Lakers better off with Artest or Ariza?

rogeber · Post #1 » by **rogeber** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 2:49 pm

Thought I'd pass this around for anyone who's interested. Using per-48-minutes numbers, it really seems like the Artest/Ariza swap is a wash statistically. Here's the article, with charts: http://howtowatchsports.com/2009/08/if-it-aint-broke-the-lakers-offseason-moves-in-spider-graphs/

Luckily Artest is an intangibles machine, and his stats don't do him much justice. He makes the Lakers a scarier team to play, if nothing else.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm the author of the article... I'd love to hear comments on how the charts can be improved.

Magicontinues · Post #2 » by **Magicontinues** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 3:15 pm

rogeber wrote:Thought I'd pass this around for anyone who's interested. Using per-48-minutes numbers, it really seems like the Artest/Ariza swap is a wash statistically. Here's the article, with charts: http://howtowatchsports.com/2009/08/if-it-aint-broke-the-lakers-offseason-moves-in-spider-graphs/

Luckily Artest is an intangibles machine, and his stats don't do him much justice. He makes the Lakers a scarier team to play, if nothing else.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm the author of the article... I'd love to hear comments on how the charts can be improved.

Seems like every sports writer from all the major newspapers, websites had a similar article.

lakersfanatic · Post #3 » by **lakersfanatic** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 3:32 pm

good analysis. We basically all knew it was kind of an even swap just that one is better than the other at certain things but i think most lauded on the age difference, Ariza will definitely be in the leaague a lot longer than Ron Ron. Ron Ron gives us that hard presence on offense and defense (he didn't get defense of the year that one time for nothing). Plus he can take more hard contacts then ariza can.

Good graphs, i like how they're not so different.

Dexmor · Post #4 » by **Dexmor** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 4:33 pm

lakersfanatic wrote:good analysis. We basically all knew it was kind of an even swap just that one is better than the other at certain things but i think most lauded on the age difference, Ariza will definitely be in the leaague a lot longer than Ron Ron. Ron Ron gives us that hard presence on offense and defense (he didn't get defense of the year that one time for nothing). Plus he can take more hard contacts then ariza can.

Good graphs, i like how they're not so different.

I completely disagre with it being a wash and even with Ariza being in the league longer. He has a really bad foot that will hinder him his whole career. That wasn't a 1 time thing.
Artest is way better on so many different levels. Ariza was a role player that looked better then he was playing off Kobe.
Artest is a top peremiter player. Ariza is soon to be an overpaid overhyped role player who got paid by playing with the right players.
Artest is a beast.

No comparison.

Post #5 » by **tkb** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 4:42 pm

I'll take Artest easily.

rogeber · Post #6 » by **rogeber** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 4:49 pm

Dexmor wrote:Ariza is soon to be an overpaid overhyped role player...

I think so too, but I don't think that would be the case if he stayed with the Lakers. He has the skill set to do really well in the triangle (though I guess Phil probably won't be around that much longer). I could see him carving out a long, productive career if he stayed in LA, but now it's hard to think he won't be the next Tyronn Lue.

Dexmor · Post #7 » by **Dexmor** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 5:01 pm

Seriously he is obviously a utility player. I mean a good one yeah but not a guy who you can give the ball to and get out of his way. Whats he gonna do now to with nobody to play off of. I predict they trade him before the end of the year.

microfib4thewin · Post #8 » by **microfib4thewin** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 5:18 pm

Ariza will not shoot anywhere close to the way he did in the playoffs. I think replacing Ariza with Artest has a bigger chance to backfire, but if it does work out it won't be just a couple more wins like some have predicted.

Dexmor · Post #9 » by **Dexmor** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 5:45 pm

A couple more wins? Hell no. This is huge. People don't see it?

1.Kobe doesn't have to guard other teams best player

2.We have yet another playmaker out there.

3.Another go to scorer on the post

4.Another go to scorer in the paint

5.Another player that can play 3 positions.

6.A player who can guard 4 positions

7.Makes us go from a team were the sf and sg can basically double Kobe all day to were you almost have no choice but to play him 1 on 1 or at least you can't move your 3 to help on him

8.Gives the Lakers another allstar to make up for the fact that other teams got allstar caliber players.

9.Ariza did this good playing off Kobe so what will a legit top 5 sf do?

10.Do I really need a 10th? I can probably get to 30 if I wanted to.

YiYaoYue · Post #10 » by **YiYaoYue** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 5:52 pm

The biggest difference between Artest and Ariza:

STRENGTH. Artest is much much stronger than Ariza. That makes a huge difference in guarding ability against those strong SFs like Lebron, Melo, Pierce, Lewis, R Jefferson (all the major contenders). And from those charts you can see that there isn't much of a drop off in the other stats. So basically Artest is a stronger version of Ariza but older.

Dexmor · Post #11 » by **Dexmor** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 6:03 pm

YiYaoYue wrote:The biggest difference between Artest and Ariza:

STRENGTH. Artest is much much stronger than Ariza. That makes a huge difference in guarding ability against those strong SFs like Lebron, Melo, Pierce, Lewis, R Jefferson (all the major contenders). And from those charts you can see that there isn't much of a drop off in the other stats. So basically Artest is a stronger version of Ariza but older.

He is alot more then that though. He is like a poor mans Lebron though. He can bring the ball up and make plays. He is good at every aspect of the game and defensive all around D is his speciality. Ariza was just a role player. You can make an arguement Artest is just as good as any of those sf's besides maybe Lebron and probably Melo (although Artest plays on both ends) and Ariza is clearly not close to any of there leagues.

The Skyhook · Post #12 » by **The Skyhook** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 6:07 pm

One of the good things about the signing is that the Lakers don't need to face Artest anymore. We all know how Ron Artest can be so not having to worry about him as an opponent is good. The thing is that its not like we always had to deal with Artest. Guess what?!?! We do now because he is a part of this team. So whatever Ron Artest is doing all season long is effecting the Lakers opposed to being effected by whatever he did only when we faced him.

If Artest takes ill advised shots that will hurt us. If he starts to rack up technical fouls that will hurt us as well. A really bad thing would be if he pissed off the refs and they decide to favor the other team. With Ariza we would really never have such an issue. Maybe he will take less shots this season and when he does take a shot it will be good look because of the attention on Kobe and everyone else. If he can keep his cool that will also be a big plus.

Dexmor · Post #13 » by **Dexmor** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 6:11 pm

nastneemz81 wrote:One of the good things about the signing is that the Lakers don't need to face Artest anymore. We all know how Ron Artest can be so not having to worry about him as an opponent is good. The thing is that its not like we always had to deal with Artest. Guess what?!?! We do now because he is a part of this team. So whatever Ron Artest is doing all season long is effecting the Lakers opposed to being effected by whatever he did only when we faced him.

If Artest takes ill advised shots that will hurt us. If he starts to rack up technical fouls that will hurt us as well. A really bad thing would be if he pissed off the refs and they decide to favor the other team. With Ariza we would really never have such an issue. Maybe he will take less shots this season and when he does take a shot it will be good look because of the attention on Kobe and everyone else. If he can keep his cool that will also be a big plus.

We really needed toughness though. Kobe is tough as nails but nobody else really is. With Kobe and Ron it changes the whole team. We become very tough.
He's seems to have matured alot anyway. He's not wearing a wedding dress or working at Circuit City.

The Skyhook · Post #14 » by **The Skyhook** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 6:41 pm

Dexmor wrote:
nastneemz81 wrote:One of the good things about the signing is that the Lakers don't need to face Artest anymore. We all know how Ron Artest can be so not having to worry about him as an opponent is good. The thing is that its not like we always had to deal with Artest. Guess what?!?! We do now because he is a part of this team. So whatever Ron Artest is doing all season long is effecting the Lakers opposed to being effected by whatever he did only when we faced him.

If Artest takes ill advised shots that will hurt us. If he starts to rack up technical fouls that will hurt us as well. A really bad thing would be if he pissed off the refs and they decide to favor the other team. With Ariza we would really never have such an issue. Maybe he will take less shots this season and when he does take a shot it will be good look because of the attention on Kobe and everyone else. If he can keep his cool that will also be a big plus.

We really needed toughness though. Kobe is tough as nails but nobody else really is. With Kobe and Ron it changes the whole team. We become very tough.
He's seems to have matured alot anyway. He's not wearing a wedding dress or working at Circuit City.

We don't need anymore toughness. This Lakers team changed and nobody really questioned its toughness last season. After the embarrassing loss to Boston in the FInals the Lakers changed. If this team needs anything its focus because so many times this team has lacked focus. Blowing big leads isn't about a lack of toughness. This Lakers team is so talented that they just coast most of the time and lose focus. If they had that focus and the guys outside of Kobe would have a killer instinct then we would be destroying teams with the talent that this team has. I hate when the Lakers don't win by a blow out against a scrub team. They are capable of it. They opened up last season destroying teams and then just stopped. Ron Ron has a whole ton of toughness but I wish instead of that great amount of toughness it would be a great amount of focus that he would bring for this team.

LAKESHOW · Post #15 » by **LAKESHOW** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 6:48 pm

this is a tough one

Dexmor · Post #16 » by **Dexmor** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 6:50 pm

Im not sure that is entirely true. We didn't go from soft to hard overnight. Our Defense became pretty damm good overnight in the playoffs I know that but who on the team besides Kobe and FIsher really tough? Bynum? Please. Gasol? Skillful, Awesome, and improving on it but will never be a tough guy. Odom? He isn't soft like candy that he loves but he isn't exactly an enforcer.

We didn't have an enforcer at all. Now we do. Our wing players are 3 tough guys. I consider Fisher tough. Don't know if you all do to.

LAKESHOW · Post #17 » by **LAKESHOW** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 6:52 pm

but chemistry wise i'll go with ariza. it is going to take some time for artest to blend in and know his role and hit his spots. thats an advantage with ariza. he picked his spots and when given the opportunity, canned 'em. not searching, but filled in perfectly.

artest does not know his role as of yet. and he can get into shooting a shot just because its there without getting into the flow of the triangle.

so chemistry of course, ariza.

but interior strength. toughness on the inside. pound your defender on a hard and consistent basis with his relentless attack. we do need that, and that is artests advantage that he brings over ariza. with ariza, we were very very weak on the interior. add bynum fouling out every 3 minutes it was a mess. but we get STRONGER with artest.

we just need him to get the chemistry part and can a shot within the flow of the scheme of offense.

Dexmor · Post #18 » by **Dexmor** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 6:57 pm

I can't imagine MRS. Ariza (treva's mother) picking Ariza.

Artest is better then him and it's not even close.

Post #19 » by **Kilroy** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 7:05 pm

TBD....

Artest is better for us on paper though. He just needs to buy into our system and locker room dynamic... If he doesn't, it's probably bad news for us...

Dexmor · Post #20 » by **Dexmor** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 7:07 pm

Kilroy wrote:TBD....

Artest is better for us on paper though. He just needs to buy into our system and locker room dynamic... If he doesn't, it's probably bad news for us...

You guys are making him out to be worse then what he is or at least worry to much. He will be fine. He has wanted to play with Kobe/Odom his whole career. He's not gonna mess this up. He's got Phil as well.