Trevor Ariza Is Reaping the Benefits of Leaving the L.A. Lakers
It didn't have to be this way for Trevor Ariza.
News recently broke that Ariza was a key component in a four-team trade which will land him in New Orleans, after playing a single season as a member of the Houston Rockets.
Los Angeles Lakers fans will always remember Ariza, who was a home-grown product, and an integral piece in the Lakers' NBA championship of 2009.
Fans will also remember the manner in which Ariza bolted for assumed greener pastures after the Lakers refused to offer him the money he was seeking.
The rest is history.
The Lakers went on to offer Ron Artest nearly the same contract Ariza was seeking, and what had been perceived as a defiant move on Ariza's part became basically a trade between Houston and Los Angeles.
Artest went on to help the Lakers clinch their second consecutive NBA championship last season, while Ariza now gets to continue his journeyman career that many thought had come to an end when he joined the Lakers.
The Hornets will be Ariza's fifth team in his brief career, and stands as an illustration of the old phrase "the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence."
What has to be disheartening is that last season may have been the best of Ariza's career, as he averaged 14.5 points per game while assuming the role as one of Houston's primary scoring threats.
However, Ariza only shot 39 percent from the floor and around 31 percent from the three point line, while proving his game may not have been ready for the limelight in the first place.
The Lakers' desire to retain Ariza was a well known fact, and with a little forethought he could have gone on complementing the likes of Kobe Bryant while his game continued to develop.
But Ariza felt he deserved to be paid like a low-level superstar, and until the 2008-09 season, nothing Ariza had done on the court suggested he merited that type of money.
Ariza was nothing more than a role player in stints in New York and Orlando, but his athleticism and ability to hit wide open shots from the perimeter made him a natural fit in the Lakers' triangle offense.
Man-to-man defense was not one of Ariza' s strengths, but he was very opportunistic and played the passing lanes well, as was demonstrated in two key steals that may have sealed the Western Conference title for the Lakers in 2009 against the Denver Nuggets.
Now Ariza is left to ponder what could have been, and if hindsight really is 20/20, would he have made the same decision over again in the offseason of 2009?
It's highly doubtful, but all that is for speculation especially since most Lakers fans and the organization consider Artest to be a major upgrade over Ariza, even though he lacks the same athleticism.
Will Ariza's vagabond journeys finally end now that he has been traded to New Orleans, or is he destined to finish out his career in the same manner that it started?
Ariza's days as a high school and college star in Los Angeles now seem to be a memory that fades further away with each passing moment. So does his time as an integral part of the Lakers' championship of 2009.
