Houston Rockets: Can Trevor Ariza Keep This Up?
Trevor Ariza has been absolutely on fire to start the season. The Houston Rockets have won all three of their games to open up the year, powered largely by James Harden, but he hasn’t been without help. While Harden has been doing all of the heavy lifting, averaging 25.3 points per game, he does have three other players on his team averaging over 15 points per game. And one of those players has been Trevor Ariza.
When the Rockets lost Chandler Parsons and replaced him with Trevor Ariza, the team was getting what it desperately needed last year: perimeter defense. Specifically, a defensive player who could cover elite shooting guards and small forwards. But Trevor Ariza provides much more than just defense. He fits Houston’s offensive scheme to a tee. The Rockets are a team that simply do not take midrange jump shots. It’s layups, free throws or three-pointers for Kevin McHale‘s squad.
Acquiring Ariza enabled the Rockets to do more of what helped make them successful last year. Trevor Ariza was an elite three-point shooter last season, finishing 16th in the league in three-point percentage, with a very high 40.7 percent. Naturally, Ariza has gotten off to a hot start with Houston and their three-point-oriented system.
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After three games of superb offensive basketball, the Rockets have gotten an amazing display of shooting from Trevor Ariza. No other Houston Rockets player has a higher percentage from three than Ariza, as he has exploded out of the gates with an amazing 55.6 percent from downtown. The truly amazing part is that Ariza has been shooting threes at a pretty high volume, taking six per game. It’s a high enough number of three-pointers to rank third in threes attempted (18) and first in threes made (10).
The new NBA season is young so, naturally, there are some truly ridiculous numbers out there due to the very small sample size. Despite Ariza’s brilliance from long range, he is only ranked 13th in the league in three point percentage. All of those numbers will decrease to their normal outputs, as the majority of the percentages on the list are extremely unsustainable.
What does that mean for Trevor Ariza? It means that a regression is due for the new Rockets’ swingman. Who knows how long he can keep up this incredible pace, but he will fall back down to earth eventually. Great three-point shooting is really hard to sustain, which is why great outside shooters “only” end up shooting about 40-45 percent from deep.
While Trevor Ariza is setting the nets on fire, he’s doing so in the least sustainable way possible. That doesn’t mean he won’t be useful when his shooting touch momentarily leaves him and he falls back to a sustainable percentage, but it does mean the Rockets won’t be scoring as easily as they have been. Simply put, the Rockets should enjoy this stretch of hot shooting the team is experiencing while it lasts. After all, there is a reason why the phrase “Live by the three, die by the three” exists.