Lakers Losing Ariza? No Problem Here Comes Ron Ron

After a very successful run to their 15th NBA championship the Lakers find themselves in a stronger position than ever. With the signing of the bruising bad boy Ron Artest the Lakers add a reliable scorer, a relentless ball hawk, and a player with the defensive toughness that is not easy to come by.

Unfortunately, by the looks of this addition the Lakers will most likely not bring back their late game thief Trevor Ariza. Ariza, in his time with the Lakers, improved his shooting accuracy drastically and came up with the some of the most amazing hustle plays I have ever witnessed. His defensive awareness also brought the Lakers a few key victories on their championship run.

There is definitely a difference in the way Ariza plays compared to Artest. Offensively, Trevor is a lanky slasher who is a decent shooter, when he can set his feet. Artest on the other hand is able to create his own shot by simply running through his defender. Defensively, these two ball hawks are very different as well. Artest depends on physical endurance while Ariza is more of a finese defender and plays the passing lanes to perfection.

Statistically speaking Artest (17ppg, 5.7rpg, 1.5spg) is a stronger player than Ariza (8.9ppg, 4.3rpg, 1.7spg). However, there are aspects of each player that are not shown on the stat sheet. For instance, Artest has taken a year off of basketball to make a rap CD, he's been involved with the imfamous Palace of Aurburn brawl, and has been charged with domestic battery). Thankfully, he seems to be passed all of that, proven by his clean record last year, and hopefully he will make all of us Laker fans proud.

Although Trevor is not officially gone, its seems clear that the Lakers are moving passed the drama of signing him and are gearing up for a match up with Lebron/Shaq and the Cleveland Cavaliers.