Trevor Ariza has been a starting small forward in the NBA for a decade. He’s won a championship, played in the playoffs in nine of his 13 seasons and has come up big on the biggest stage.
Yet here he is again, back in his third Western Conference Finals, and while all of the conversation is about other players in this series — even P.J. Tucker and Eric Gordon are getting discussed far more frequently than Ariza — it’s the UCLA product who currently leads the playoffs in net rating. The Rockets are outscoring opponents by more than 16 points per 100 possessions when he’s on the floor.