on the kings, artest took more shots than anyone else. he was their number one option. his play there in no way suggests that he'll be comfortable in a lesser offensive role. in houston, artest was horrible until tmac went down. he didn't actually start making an impact until tmac finally sat out and artest was able to become more of a scoring option. again, in no way did his play with the rockets suggest that he would be comfortable as a lesser option. if anything, it did the exact opposite of that. if we go back to indiana, artest was the 2nd option there behind jermaine oneal on a very good team and artest still felt that he should be getting more shots. that doesn't suggest he'd be comfortable being a lesser option. we have to go all the way back to his first years in the league in chicago to find a time when artest wasn't a top option on his team. and even then, it's arguable that he was the 2nd option on those god awful bulls teams. he wasn't very effective offensively there, but no reason to hold his first couple of years against him at this point. there really isn't a time in artest's career to this point where he's shown that he can be successful as a 3rd or 4th option on a team. all of his success and all of his best play has come when he was the 1st or 2nd option.
The real difference I see between Ron and Trevor is that Ariza fouls you from behind, and Artest will just walk right up and smack you in the face. Both are equally good at playing it of as someone's head running into their fist, so that is sort of a wash. Any good Artest brings in the near future will be overshadowed in the long run by the cancer he brings to the locker room.
Ariza as a starter would average close to 11-13 shots a game, not a huge difference and Ron handled the ball less in Sac. Combined with his teammates in Sacramento taking pressure off him from outside, he played better. Defenses will play softer on him in LA.
so artest's teammates on the 44 win(he was there for half the season), 34 win, and 38 win kings teams took all the pressure off of him but his teammates on the 53 win rockets team didn't take any pressure off of him? not to mention the best teammate artest has ever played with was on the rockets. also, artest's usage rate on the rockets this season was 22.7(numbers from the hollinger stats page on espn). his usage rates for his two full years on the kings were 23.5 and 21.3. and trevor ariza as a starter in the regular season averaged 8.4 shot attempts per game. in the playoffs he averaged 8 shot attempts per game. artest averaged 15 shot attempts per game in the regular season and 15.6 shot attempts in the playoffs.
Yes on the perimeter Artest's responsibilities lessened. It doesn't matter though because he isn't in Sac or Houston. Kevin Martin and Bibby handled the ball more than a broken down T-Mac. Ariza was not a "starter" our entire season, he was a backup most of the year. Once he becomes a starter for a comparable amount of minutes as Artest, he should be taking 11-13 shots. Especially when he'll need to score more instead of playing off other people. Artest is also a better passer and handler than Ariza.
