Los Angeles Lakers: What each new free agent brings to the team
By Zane Harris
What Trevor Ariza brings to the Los Angeles Lakers:
The Los Angeles Lakers kicked off free agency with the signing of Trevor Ariza.
Ariza spent two seasons on the Lakers, one of which being the team that won the Finals in 2009. That season was also the only year of Ariza’s lengthy career that he participated in all 82 games.
This is the sole concern with adding Ariza to the team. It is more likely than not that he will be sidelined at some point of the season, the Lakers just have to hope that it is not at an important time like the playoffs.
However, outside of that, he is the perfect role player for the Lakers.
He is a great three-point shooter who in the past two seasons shot an average of 36.3% from beyond the arc. Shooting is the biggest need Los Angeles had coming into free agency and Ariza will help greatly with this.
He will be a great 3 and D player for the Lakers.
On offense, he will likely spend most of his time spotting up in the corner and he will have a plethora of wide-open looks.
With defenses being forced to stop drives from LeBron James and Russell Westbrook, there will be plenty of kick-out attempts to Ariza from the corner. He also is a great defender. Ariza has not averaged less than a steal since the 2007-2008 season.
Along with this, he has a remarkable career defensive rating of 106. The Lakers’ notorious defensive style of basketball will not be going anywhere soon with Ariza on the floor.