Trevor Ariza Will Make Lakers Pay One Way Or The Other

This free agency is beginning to look grim for teams that were hoping to keep their players at a reasonable price.

News came out yesterday that Trevor Ariza is the latest free agent planning to leave his home team after the "insulting" offer they made which, according to reports, was a multi-year deal at the full mid-level exception.

Now, granted that exaggeration always plays a role in the art of negotiation, but one should consider the question: would the Lakers have won a championship this year without Ariza?

Actually, I'm wrong.

The more pertinent question in this case is actually: who was the Lakers' third best player in the playoffs—Ariza or Lamar Odom?

My answer would be Ariza.

He made game-saving plays in the playoffs on several occasions. He made open shots on a consistent basis when teams were giving too much attention to Gasol and Bryant. He actually played better on the court with Kobe Bryant than Lamar Odom. He generally guarded the other team's best offensive player to allow Kobe to reserve his energy on offense. 

And simply, from a free agent standpoint, he is only in his early 20s, while Lamar Odom is about to enter his 30s.

Why Odom is such an important factor in this equation is because he too is a free agent. And it seems as though the Lakers have decided to make Odom the higher priority of the two forwards.

When you compare the numbers between the two players, it's hard to fault the Lakers for going that route. Odom is the better player, even though he is not as consistent as Ariza.

The problem, however, is that Ariza was really the player that did all the dirty work for the Lakers.

He knew he was underpaid last year and he probably wants a little bit more this year to make up for that.

It's understandable.

But amidst this ongoing negotiation, the Lakers may want to think about their cross-conference rival, the Celtics, and consider how losing James Posey hurt Boston's championship aspirations.

Meanwhile, Ariza's people have already gone on record as saying that they will take a full mid-level exception from another team rather than feel low-balled by the Lakers.

Getting away from sides here, let's look objectively at why the Lakers should value Ariza.

He is the guy that generally takes on the most difficult defensive matchups. He has built a reputation on making key plays to not only keep momentum on his team's side, but also save games. And he often has to swallow his pride because dirty work players generally do not get much acclaim from the fans and media at the end of the day.

But the one place they should get it is from their home team's front office.

And unfortunately, from the Lakers' standpoint, that is looking more and more not to be the case.