Trevor Ariza has verbally agreed to join the Houston Rockets in a game of switcheroo after former Rocket, Ron Artest, agreed to join the Los Angeles Lakers, Ariza's former team. And I can't help but feel bad for Ariza. But, DV, he'll be a young multi-millionaire soon with five years of job security! To that I say, so what?

After refusing to take the Lakers mid-level exception (MLE), Ariza does the same thing with the Rockets anyway. Reportedly, Ariza was looking for $8-9 million per from the Lakers, which sounds somewhat reasonable for a playoff hometown hero. But, obviously, with the need to also re-sign Lamar Odom that wasn't going to happen. I think everybody with half a brain knew that. So, it came down to "more money versus multiple chances for a championship ring." It seems that Ariza and his agent, David Lee (not the New York Knicks power forward) were willing to wait on that question and take offers from other teams. However, the Lakers weren't willing to wait...

... and neither was Ron Artest.

For all the craziness and unpredictability that Artest's reputation holds, you can't deny him this - he wants to win. Artest quickly came to an agreement with the Lakers, not even considering the promise of other offers shelling out more money and, don't get it twisted, those more lucrative offers were going to be there. Artest is a bulldog on defense and a legit threat on offense. Any team would want that on their team, but Artest didn't want to be on any team. Artest wanted a team that could win a title now and because of that, he's a winner despite making less money than Ariza who has to be considered the loser here for two reasons.

One, not only does Ariza go from being on a championship team, but he'll be going to a team that won't have Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady for about half a season, and arguably their sparkplug during their 2009 playoff push, Artest. I have faith in Rockets GM Daryl Morey to turn things around... eventually. But, at this point, things are too chaotic in Houston and there are no thoughts of them being contenders as there is with the Lakers. So, Ariza loses out on winning another ring on a team with the best (clutch) player in the NBA, Kobe Bryant.

Two, despite all of his demands for more money than the MLE, Ariza settles for that same MLE. If you're going to come at a team hardcore with your demands, stay hardcore throughout. But Ariza and his agent settled with a team not named the Lakers, something they could have done if Ariza wanted a real chance at multiple rings and realized he's a player that has been traded midseason twice in his short career, a bench player (never starting more than 20 games in a season), and happened to have played great during a postseason that ended up with his team winning a title.

I don't blame Ariza going for the money at all. The thing I blame him for is settling for an amount with another team that he could have had with the Lakers because along with settling for less money with the Lakes comes the real chance of winning titles.

And Ron Artest knows this.

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