Artest/Ariza comparison.

so i have noticed that there have been a few posts here and there comparing artest/ariza and the + & - they bring to their new teams and their old teams. well like they say youth does have its advantages. lol ariza is young, athletic and hasnt reached his peak yet and looks to be promising but we all know looks can be decieving in the NBA with players. In my eyes ariza and artest play way different from eachother and heres why i think that...

Ariza seems more like a points off turnovers type guy. if he's not having a good defensive game he's not going to produce the points that you want him to. a lot of his points also came from fast breaks off steals and rebounds as well as wide open 3's. im not taking away anything from his game but thats his style of play. of course he's athletic and he has shown he can take the ball to the rim but what we saw on the lakers was a guy who thrived off turnovers. who knows...he might show another part of his game on the rockets mainly because he might have to with yao and tmac gone during the season. the rockets might make ariza there go to guy. ariza is a talented player and i loved him on the lakers so im not here to give any negatives about either of the guys. just stating me overviews on them.

As far as Artest goes....haha well artest will be artest. Artest brings a whole new meaning to defense in my opinion. he plays very aggresive and ruggid. he can shoot off the dribble or pound his man down low depending on how he wants to score. i love artest's game and right now in my opinion he's the better player. ariza is the future, artest is the present and right now we are focusing on the present because of our window of opportunity with kobe.

what im trying to prove is that its real hard to compare the 2 when there style of play is different and considering the fact that artest is older and more experienced. but nevertheless there both phenomonel players and very talented. ive noticed people have brought up statistics. like i said on another post...ariza looks better percentage wise because he had scoring threats around him who demanded double teams(kobe and pau,bynum prior to injury) and that left him open alot. For artest he was pretty much their go to guy on the rockets because of the injuries they had. he was forced to score and had to throw up alot of contested shots which can make your percentage low. im sure artest is relieved now and will most likely have alot of open shots to make. so as far as percentages go lets try to leave that for the ignorant media to talk about but i wish them both great seasons and lets see what happens. im hoping to read your guys' opinions...thank you

Aria is a help defender, who really don't have a good go to move to get his own shot. There were time when they had to put kobe on aria man, like melo. Even been older artest can hit the three, and post up or take his man off the dribble. And most of all he is a one on one guy, which beside kobe it been a long time since the lakers had one.

In my opinion there is no comparison! Although I do love Ariza and went to the same high school as him. Artest is all star quality while Ariza still has to prove that! Artest is a better defender and a much better offensive player. Artest was defensive player of the year a few years ago! Ariza is younger and is great at D, but will have to prove himself in Houston. Ariza could get the 3 pt. shot with Kobe trippled teamed, but with Yao and TMac out, he will have to try and create offence himself. Once again I do love Trevor and think he will have a long life in the NBA and maybe one day like Fish come home, but no comparison to a ring hungry Artest. Celtics won't punk us now!!!

I think that Artest brings toughness and an attitude on defense that the lakers really haven’t had. The team will benefit from his defense much like what Garnett did to the Celtics. Artest will make sure they play every possession on defense. Like Artest has said in interviews the lakers last year fell asleep sometimes on both ends of the floor.

Artest is a dominant post up player and if hes down on the block can overpower most defenders. He can create and get his own shot better than ariza.

I believe the only upside Ariza have aside from his long arms is his age....I hope Artest still have enough in his tank to help us take it all the way to the finals and repeat...

artest will be able to guard the bigger 3s in the league such as melo, pierce, and lebron which ariza simply couldn't..we saw this in the denver series where ariza couldn't guard melo because he was getting overpowered and kobe was forced to switch onto Melo which cost kobe alot of energy

The only thing I'm worrying about is...well, Artest isn't really all that fast and...IF WE'RE GOING TO SIGN ODOM OR NOT! Well...we'll find out tomorrow...oops! Sorry, I got off topic there...my bad. But yeah, I agree with weezy1, Artest can do a ton of things on defense that Ariza couldn't do, ranging from guarding bigger SF's, to creating off the dribble. Artest will help us a lot more than Ariza would, unless Ariza was thinking of getting more bulkier and trying to be Artiza.

why would we want another player to create his own shot.... i want a guy that hits clutch buckets.. i dont want another guy that demands the ball..

Artest, due to his suspension, has really logged a lot less mileage than his age would suggest. I am not worried about RonRon. The only player on the Lakers squad that can be a stud or a dud is Bynum.

Based on this past performance, I would rest him for the whole month of January!

Joking aside, if he comes through and stays healthy, this is a team for the ages.

It's re-peat time!

Why settle for a one year experienced player like Ariza when you can have a seasoned vet with stats to prove it. Ariza may be great or this year he may not perform as well as he did last year. The FO made the only choice that they could. Experience vs. youth.