Daryl Morey is a god. He can do no wrong. I love trading Trevor Ariza for Courtney Lee. We shed roughly 20 million dollars and solidified a need position. I never really accepted Ariza because he still had the Laker stench on him, so I’m fine letting him go. Also, I’m a big percentages guy, and his 39% FG was not cutting it. As for Courtney Lee, he adds improved defense and playoff experience for a team that desperately needs it. Aaron Brooks, Kyle Lowry, and Kevin Martin are too small and weak to defend big, athletic guards.
Moving Ariza opens up a space for Chase Budinger, who showed some good potential last year. Also, Shane Battier makes more sense in the starting lineup. We don’t have a lot of shots to distribute after Aaron Brooks, Kevin Martin, and Yao Ming. Battier can sit back, play great defense, and make some clutch threes. He is smart enough to know not to jack up 14 shots a game like Ariza did last year. I really like our second string lineup now. It is well defined whereas before there was going to be more jockeying for position, which could lead to some dissension.
Kyle Lowry
Courtney Lee
Chase Budinger
Patrick Patterson
Brad Miller
That’s going to be a really fun unit to watch. They’re going to be sick at running the fastbreak. I didn’t think I could get any more excited about the upcoming Rockets season, but this Ariza trade raises my excitement to another level.
I do have to admit that a lot of those ideas came from Jeremy in a conversation we had earlier.
ReplyDeleteAriza sucks. y'all were fools to make that trade in the first place, and you traded the NBA finals closing game MVP, and arguably the 3rd most valuable player in the entire series. Artest is an amazing defender and solid player who somehow manages to be very solid offensively despite one of the ugliest jump shots you'll see. Glad to see you get rid of him. That said, Lee isn't much to brag about and while he's a "bigger" guard y'all still need to have a bigger team. We all know Yao will never play a full season again or be the MVP candidate he should, and until you add size you won't compete with the best in the west. I like the Mavs/Nuggs as both a distant second to the Lakes in the west, but it's still gonna end up Lakes vs. Celts/Heat most likely.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested to know what y'all think ab Bosh/LeBron/Wade on the same team. I see lots of potential, but am incredibly skeptical of LeBron and Dwayne's ability to play together successfully and gel since they both have spent their entire career as the star of a team where they had the ball in every clutch situation and were expected to drive/pull up. My early take? Phil ALWAYS wins the 3rd in a row- Lakes over Celtics in 6.
in other news, I may be a biased Yankees fan but the Rays are the most balanced/talented team I've seen in quite some time... I will be shocked if they don't take us down to the wire for the AL east title, and honestly with our lack of consistency from the rotation outside of CC/sometimes Phil, I would post the Rays as the favorite to win it all right now. The NL just isn't as deep, and while the Padres may seemingly win EVERY GAME where they have a lead going into the 7th, they have to get that lead first, and the Yanks/Rays have offenses that put up crazy numbers. thoughts?
haha thanks for the shoutout David. Yes, I agree this trade was a win for us, albeit not a huge win. I personally believe that Ariza is a better talent than Lee and will end up having a nice season in New Orleans as the third option. His failures mainly stemmed from the fact that we asked him to try and be our first option for the first half of the season (thank you Aaron Brooks for stepping up- Ariza trying to create for himself off the dribble is an ugly sight).
ReplyDeleteI like this trade, as David wrote, because it rounds out the team nicely. I think the Rockets biggest challenge this season will be to allocate minutes fairly to the roster, given our depth. Brooks, Martin, Battier, Scola, and Yao (towards the end of the year) all deserve starters minutes. Meanwhile Lowry, Lee, Budinger, Hill, Patterson, Miller, Jeffries, etc. are all serviceable players who are deserving of playing time. Good luck Rick Adelman. The Lee trade, however, makes his job easier. Also, before the trade we lacked anyone who could guard a guy like Deron Williams or Chauncey Billups; now we have a shot against teams like the Jazz and Nuggets.