Tajh Ariza | Wing | Oregon
Although I hadn’t done a thorough walk-through on him until this very offseason, I can still tell you in confidence that my evaluation process with Tajh Ariza has been quite the roller coaster. Particularly over this past year, I started being all out on him, as his start to the 2025-26 campaign with Link Academy was far from inspiring. Ariza was barely cracking the rotation at times; the inconsistency that had plagued him in the past had turned into just flat-out bad play. Overall, he wasn’t making near the level of impact that I would hope a fringe five-star talent would make. However, as the year went on, I kept tabs on Link–not solely for Ariza, although he was a large factor. As the year went on, he was a guy who continued to grow on me. He always had the flashes of who he could be, but as the year built, he began to turn those flashes into production. In fact, by season’s end, he had worked his way into Link’s starting five and was one of their more productive players on both ends of the basketball. It truly was a remarkable turnaround. So naturally, when the offseason struck, and I was left with nothing but time on my hands, I wanted to take a dive, peek through his entire year’s sample to find out what changed. I wanted to figure out what went well, what flaws he had to mask, what strengths he built upon, and most importantly, discover if he was a talent capable of making a push to be selected on draft night. As for what I found, well, it’s fair to say that I am perplexed as to why the mainstream draft media is taking Ariza more seriously.
