I agree. Trevor is long and athletic with good vision and reflexes which allows him to deny his man the ball, play the passing lanes, and create a lot of steals and deflections. shane is smart, tough, and relentless which makes him an ideal on the ball defender, so he gets the charges, blocks and frustrates his man into submission. a lot of teams dont even have one top tier defender. we have two. and with JJ, lowry, and a developing Hill, its only a matter of yao coming back before we have a very defensively sound team, at least on paper.
but you have to remember the intangibles.. the Inntagibles that everyones loves to talk about.. INTANGIBLES INTANGIBLES INTANGIBLES
I've always said that they were asking Ariza to do too much at the beginning of the season. Now that he's not expected to be the primary scorer, I think he'll fit into a supporter role quite well, and he'll be able to settle back into shooting those corner 3's.
Speaking of Ariza, is it just me or does Bill not like him? Seems to me that whenever Trevor makes a mistake Bill would point it out more often than when other players make mistakes.
pretty crappy for a guy making almost 7mil/year avg (6.8ish). if his 3pt% can rise to a respectable high 30s, maybe an even 40%, then he'd be worth it. trevor has no fundamental basketball skillset to be worth 7mil.
Bill was seeing what the rest of us were seeing, Ariza chucking up bad shots over and over. I can't say I blame him because I didn't like Ariza either in that role. However, having moved to a supporting role has majorly improved his overall play, like the Knicks game like where he was just an awesome all around player. One thing he is still not is a good on the ball defender. He plays the lanes well but Battier is a million times better the on ball defender than Ariza is and he shoots a slightly higher % of his 3s than Ariza, even in a down year for him. Otherwise, he is FINALLY starting to play the role he is supposed to. Go to guy was NOT it and never ever will be. I would still prefer him to come off the bench as well when Yao comes back since Shane will be plodding along with Yao. However, I won't mind it as much now. Trevor, remains at best, a good role player that would be excellent off the bench, serviceable as a starter as long as he doesn't chuck and hog the ball.
A small minority of us saw this coming since the season started, despite the board's hatred and call for him to be traded. I disagree with lee in that I don't think Ariza would be as good of a player as he is now if we started the season with Martin. Playing the SG, creating his own shot and shouldering the offensive load was good for Ariza. He's not good at it, but now he sure as hell feels a lot more comfortable scoring than he did before he came over. Now, if the shot clock is down, he'll be more comfortable having to create a shot than he would have been if he was never put into the scoring position before.
I'm just glad that we are assembling enough talent to HIDE Trevor Ariza's weaknesses. I still think we could have signed the same caliber player for half the money Ariza is making but at least he is contributing something other than bricks now.
LOL c'mon man get real...his salary is 5 million per. Half that is 2.5 million, name one player who's an above average defender who can do all the stuff trevor does (shoot the set 3, cut, dunk) and makes 2.5 million a year who was an FA last year? The only guy I could think of that is even remotely similar in skillset is Matt Barnes, and no way was he signing with us when he can sign with a contender (Magic). Not to mention Barnes is old, while Ariza is 25.
Here are his stats in the 9 games since Martin arrived... 32.36 mpg 11.8 PPG 6.2 RPG 4.3 APG 2.1 TO/G 1.78 SPG .89 BPG 2.1 PF/G 4.33 FGM/ 10.44 FGA for 41.5% FG% 1.56 3PA/ 4.56 3PM for 34.1% 3P% 1.56 FTM/ 2.11 FTA for 73.7% FT%
i love how his assists, rebounds, steals, and blocks are UP in less minutes. small sample size, but it's a good start.
I don't know how you can get a 15/5/4 young player who plays defense for 3-4 mil per year. Morey knows what he's doing.
You certainly have a way with numbers. Ariza makes $5.8, $6.3, and $6.8 the first 3 seasons of a 5 year deal. Unless I'm forgetting my fractions, that's not 7mil/yr. As for what he's worth, the luxury tax(which is basically the Rockets cap) is $70 mil this year. It'll go down next year, but let's say $65 mil. Rough estimate has Ariza making 1/11th to 1/10th of our roster payroll. Are you saying Ariza's play isn't even worth that much? Who did the Rockets pass on last FA that got you all pissed off about the Ariza signing? Gortat? But even he was a RFA who's offer got matched.
