The New Orleans Hornets acquired Trevor Ariza(notes) Wednesday in a four-team, five-player trade that also sends point guard Darren Collison(notes) to the Indiana Pacers, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.
The deal also sends Pacers forward Troy Murphy(notes) to the New Jersey Nets and Nets guard Courtney Lee(notes) to the Houston Rockets. In addition to landing Collison – the young point guard they’ve been searching for all offseason – the Pacers also have to take on forward James Posey(notes), who has two years and $13.5 million remaining on his contract.
The Rockets signed Ariza to a five-year, $35 million contract a year ago, but have since acquired guard Kevin Martin(notes). Trading him should keep them from paying a substantial luxury-tax bill this season.
Be sure to follow me on twitter as I will updating this post throughout the day and into tomorrow with my own thoughts and reactions to this deal from across the blogosphere…
My initial reaction:
- Courtney Lee is a better player than Ariza and has been coveted for the Rockets since the draft.
- I’m slightly worried about the public relations aspect of this – it does not look good to trade a marquee free agent (Ariza pretty much was a marquee pick up given his Lakers pedigree) one year removed from his signing.
- Interesting that the Rockets would help the Hornets unload salary in Posey – might mean they don’t feel there’s much chance at Paul.
- The salary difference between Ariza and Lee is a huge factor here. I’m hoping its to allow for greater flexibility for a later deal rather than just a dump to ease tax obligations.
More as it comes.
Update: I’ll be providing coverage on this throughout the day and into tomorrow with my own thoughts and the reaction from others.
- Indiana Pacers’ affiliate’s first take on the deal.
Update: I do not at all agree with Chad Ford’s opinion that “the move is basically a large salary dump.” While the fact that it bestows flexibility to the team is true, that does not necessarily mean that that was the primary benefit or motivation of the deal. My gut reaction right now, just on the surface based on what I remember from the Magic’s Finals run, is that this is the Kyle Lowry trade Part 2. I think we will be very pleased with Lee in due time.
Follow me on twitter for updates to this post as more comes in. I’ll be providing reactions from across the blogosphere and have a roundtable in the works.
For now, if you’re landing here via our Hornets TrueHoop affiliate, I would recommend my ‘Assessing Ariza’ series for a comprehensive evaluation of the player’s strengths and abilities:
Update:
Rahat, can you elaborate on “Kyle Lowry trade Part 2″?
By that, I meant that I see it as a deal where the team trades a higher profile player for a cheaper, lesser known player, and the consensus reaction is of complete bewilderment. Like Lowry, I think Lee will prove to be a far better contributor than his predecessor, primarily because I know the Rockets had coveted him at the draft.
Update: Some more thoughts – pretty shocking that the Hornets gave up on a prize like Collison just for the relief in trading Posey’s contract. Either he’s not the chip I assumed he was or Ariza’s reputation is even more inflated than I had thought – probably the latter.
Update: It’s a bit disappointing that we will never see Trevor in the role he was to play this year. As I explained in Part 3 of the Ariza series, Ariza thrived upon the Martin trade and was likely to only get better with Yao back in the lineup.
But I still like this trade, especially after reading what is now being written of Lee’s defensive prowess and attentiveness to detail. I could never quite stomach the mental aspect of Ariza’s game as he always struck me as extremely fragile psychologically. There was the erratic, indisciplined gambling on defense, but moreso than that were his numerous temper tantrums on the court. I rarely made mention of these during the year as with my heavy criticism of his actual play, I did not want to appear biased in bringing up something that was subject to interpretation.
There were countless times during the year when he’d throw up his hands in frustration upon not receiving a pass and this was troublesome; Trevor’s inflated sense of entitlement was rather odd. The cheap shot against Derozan was utterly pathetic. Frankly speaking, Trevor Ariza wasn’t a Houston Rocket. As I’ve said, I was bullish of what he could bring in playing the right role, but he was never a guy for whom you felt naturally inclined to cheer for; he wasn’t Carl Landry, Kyle Lowry, Chuck Hayes, or Shane Battier.
