. That was evident. What I'm saying is that he didn't explode as a scorer (and I'm stressing the scoring aspect) until he left Toronto. You say that he would have taken The Leap no matter if he was in Orlando or Toronto but I highly doubt it would have been a monumental leap if he had stayed in Toronto because, like you had said, of Carter's shadow. I'm stressing the scoring aspect because that's what Ariza is trying to do right now for the Rockets. He's trying to fill that scoring void that the Rockets have. He was trying to do way too much at the beginning of the season by driving between 2-3 defenders but I think he's starting to learn to work with what he does best. In other words, I rather see Ariza (and the rest of the Rockets) try and explore any improvements in their overall game right now, rather than in a crucial, championship-potential season.
