The guy has all the tools to be our perfect PG or at least backup PG. Shooter, can drive, good passer, has played on winning teams, and plays very good defense. Why couldn't he put those things together here? I think it's a shame really. Could have been a great piece for this team, and the perfect player to keep Rafer's minutes down and focused.
Because he is a ball hog and his mind isn't right. All he thinks about is proving the world wrong and making a name for himself. It looks like he has blinders on every time he plays. It's all about him. He has poor basketball IQ and a tendency to destroy team chemistry when he is on the court. His good shooting doesn't make up for all his negatives. I hear he is a pretty good boxer, though.
He peaked with Toronto and his falloff since then has been sharp. He's only shooting 36% this year. Before this season he had only played on 2 winning teams, Houston and Detroit, neither of which he started for, and that's only because he got traded mid-season. He was always thought of as a shoot first player who couldn't be relied upon to run an offense or get others involved.
I remember this one play with James earlier in the season in which he drove down the baseline to the basket. Yao was right there in position for an easy dunk/layup but instead of an easy dish to him, James instead threw a wild layup over Yao's head that missed badly. He was so hellbent on scoring for himself that he essentially turned Yao into part of the defense. It was one of the dumbest offensive plays I've ever seen.
He has been a dog ever since he signed the contract with Minny. He lost his incentive. This happens to a lot of NBA players.
He wasn't willing to adapt to the new system. We all saw Steve change his game but not Mike James. No longer was Steve pounding the ball for 24secs, he moved the ball around. Mike James on the other hand, was dribble dribble dribble shoot. I remember one game, I think it was against Memphis. Anyways, we get the rebound with 30secs left, Mike James gets the ball, tries to go coast to coast, ignores TMac calling for the ball and proceeds to brick the layup badly. We lose. So much for the cheap prostitute.......
I've always said I like Rafer more than Mike James ...finally everybody sees it. (But let me say that I would "upgrade" Rafer if I could ...but Mike James damn sure ain't no upgrade). I can't tell you how much crap I've taken around here for that over the years. Mike James can't be a good player on a "team". He can be a good player when there are five players all playing for themselves.
Yep, I was going to make the same comment about playing with blinders on. I have never seen the guy drive to the basket and then find an open man. When he sees an opening he only sees the basket and not his teammates.
Mike James head got stuck in the doorway as he exited Toronto....and he has been playing with a door jam over his entire head for the last 2 years. DD
Mike James never changed his stripes. I remember T-Mac calling for the ball the first time James was here while James just jacked up the shot and T-Mac having this pissed off look on his face. Same ol' Mike James
Correction, he HAD all those tools - he's washed up. It's not like he turned it around in New Orleans. In 13 games, he's averaging 8.5 minutes a game, 3.2 ppg, .4 assists per game, .54 TO per game, and nothing else of consequence. The saddest part of this stat line is that his stats were better in Houston than they currently are in NO. Its not that he didn't fit in here in Houston, its that this guy's career is done and he won't produce anywhere.
IMO, the problem wasn't even that James didn't fit or change his style of play. I think he just couldn't do what he was doing a few years back and what was expected of him. His shot was off most of the time and he couldn't play defense. He does those two things and he's possibly still the backup. Anyway, it is hilarious to watch that interview he gave while still being with the Raptors about how he will be a 'terror in this league for the next 5 years' and how he believed he can 'win 2 out of the 3 MVPs'. p.s why doesn't the spell checker approve of the word 'Raptors'?
Once he got a halfway decent contract (albeit far less than he thought he deserved; *sigh* some people and their inflated sense of self-worth) he just decided to coast. You would have thought that he would have reciprocated Houston's interest in him by saying, OK, let bygones be bygones. Instead, he simply seemed to act like we were the privileged ones for having him, and preceded to do nothing, nothing at all, to improve his game or the team. Just decided to enjoy his new house, being home with the family. And to be perfectly judgmental, he isn't the sharpest stick in the bundle. Granted, he's millions-of-dollars dumb, and I'm next-to-poor smart, but I do get tired of listening to athletes either talking of themselves in the third person or fighting the urge to do so (because their agent probably told them not to do so).
Actually I think Bobby J is very similar to MJ. But BJ always makes big shots and ill shots which inspires his team so huge that people will forget his weekness, ballhog/turnovers and low %. Probably BJ also a better players without ball. That maybe the major different of these two.
Nice post... I think you nailed it. You bring James in to be an effective offensive player and a guy who could score off the dribble -- he didn't do that. 34.8% from the field, 32.4% from three. That's pretty much ballgame. If you took shooting completely out of the equation, you never would have considered James -- he wasn't a high-assist guy but wasn't a high-turnover guy either, which is the primary reason he was perfect for a JVG offense (high shooting percentage, low turnovers, good defense), but that doesn't matter because James couldn't shoot the ball this year. To me, all of this ballhogging nonsense is irrelevant if James is effective. If Mike James was a ballhog in Toronto, the Rockets wanted that ballhoge and were hoping they could get him back. They needed a guy who could create his own shot and do it effectively... they didn't need one shooting 34+%. <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/pOvae4hf2dI&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/pOvae4hf2dI&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>
Are you kidding me? He's had some good shooting seasons (and some terrible ones) but he was shooting 35% in Adelman's system. He can drive, but he can't finish worth a damn. How many times did he cross over from right to left, drive into the middle of the paint, then throw up a RIGHT handed floater over 2 defenders instead of using his left hand? He makes Rafer look like Chris Paul when he gets below the dotted line. Of course, driving isn't all about scoring...it's about breaking down the defense, which brings me to my next point. Mike is a terrible passer. When he did drive, he rarely elected to pass rather than throw up one of those terrible floaters I just mentioned. He did not understand how to move the ball like Adelman's system requires, and ruined the flow of the game for the other 4 guys. Before this season, he had played on exactly 2 winning teams, both of which he joined late in the season. So before this season, he played 53 games for winning teams in his career. He's played 356 games for losing teams, including the '05-'06 Raptors, where he coincidentally had his best year by far. 36-46 25-57 36-46 54-28 <---- Detroit 30-52 51-31 <---- Houston 27-55 <---- Toronto 32-50 I'm going to say that after 6 years in the league, if you've played only 13% of your games for winning teams, you're probably below average. Just a hunch. And oh yeah, he plays very good defense? He was above average when he was here the first time, but he's nearly 33 now, and his motivation to get "respect" and get paid far exceeds his motivation to defend the ball anymore.
People call him a shooter, but when your jump shots keep missing like they did all year for him, you arent a good shooter. He has played on winning teams, but he never had a major role on a winning team. He wants to be more then a role player, and on a good team he is not skilled enough to do that. Im not sure where the good passer thing came from. It seemed like he always looked for a shot. Being a good passer, and actually passing the ball are two different things. It simply didnt work with the Adelman offense and James' mindset this year. We shouldnt complain though, cuz Bobby Jackson fits better and his contract is far better then James. We ended up doing really well.
