Paying a guy $7,000,000+ a year as insurance in case someone gets hurt seems like a very irresponsible way to use up valuable cap space.
Thank you! I only watched about 30 Laker games this year, but I knew I had seen Ariza do plenty off the dribble and in traffic. How much have you seen of Batum? Do you feel the are similar players?
Batum Ive seen probably 10-15 games...I said earlier in the season when this same argument came up that Ariza>Batum by a lot but then of course Ariza sucks ass in most of the games vs POR and I get shitted on..lol, oh well. I like what Ive seen of Batum but I think Ariza is obviously better now and has much room for improvment with his work ethic and the fact that this was his first full season getting decent minutes in the NBA. Couple of foot injuries and coaches decisions have held him back previously.
That sounds like plenty of games actually. Ariza is a nice Slasher, his three point shooting has taken an exponential increase and I think he would do well with you guys. I only get upset with his mid range game which he still needs to work on (2 point Jumpers still look ugly), but he still has potential and has only recently got playing time (Luke and Vlad started for us the majority of the regular season). He still needs to improve that dribble-drive a bit and he struggles against the beefier SFs in the league. He's very explosive though and you'll trust him defensively; he's not a lock down defender but he's getting there. He doesn't force the issue and picks his spots so he won't be averaging 15-20 PPG yet. He doesn't have much of a post game. Lastly he struggled with a foot injury last year so all he did was take jumpshots with one of our assistants at practice and it seems that has paid off. Batum appears like a guy with tons of potential, I do see similarities but I haven't become as familiar with him as other Blazer players. I can't say too much about him but I think he'll be solid enough for Portland if they don't want to waste ~7 million on Trevor.
No my philosophy is to get a vet to come in and play the bulk of the minutes so in 2 years the position is all Batum's. If we bring in a younger player, both he and Batum will want starters minutes in the future and both will be peaking at the same time, we'd have to get rid of one, so bringing one in now would be redundant.
You said it yourself that Cleveland was paying Varejao around 6 last year. And until this year he was the backup PF for them. He isn't even guaranteed to get 7 million, I don't know why you keep throwing that number out there. You keep making it sound like that is my first option when I've clearly stated I'd rather us target Hedo or Artest or Miller first. Varejao is more like a last option, personally I'd rather us address PF in the draft. I've watched enough Laker games to know that Ariza's ability to create a shot is minimalistic. He doesn't have a great handle to get by his man and he's not great at shooting off the dribble. I'd put his shot creating abilities on par with Outlaw's. Ariza just brings to the table more stuff that we already have. It's a poor waste of cap space for someone that brings redundancy. One thing Ariza does do well however, is finish around the rim. Ranking second among small forwards in free-throw rate, eighth in rebound rate, and fourth in field-goal percentage. He shot 67.1 percent in the immediate basket area last year and 61.3 percent the year before, so clearly he can finish at the rim. But he's been in the league for five years, there's not a lot of evidence showing that he's going to be anything more than an NBA journeymen.
He did take 191 threes in the regular season and only made 31% (61) of them. Batum shot almost as many at 168 and actually made one more (62) while shooting 37% so I would say Batum has proven he is a better three point shooter, even though he is 5 years younger.
Why would you trade for a SF? you already have a good fit in Outlaw... he was just injured last season. Leave Ariza to us ^^
easy, trade Joel for another position of need. Certainly he'd be a very valuable chip on the market and Portland would have three young frontcourt studs to split the 96. STOMP
I'll try to bump this thread when Varejao opts out and his agent says how much he wants. Then, we'll bump it again when we see what he actually gets. He was unhappy when he signed his current contract because he thought he was getting screwed, and he's more established now, than he was then, so I don't see him opting out and taking less money, do you? I use the 7 million figure because it's slightly more than what he's making now and still within the range of what we can offer him, which is way too much. The Laker fans who have contributed to this thread (thank you by the way), all seem to think he is a much better offensive player than you are giving him credit for. If we're looking for statistical evidence to forecast his ccareer, then we should do the same for Batum. His numbers we not off the charts either. In fact, Ariza's rookie numbers are as good if not better than Batum's. I'm really surprised that he doesn't pass the eye ball test to more Blazer fans. I know most people overrate their own players, but I wouldn't think it would be this bad.
You are hallucinating. Buss is ALREADY going to pay. What you mean when you say "Buss will pay" (to keep both Odom and Ariza) is that "Buss will pay even more and become one of the biggest luxury tax teams". That isn't going to happen. The monster extension to Bynum has sealed the fate of the Laker forward rotation. Unless both Odom and Ariza agree to split $10mil between them, one is gone.
Outlaw is only effective at the power forward position unfortunately. Otherwise, you would have a point. And I don't think he was injured at all. Maybe you are thinking of Webster?
