He didn't start attempting 3's until this season, and he showed a great improvement over the course of the season. Come crunch time (playoffs), he shoot the ball at an even higher clip.
Ariza isn't worth $9 million. However, my point was, obviously you don't want to overpay for anyone. These asking prices are not what they expect to get. If my asking price to sell my car is $9000, I'm probably willing to take $8000 or less. I expect the guy to come offer me $7000, and meet in the middle. If Ariza gets that much money, I hope it's from the Lakers.
What these guys want and what they get are two entirely different thing. With so little money out there a MLE deal for him will be good. Seriously, We are talking about DET, POR, SAC, OKC and MEM with cap room. Maybe Toronto too. DET, OKC and MEM all have SF's. Toronto might re-sign Marion. That leaves Sac and us. If he goes to SAC he does not care about winning. If we do not want him then he signs for MLE somewhere or re-ups with the Lakers for MLE type money as there is no market for him and the Lakers will not bid against themselves. It will be like this for most free agents this year. There are few buyers.
Yes, but if we aren't overpaying Ariza, he'll end up back with the Lakers. We offer 7 million/year, Lakers offer 7million/year. Who is he going to choose? That's how I see it anyways.
His agent might tell the Lakers he's getting offers from Portland in the $8 million range and see if they call his bluff. These agents are sneaky.
My feeling is that the Blazers are after a PG, not a SF. At least I hope so. If we wanted a SF, we could've just traded Batum for Gerald Wallace. Offseason priorities: PG, backup PF, SF.
He was very hot from downtown in the playoffs, but over the course of the season, only shot 32%; his worse shooting month being in April, when he shot 19%. But anyway, I guess he's not a horrible shooter...
You're right about April, I excluded that because the sample size was so short. I also excluded the 80% in shot in October for the same reason. Jan - 34.8% Feb - 34.4% Mar - 34.8% In 23 playoff games, he shot 47.6% on 84 attempts (that's a lot for the playoffs).
