We drafted a guy who can be a defensive stopper? I like that.

A couple of places I saw compared him to Boris Diaw, who was drafted last year and was considered to be a good defender.

This is a good pick. While there are similarities between ariza and johnson for sure, johnson is more of a true 2 and ariza is a true 3 man. I saw him play 1nce against st johns and this kid seems tougher from what I saw than Demarr Johnson as well. the best case scenario is that both guys work out well.

the one thing that i was disturbed about was that we couldve had andre emmitt for beans. I think this guy is the next bonzi wells and a guy who really shouldve been a round 1 pick. at the cost of the trade an additional 2nd round pick + 300,000[which was the cost] i think that you move there with our thinness at 2. Hes not a great outside shooter, but he's a very good player in the halfcourt within 14 feet who can rebound+ very fast on the break+ one of the best defenders in the draft. for the cost memphis paid, they got a steal. and you know jerry west isnt stupid.


what are you going to get at 43? ariza isnt a bad pick at all. this is a guy who couldve easily worked his way into a mid-first round pick or so in 2 years. you cant argue with that. at 43 there was no player that was left that i was real high on, ariza was just as good a pick as any at that point. I think we graded a solid B right there no matter his outcome, but ill leave our draft mark at a c for not being more opportunistic. With Harrison falling to 30, its unfortunate we didnt take a laser on one of those available pick at 20-21. We need quality 7 footer we couldve brought along.


WTF kind of draft did miami have? what were they thinking? they have no size and 3-4 shooting G and they take another shooting G.


i think utah did well,indiana orlando, wash, chicago toronto

I think Chi did very well, and I think this opens the doors to a Crawford trade bigtime.

I could also see them working a sign and trade with us for Jamal... time will tell.

BTW, aren't you glad we didnt trade KT for Malik Rose and the no.28 if Ariza was the guy we were gonna take there?

this is also interesting...looks like Kareem was behind this

"Ariza worked out for approximately a dozen teams, some of which called for second workouts. Although he worked out for the New Jersey Nets, the Knicks didn't call, but they do have someone on staff very familiar with UCLA's program. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who starred at UCLA in the late 1960s, is a scout with the Knicks."

Posted by VDesai:

Posted by Andrew:

Another link....
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~29583~2234061,00.html

Wow we tried to trade up into the first round (SA's pick # 28) to get him? Shows that Zeke was really high on this kid...

if Zeke was so high on this kid, why didn't they at least bring him in for a workout? did they assume he wouldn't be available?

man, i just hope this pick isn't wasted...if he's got the goods, they should clear a roster spot for him...TRADE SHANDON! PLEASE ISIAH!!!

Posted by TMS:

if Zeke was so high on this kid, why didn't they at least bring him in for a workout? did they assume he wouldn't be available?

TMS exactly... Ariza's agent didnt have him work out for the Knicks because we didnt have a first round pick and thats where he was supposed to go. The problem was he had an average freshman year, but was a spectacular HS player and a McDs all american.

He's a total prospect.. nothing wrong with that. I dont think he will have a hard time making the roster because a 2-1 or 3-1 deal with out expiring deals is likely... either way Isiah has all summer to look at him. If he's got a great work ethic I'm sure they will make a spot for him.

Posted by Silverfuel:

Posted by s3231:

I lost all respect for Shandon during the playoffs

In the playoffs!! What did u see from him in the regular season that you respect?

I didn't like him that much in the regular season but the playoffs are where I started to really hate him because he was taking shots like he was Allan Houston but nothing went in and he hurt us big time.