I can't remember the last time I saw a de facto trade in free agency, but today it took only a couple hours for one to happen.

This afternoon on the West Coast former Rocket Ron Artest agreed to a deal to join the Lakers, and then later this evening came the news that former Laker Trevor Ariza had agreed to join the Rockets. The two players play the same position (small forward) and signed for similar money (the full mid-level exception), so it basically comes down to two teams' differing needs and what those players can provide.

From L.A.'s side, they're plugging Artest into Ariza's role at small forward as a floor spacer, transition finisher and occasional inbound-pass stealer. In terms of stats, this works. At small forward, L.A. mostly needs a floor spacer, and as far as floor-spacing ability goes, Artest is superior to Ariza -- he shot 39.9 percent on 3s last season, Ariza 31.9 percent. Although Ariza shot much better in the postseason, he's at just 29.9 percent for his career. So although it's possible he made a lasting improvement late last season, it's at least as likely that he was just having a good month. Overall, Artest isn't as efficient as Ariza offensively because he tends to force terrible shots, but that's likely to be less of a problem in a system in which he's the fourth option behind Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum. Additionally, he's a good passer who might see his assist rate bump significantly in L.A.

Ariza is also a better rebounder, but Artest more than offsets that with his defense -- not that Ariza is a slouch, as any Denver Nuggets inbound passer will attest, but Artest is among the very best on-ball defenders in basketball. That difference is likely to become particularly important should the Lakers find themselves facing Cleveland in next year's Finals, where a certain LeBron James is likely to be the focal point of the Cavs' offense. Artest is one of the few players in the league who can match James physically, so he'd be a tremendous asset in such a pairing.

This move already is making some Lakers fans uneasy. Any time a championship team makes a prominent personnel move, a significant chorus says, "Why mess it up?" But in truth, nothing messes it up more than standing pat. Bryant isn't getting any younger, and the arms race in the East between Orlando and Cleveland had to get the Lakers' attention. Artest will give them an ace defender to send out against James or Vince Carter in the Finals, not to mention the likes of Manu Ginobili, Carmelo Anthony and Brandon Roy on the Lakers' likely road through the Western Conference playoffs.

The big risk, here, of course, is that it's Ron Artest and, as he showed in Indiana, few players can be more destructive to a team's hopes. But there are a couple of things working in the Lakers' favor here. First, he's been reasonably well-behaved since leaving the Pacers. Second, his worst ball-hogging habits tend to pop out when he's the go-to guy -- but as a role player, he should be extremely effective.

And most importantly, they have Phil Jackson. Perhaps nobody in the history of the game has dealt more successfully with problem players than Jackson, most notably when he coaxed three extremely productive seasons out of Dennis Rodman with the Bulls.

L.A. appears to be getting Artest at reasonable terms, as well -- a three-year, $18 million deal that likely will end up being about half what Ariza gets on the open market (in total dollars). There's a reason for that, of course, as nobody can trust Artest to behave himself for the full tenure of a long-term deal, or the full tenure of a 10-day contract for that matter. But in the Lakers' case, it's a reasonable gamble as they try to get as much as possible out of Bryant's and Gasol's prime years. For Houston, on the other hand, it wasn't. Their time horizon has been pushed farther out into the future by the injuries to Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, making the brighter future of Ariza a more important consideration than the greater present value offered by Artest.

Houston committed five years the full mid-level for Ariza (an estimated $33.5 million), which is risky -- just look back at the history of players getting the full mid-level exception. The difference here is that most of those players were in their late 20s and early 30s, where is Ariza just turned 24 a few days ago and should still be in the middle of his prime at the end of the contract.

He also fills in a glaring hole at small forward left by the departure of Artest and the free agency of McGrady, though he's not the offensive initiator that those two players were.

Signing Ariza (or keeping Artest, for that matter) does come with two major downsides for Houston. First, it puts them into the luxury tax for this season, though they are close enough to the line that they an likely wriggle out of it by the trade deadline by paying somebody to take Brian Cook off their hands or another deal of that ilk.

Second, it cuts into their cap hoard for 2010. Houston projected to have enough money to sign a player to maximum contract next summer; now, depending on next year's cap number, the Rockets would probably have to cut Chuck Hayes and renounce Kyle Lowry to get far enough under to make a run at native Texan Chris Bosh or some of the other plum free agents out there.

But for both teams, it looks like the right move. There was no reason for the Rockets to bring back Artest in a situation where they weren't going to be competing for a championship immediately, and with Yao out indefinitely the Rockets are definitely taking a step back.

And for the Lakers, it was a good proactive move to ward off post-championship complacency. Too many times teams stand pat after winning a title and watch things fall apart a year later -- Miami in the summer of 2006, for instance, or these very Lakers in the summer of 2002. L.A. realized it needed to rearm to keep up with Orlando and Cleveland, and today it upgraded one of the two positions where it didn't already have a star.

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