Believe it or Not, LA Just Got More Interesting: Artest to the Lakers

Categorized as: Author: Patrick, Free Agency, Houston Rockets, LA Lakers, NBA Teams, Player News
Posted on: July 3rd, 2009

It appears that Ron Artest has agreed to sign a three-year deal with the Lakers

Fantasy Implications: Apparently, Artest when all single white female on Kobe last year, expressing his desire to play with Black Mamba. If the man wanted it that bad, I’d expect Artest to be a good solider in the Kobe army, accepting his role on a stacked Lakers team. Artest was the number 1 option on the Rockets at times last season, while on the Lakers he’ll be – at best – option number 3. His minutes are also likely to see at least a small decline from the 35 he saw last year, especially if the Lakers resign Odom.

Artest’s three point shot has been improving with age (he was 40% from behind the arc this past season) and he could see a lot of open threes in that offense, but the rest of his stats will suffer from a reduced role on a team that has a scary amount of talent.

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And with Artest joining LA and Trever Ariza not feeling appreciated by the Lakers (especially after his stellar postseason performance) word is that Ariza will sign with the Rockets to replace Artest.

Fantasy Implications: Some nice ones here. With Tracy McGrady out until at least next February recovering from microfracture surgery and Yao Ming possibly out all of next season, Ariza will not only take Artest’s spot in the Rocket’s lineup, but will be counted on to do some heavy, heavy lifting for the Rockets both on offense and defense.

Of course, we have to lean a lot on Ariza’s postseason performance to project out what he might be able to do next season. For example, Ariza shot 48% from three during the playoffs, but during the regular season it was 32%. It’ll take a huge leap of faith for me to believe Ariza is really now a 48% shooter from 24 feet (or anything close to that). Still, while Ariza won’t be able to replace 100% of Artest did in Houston, he’ll definitely get an increase in playing time and should be put on your super secret sleeper list until further notice.

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Tags: Ron Artest, Trevor Ariza