RealGM

I made this thread on Clutchfans but I figured I might as well make one here too. I think at least Moofs would enjoy this .

I'm a very big stats nerd and rarely make any threads but I felt compelled to share my thoughts on our latest acquisition. My analysis is based on his 08-09 stats.

The Basics:

Per 36 stats:

13.1 points, 6.3 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 2.5 steals, 1.6 turnovers

Pace-adjusted stats:

15.5 PER, .544 TS%, 10 Reb%, 10.4 Ast%, 3.5 Stl%, 0.9 Blk%, 11.5 To%, 16.7 Usg%

Overall, Ariza is a good efficiency, average usage guy. He rarely turns the ball over, shoots okay, and doesn't use a whole lot of possessions. He's not much of a rebounder for his size, not much of a play-maker. He did however, shoot exceptionally well in the play-offs (61 TS%) while turning the ball over a bit more, which makes sense because he was playing the best defenses (including our own). So the above stats are what I like to call the "results" stats: they show what his contribution on offense aggregates to. To me, they are not very useful unless you understand how he arrives at those numbers. Let's break down his offense and see how he arrives here.

Offense:

Ariza has a healthy mix of inside outside game. He shoots 56% as outside jumpers (.420 eFG%) and 44% (.625 eFG%) inside. He does not shoot a whole lot of threes and hits about 31% when he does. 78% of his jumpers were assisted which indicates that he's a catch and shooter. However, only 44% of his inside shots are assisted: he drives to the hoop and makes a good amount of them as his percentages show(!). When he drives, his shots are rarely blocked (15%) and he draws a fair amount of fouls (11.7%). Again, he's not a passer, he's either going to shoot or drive (think Wafer with more driving). Overall, he's a very competent offensive player and comparing him to Artest, he provides better efficiency but lower possessions. One would assume his usage rate will go up to the low 20's as he'll have a bigger role on this team. Let's hope that his efficiency holds up.

Defense:

To me, defense is Ariza's absolute calling card. He's simply a defensive stud. To demonstrate, he had only .3 less defensive win shares than Artest while playing 457 minutes less. He creates a ton of turnovers using his long arms (steals 3.5% of possessions, deflections) and he does it by reading the passing lanes not gambling on the ball, as evidenced by his crucial steals against the Nuggets. He has a solid DRtg of 102, the lowest on a very good defensive team, tied with another solid defender, Lamar Odom. The Lakers hold their opponents to .6 less points per 100 possessions when Ariza is on the court. This number is actually pretty impressive considering the guys he's replacing are great defenders (Odom, Bryant). His length gives opposing players a difficult time to drive around and he does a solid job of funneling his man to help defenders.

Conclusion:

Overall, I think Ariza will seamlessly fit into our system with his defense and above average offense. I think he's already as good of a defender as Artest and we can groom him to eventually replace Battier. If he could improve his passing and ball handling, therefore increasing his usage rate in the 20's (there's plenty of reason to believe he'll improve, he just turned 24 and his turnover rate has been going down every year), he could be great on offense as well. I personally don't think the guy is a bargain at the MLE and Morey made the right choice, getting a younger guy whose production pretty much equals Artest's for the same price.

References: http://www.basketball-reference.com and http://www.82games.com

To be honest, I thought this was bad signing by the Rockets. You guys should have signed a scorer instead of Ariza.

Ariza is a role player which means he needs stars to thrive. All of his open shots were created by Kobe. Once he leaves LA, he'll get exposed as a guy who can't create his own offense, a shaky jumpshooter, average rebounder. You guys will like his defense but will he be as motivated to play defense for a team that might not make the playoffs, let alone win a championship? I have to think that Ariza signed with you guys to get a bigger role which means he'll try to buff up his offense rather than defense.

I am happy that Ariza got paid though. He's a good kid who's very humble. Just don't expect anything more than a role player or you'll hate him.

Patterns wrote:To be honest, I thought this was bad signing by the Rockets. You guys should have signed a scorer instead of Ariza.

Ariza is a role player which means he needs stars to thrive. All of his open shots were created by Kobe. Once he leaves LA, he'll get exposed as a guy who can't create his own offense, a shaky jumpshooter, average rebounder. You guys will like his defense but will he be as motivated to play defense for a team that might not make the playoffs, let alone win a championship? I have to think that Ariza signed with you guys to get a bigger role which means he'll try to buff up his offense rather than defense.

I am happy that Ariza got paid though. He's a good kid who's very humble. Just don't expect anything more than a role player or you'll hate him.

you don't get a star player with MLE. MLE can only get you a good role player which is what Ariza is and he is young enough with some upside. The rockets drafted 2 recruits (JT and Chase)with some offensive talents. Hopefully they can contribute.

Patterns wrote:To be honest, I thought this was bad signing by the Rockets. You guys should have signed a scorer instead of Ariza.

Ariza is a role player which means he needs stars to thrive. All of his open shots were created by Kobe. Once he leaves LA, he'll get exposed as a guy who can't create his own offense, a shaky jumpshooter, average rebounder. You guys will like his defense but will he be as motivated to play defense for a team that might not make the playoffs, let alone win a championship? I have to think that Ariza signed with you guys to get a bigger role which means he'll try to buff up his offense rather than defense.

I am happy that Ariza got paid though. He's a good kid who's very humble. Just don't expect anything more than a role player or you'll hate him.

I agree, Ariza would be a MUCH better fit on the Lakers than Artest would be, while Artest is a better fit on our team compared to Ariza. But considering we're likely going with a more youth movement, signing Ariza makes sense as he becomes our future Battier type player, and even allows Battier to be expendable at the moment.

Patterns wrote:To be honest, I thought this was bad signing by the Rockets. You guys should have signed a scorer instead of Ariza.

Ariza is a role player which means he needs stars to thrive. All of his open shots were created by Kobe. Once he leaves LA, he'll get exposed as a guy who can't create his own offense, a shaky jumpshooter, average rebounder. You guys will like his defense but will he be as motivated to play defense for a team that might not make the playoffs, let alone win a championship? I have to think that Ariza signed with you guys to get a bigger role which means he'll try to buff up his offense rather than defense.

I am happy that Ariza got paid though. He's a good kid who's very humble. Just don't expect anything more than a role player or you'll hate him.

Which scorer? There isn't one player in the pool that can put this team in a competitive spot. Morey signed a player with our only available offer: the MLE. What more could he have done? Plus, I don't think anyone expects him to be a star - at least not at this stage in his career. We got him because he's a glue guy capable of doing the little things: hitting open threes, defending, hustling for loose balls. We expect him to replicate these things just like when he did as a Laker.

This move wasn't about staying competitive in the upcoming season. Morey is looking beyond '09-'10 and he's trying to improve his roster for the future. We got a young talented player and perhaps the best available player for the MLE. Like many have already pointed out, he's Shane's replacement as this team seeks to get younger.

Given his limit, Morey did his absolute best.

Morey always has something up his sleeve. When we drafted Brooks lots of people were like okay that makes no sense but hes proven to be a solid contributor. He got Landry for nothing and look at the return on that investment. I'd say theres a good chance now that Battier will be used in a package to fetch us another player like Amare etc.

If your GM has something up the sleeve to trade for a star, then it'd be great. If he doesn't I feel like he shouldn't have signed Ariza at all.

kevC wrote:I made this thread on Clutchfans but I figured I might as well make one here too. I think at least Moofs would enjoy this .

I'm a very big stats nerd and rarely make any threads but I felt compelled to share my thoughts on our latest acquisition. My analysis is based on his 08-09 stats.

The Basics:

Per 36 stats:

13.1 points, 6.3 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 2.5 steals, 1.6 turnovers

Pace-adjusted stats:

15.5 PER, .544 TS%, 10 Reb%, 10.4 Ast%, 3.5 Stl%, 0.9 Blk%, 11.5 To%, 16.7 Usg%

Overall, Ariza is a good efficiency, average usage guy. He rarely turns the ball over, shoots okay, and doesn't use a whole lot of possessions. He's not much of a rebounder for his size, not much of a play-maker. He did however, shoot exceptionally well in the play-offs (61 TS%) while turning the ball over a bit more, which makes sense because he was playing the best defenses (including our own). So the above stats are what I like to call the "results" stats: they show what his contribution on offense aggregates to. To me, they are not very useful unless you understand how he arrives at those numbers. Let's break down his offense and see how he arrives here.

Offense:

Ariza has a healthy mix of inside outside game. He shoots 56% as outside jumpers (.420 eFG%) and 44% (.625 eFG%) inside. He does not shoot a whole lot of threes and hits about 31% when he does. 78% of his jumpers were assisted which indicates that he's a catch and shooter. However, only 44% of his inside shots are assisted: he drives to the hoop and makes a good amount of them as his percentages show(!). When he drives, his shots are rarely blocked (15%) and he draws a fair amount of fouls (11.7%). Again, he's not a passer, he's either going to shoot or drive (think Wafer with more driving). Overall, he's a very competent offensive player and comparing him to Artest, he provides better efficiency but lower possessions. One would assume his usage rate will go up to the low 20's as he'll have a bigger role on this team. Let's hope that his efficiency holds up.

Defense:

To me, defense is Ariza's absolute calling card. He's simply a defensive stud. To demonstrate, he had only .3 less defensive win shares than Artest while playing 457 minutes less. He creates a ton of turnovers using his long arms (steals 3.5% of possessions, deflections) and he does it by reading the passing lanes not gambling on the ball, as evidenced by his crucial steals against the Nuggets. He has a solid DRtg of 102, the lowest on a very good defensive team, tied with another solid defender, Lamar Odom. The Lakers hold their opponents to .6 less points per 100 possessions when Ariza is on the court. This number is actually pretty impressive considering the guys he's replacing are great defenders (Odom, Bryant). His length gives opposing players a difficult time to drive around and he does a solid job of funneling his man to help defenders.

Conclusion:

Overall, I think Ariza will seamlessly fit into our system with his defense and above average offense. I think he's already as good of a defender as Artest and we can groom him to eventually replace Battier. If he could improve his passing and ball handling, therefore increasing his usage rate in the 20's (there's plenty of reason to believe he'll improve, he just turned 24 and his turnover rate has been going down every year), he could be great on offense as well. I personally don't think the guy is a bargain at the MLE and Morey made the right choice, getting a younger guy whose production pretty much equals Artest's for the same price.

References: http://www.basketball-reference.com and http://www.82games.com

"To me, defense is Ariza's absolute calling card. He's simply a defensive stud."
-His on ball defense is subpar, while his off ball roaming "D" is very good. I would say he is an average defender at best. Carmelo ate him up in the WCF when Ariza checked him 1 on 1.

"He rarely turns the ball over"
-He did not handle the ball enough to make a sound judgement on this. I would however submit that hand size has a lot to do with ball control al la ball handling. When Phil Jackson was asked what separated Jordan from Kobe he essentially said that Jordan had much bigger hands allowing him to have better control over the ball. Ariza unfortunately has very small hands for his size. His turnover rate will vastly increase if he is forced to create offense for himself.

Your statistical analysis is impressive but I think you are missing the main factors that contributed to Ariza's numbers. A) He was able to roam in the shadows playing with such great players B) The triangle offense can benefit players who can hit the wide open shot. I hope I am wrong as I am an Ariza fan but I think he will be no more then a younger James Posey. But at a little more then 5 mill a year its not a bad signing.

Tzar wrote:Carmelo ate him up in the WCF when Ariza checked him 1 on 1.

Melo v Ariza

Yeah, and that equates to .405% from the field and .286 from distance. Must be one of those fans praising those exact numbers just a month ago. At least most Rocket fans have consistently bashed Artest's poor defense.

Patterns wrote:To be honest, I thought this was bad signing by the Rockets. You guys should have signed a scorer instead of Ariza.

Ariza is a role player which means he needs stars to thrive. All of his open shots were created by Kobe. Once he leaves LA, he'll get exposed as a guy who can't create his own offense, a shaky jumpshooter, average rebounder. You guys will like his defense but will he be as motivated to play defense for a team that might not make the playoffs, let alone win a championship? I have to think that Ariza signed with you guys to get a bigger role which means he'll try to buff up his offense rather than defense.

I am happy that Ariza got paid though. He's a good kid who's very humble. Just don't expect anything more than a role player or you'll hate him.

Thats what we are expecting of him to be a super role player.

without Yao and T-Mac we suck , with Ariza we have very good young role players , we will get high draft picks or we could still contend if Yao comes back and we cna trade T-Mac for someone good or just let him expire and try to go for a top free agent.

With Artest we are medicore , we won't win and we won't get high draft picks.

We are rebuilding but also still have the chance to be competitive if Yao and T-Mac make miracolous comeback.

I think the Rockets are looking at Ariza as being a glue player after this season when they sign their scorers in free agency. Ariza is still young so can be expected to still be productive and/or improve into a rebuild. But I think the Rockets and Ariza to a degree will struggle this season.

T-Mac United wrote:Which scorer? There isn't one player in the pool that can put this team in a competitive spot. Morey signed a player with our only available offer: the MLE. What more could he have done?

You know what he could have done that would have been better and also easier . . NOTHING. You don't just sign people for the sake of signing them. Or better yet, if you really need a player at that position then sign a role-player who makes considerably less. Role player swing-men are a dime a dozen, seemingly every year a couple who are earning the minimum or close to it come out of nowhere and perform. Ariza came out of nowhere, Barnes came out of nowhere, Gerald Wallace came out of nowhere, Bobby Simmons a couple of seasons ago just blew up out nowhere, last season the Nets picked up Jarvis Hayes cheap and he was productive with 8.7ppg & 3.6rpg. the list goes on and on (Rasual Butler, Roger Mason, Ronald Murray, etc. etc.).

Signings like this are why teams get in financial trouble down the road. If you are not contending, then it makes no sense to put up the money for a high dollar role player. What is the point? He's not going to make you into a contender and the few W's he does get you (if any) are just going to hurt your chances in the lottery.

eagles nut wrote:I think the Rockets are looking at Ariza as being a glue player after this season when they sign their scorers in free agency. Ariza is still young so can be expected to still be productive and/or improve into a rebuild. But I think the Rockets and Ariza to a degree will struggle this season.

See, I think that is a horrible approach. You should maximize your cap-room and get your star free agents first. Then you get your role players. Role Players are easy to get (for the MLE, LLE, Trade, in the draft, etc.). Look at the top teams like the Spurs, Lakers, and Cleveland. They're shuffling and acquiring role players every off-season. It's not hard to do after you have your star players in place. You start acquiring role players first and you end up with 17 million committed to players like Ariza, Battier, and Landry.

Oh, I don't know. I think that if the idea is to get a core of outstanding role players to help lure a star in '10 then adding Ariza makes sense. We've already got a very good core of role players that most teams would kill for, and with crazy pills departing that left a hole to fill; adding another good role player in his place makes good sense. Brooks, Scola, Landry, Battier, Ariza, Lowry - that's a group that by itself isn't going anywhere, but mixed with a couple of stars (who aren't broken) makes for some really strong glue.

Understand that yes - the wheels have come off. But we are not in total rebiulding mode right now; our stars have all vanished, and we are left with what? A very strong core of role players. It is far easier to land a star with cash and a good core of role guys than it is to have a star and build a solid team of role guys around him - that takes years and lots of trading and finagling to do. Thare's really not much rebuilding for Morey to do, we've just got to get replacements for our broken stars.

Personally, I hope we stop with the Ariza deal and take it on the chin next season. The core is there, the main attraction will come after next season.

We can't stop with Ariza. We need a C. Dorsey is working hard, but he's still a big maybe, and until he proves himself, we still need a legitimate C. If Yao comes back, it'll be in the 2nd half of the season, we can't just play Scola/Hayes at the C for half the season. And when Yao does come back, he has to have a decent backup. 7'6 guys just aren't made to play 35 mins a game. And if Yao doesn't come back,... well, a center rotation of Scola/Hayes/Dorsey isn't very attractive to stars.

I have a feeling Morey's got something up his sleeve to get us a legitimate big name.

Personally, I think Ariza is a Tayshun Prince potential, but in the end will be better than Battier offensively.

OP, nice post.

It could be a good thing for both HOU & LA. Kobe has about 3 good years left same as Ron's contract, Trevor for the next 10 years isn't as important as it is for the next 3 years as far as the LAL are concerned, on the other hand the Rockets are a younger team that needs pieces yet before they compete for the title, assuming Yao is out and TMac is gone.

TMACFORMVP wrote:

Patterns wrote:To be honest, I thought this was bad signing by the Rockets. You guys should have signed a scorer instead of Ariza.

Ariza is a role player which means he needs stars to thrive. All of his open shots were created by Kobe. Once he leaves LA, he'll get exposed as a guy who can't create his own offense, a shaky jumpshooter, average rebounder. You guys will like his defense but will he be as motivated to play defense for a team that might not make the playoffs, let alone win a championship? I have to think that Ariza signed with you guys to get a bigger role which means he'll try to buff up his offense rather than defense.

I am happy that Ariza got paid though. He's a good kid who's very humble. Just don't expect anything more than a role player or you'll hate him.

I agree, Ariza would be a MUCH better fit on the Lakers than Artest would be, while Artest is a better fit on our team compared to Ariza. But considering we're likely going with a more youth movement, signing Ariza makes sense as he becomes our future Battier type player, and even allows Battier to be expendable at the moment.

I am not sure if I am miss-reading that line, but if you mean what I think you mean you are in for a disappointing set of expectations from Ariza.

you have to give his cons more weight in a different team like the Rockets appear will be next year.

if you have a healthy Yao and a healthy Tmac then I can see Ariza making that kind of impact because he would not be a one, two, or three option in your team.

the reason why he did so well in the playoffs with the Lakers was because he usually was the second to last or the last option and was left wide open. he has trouble knocking down contested shots. he does not have good handles and can not create for himself or others unless he has a ton of space.

without Yao and Tmac he will be guarded closer and now has a reputation of being a 3 point threat which will not help his game. I think Battier is way better offensively in that regard and that is why I don't think Battier is expendable for now for you guys.

with that said, if Yao and Tmac are healthy then he would settle in a similar role he had with the Lakers and would probably be a better fit to your team than Artest (with the exeption of those games where Artest took over the games and got you the wins because Trevor by nature is a contributor not an Alpha male scorer). his speed, youth, ability to read the passing lanes, his secret weapon (he is now known for his high 3 point %, but his true calling is slashing to the basket), his sportsmanship and humbleness will be welcomed in Houston just don't expect him to become an All Star. good luck to Trevor in Houston.