The Trevor Ariza Situation

—and like those Grizzlies, Houston will suck. This is not a knock against Ariza—most of the players in the league are or would be useless on bad teams.

Ariza excels in that he possesses the kind of intangibles that can help a team on the very verge become a champion, even more so than most other role players do. But he is simply not someone who will guarantee you a ring, if there is such an entity, or bring you a great deal closer by himself, so you don't have to kill yourself to make sure he goes or stays. Role players are generally interchangeable, even those of the highest order, like the talented Ariza. Instead of paying them more than they are worth, you can just sort their minutes out in a different way and/or or add someone else who can contribute roughly the same in overall quality. I understand that sometimes you need what you need and not something else, but no team is perfect, anyway.

What the Lakers will get is Artest, who can no longer guard quick guys off the dribble like Ariza could, but is a big, burly son of a gun who won't get thrown around by the Carmelo's of the world, like our lithe wings were in the conference finals this year. If there is anyone who can tame Artest's suspect shot selection and ego on offense and get him to become the player of his destiny it is Phil Jackson, in what will be the last great test of his career. If the Zenmaster can pull it off, if he can confine Artest within the boundaries of the triangle, L.A.'s ceiling becomes higher than it was with Ariza. Of course those are "if's" that will have to be paid great attention to, while we already knew what we had in Ariza. But I suspect that with teams like San Antonio armoring up this summer, in preparation for the ultimate battle, the Lakers may have needed to do some beefing up, too.

They have, and now we'll just have to wait and see what happens. With all of it.

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