Here's another way of looking at it, perhaps the most relevant way when it comes down to how the season plays out: If you are Avery Johnson, Greg Popovich, or Mike D'Antoni, the coach of the 3 best teams in the West from last season, and your team is meeting up with the Rockets in a playoff series, between Bonzi and MJ, whose presence on the Rockets would cause you to spend more time worrying and game-planning?
Picking up Bonzi was a much better move than picking up MJ. We needed more help at SG than we needed at PG. I strongly believe that when Alston is surrounded by a good team (and it doesn't get much better than Bonzi, T-mac, Battier, and Yao) he will be a top 15, perhaps even a top 10 PG. Alston's role will be to get the big 4 the ball and he is going to excel in that role. Last year he showed flashes of brilliance with a banged up and less talented Rocket team; this year he is going to be just the player we need him to be. Bonzi also gives us the rebounding we need to compete with the big 3. I was more worried about rebounding than 3 point shooting since T-mac, and to a lesser degree Battier, can hit the 3 when necessary. Yet, until we got Bonzi, the only guys we had that could really play the boards hard was Yao, T-mac, and to a lesser degree Battier and Hayes. MJ would have provided some good shooting for our team, but that is the only thing he may have a slight edge over Bonzi in. Bonzi gives our team more size, more athleticism, much better rebounding, a 3rd scoring threat, and a bad boy edge that our team of nice guys is seriously lacking. Bonzi is gonna bring in about 8 rebounds a night for us, and he will also help draw away double teams from Yao and T-mac. It's impossible for me to comprehend how people think MJ would be a better pick up than Bonzi. Bonzi is the missing piece and I sincerely hope he sticks around for years and remains a key player in several championship runs.
What needs to be stressed here is that getting Mike James would have cost this team Bonzi AND VSpan. In that situation, this question is an absolute no-brainer. Sitting around and saying the Rockets could have used both the TE and MLE to get both Bonzi and James is subjective at best with absolutely zero hard evidence to back it up. Sure it is mathematically possible and may even sound logical, but I dont remember seeing any hard evidence that Toronto without a doubt was willing to S&T James or Sacto was willing to S&T Bonzi. Plus, this scenario would have resulted in VSpan being stuck in Greece another season at the minimum which is horrible imo. VSpan is going to make a Ginobilli type impact on this team (maybe not next year, but at some point in the next few yrs). One other point on this.... Getting Mike James on this team would not have gotten them past the Mavericks or Spurs. The addition of Bonzi gives this team a shot at matching up with Stackhouse and Howard along with making them have to work on the defensive end. The Rockets did have Mike James 2 years ago against the Mavs and got absolutely shredded by Stackhouse and Terry. I dont see how getting James at the expense of Bonzi would have resulted in a different scenario. Also, having Bonzi and T-Mac on the floor together will cause some serious matchup problems for the Spurs. Bowen can only matchup against one of them whereas Ginobilli, Barry or whoever else will have difficulty against the other. If Ginobilli is going to have to expend a bunch of energy matching up against Bonzi on the block it is going to affect his play on the other end of the floor. The Rockets lucked into this scenario, but it was a much better result than signing Mike James would have been.
That's about as hard as you can hit the final nail in the coffin. No more replies......this thread is closed!
According to an MJ interview, Dallas's defense in the playoffs a couple years ago was geared to stop MJ, not TMAC or Yao.
Dallas just said that so he could feel good and sign with him. Im sure he was the main focus and not t-mac, thats why tmac lit them up.
Bonzi is so much better for this team...the ony thinkg MJ brought was his outside shot...other than that, bonzi has a much better all around game plus he isn't a ballhog...TMAc called Bonzi and told him to come to houston...I don't think TMAC really got along with MJ so I think its a no brainer
he's out of their price range, because he's not the player they wanted, but you're right, he priced himself above what the Rockets were willing to pay; which was less than James was offered. Actualy, not a single one did, which is why Wells is in Houston. ...and because he fit much better and provided exactly what the Rockets lacked the most last year when they made the egregious mistake of trading him for Alston. Not only does he fit better than Wells intutitively, but he's a statistical fit as far as Moreyball/moneyball goes and is simply much more productive in areas where the Rockets need production. link? I don't recall anything of the kind . right, and then teams fell all over themsleves to get bonzi, right...? I'm much more worried about Yao or Tracy tossing the ball out to an open James than I am about the Rockets running an ISO post-up for Bonzi freaking wells. In fact the more I get the ball into Bonzi's hands (or even better, Howard) the more I've done my job.
Right... Bonzi: suspended for on-court problems? check. Bonzi: suspended for off-court problems? check. Can you list for me the number of times taht James been suspended or fined n his NBA career? I'll do it for you, here you go: Finished. Oh yes, but we should worry cause he jokes around in interviews and people interpret it literally... Apparently the Rockets didn't, therefore that's why they were knocking on his door at midnight the day FA signing began.....and Wells was waiting by the phone.
4 years of James hitting 3 pointers is substantially more valuable to the Rockets as currently constituted than 1 year of Wells "tiring out manu" in the low blocks. Most of the rox games I watched last year involved a distinct inabiilty to hit open shots or get to the basket, rather than a too-untired manu. And if you think the defenseive line-up of Wells & EZ Pass Alston has a better chance of stopping Jason Terry - you've got to be kidding . As for Spanoulis, I don't understand the urgency considering that he's going to be buried on the bench here ths year.
I agree with everything else in the previous three posts, except this little bit. I doubt Spanoulis will be buried on the bench with Alston starting, but Howard did play a lot last year. Back on topic, Bonzi provides better defense at SG than James and is a significantly better rebounder. James is a better volume scorer, a more efficient scorer, provides better defense at the 1 than Wells. I think Wells is a nice player to pick up, but the Rocks don't have his Bird Rights, are only guaranteed on having him for one year, and he's not as good as James even if you were talking same number of years.
Well the SG rotation is filling up, and I'm not sure if Spanoulis can play NBA PG, at least that's not what he plays in Greece. So we've got Wells, Snyder, Head, occasionally McGrady, and now Spanoulis in the mix. It's going to be difficult for him to find minutes especially as a rookie. PS, James is a pretty decent defender in his own right at the 1, certainly better than Alston.
Sam, Spanoulis was in effect the point guard for the Greek team against the US in the WC. He was the initiator, the passer, the playmaker. At his size, if he can keep turnovers down, we could go big with him at the point. We could even go HUGE with Tmac at the pint and Snyder at the two with Bonzi at the three. That would be one scary defensive team. Watch and see, I think VSpan plays point for us...
In the Mavs series a couple of years ago, James was the only one I wanted in against Terry. I didn't mean to imply he wasn't a defender at the point. If Spanoulis is playing the 2, he'll hardly see the floor. From his stats and what little I've seen, I would think he'd play PG mostly in the NBA (regardless of where he played in Greece) if he can handle the position defensively. If he plays 2, it would be better to have more of a scoring PG next to him like James or Head (very loose use of the term PG).
It's only rushing him if you don't think he is truely ready. I think the guy is ready now and so do the Rockets. He has done nothing but produce at every level and against elite NBA talent as well. I personally can not think of a better situation for him. While we have a veteran PG in place, the Rockets would still like someone to unseat Rafer as the starter and place him back on the bench as a sub where he belongs. He does not have the pressure of having to come in and start imeadiatly as a rookie but the opertunity is there for him to take the starters spot since Rafer is probably the only starter that is not a starter quality player. Getting back to evaluating the Rockets line up as it pertains to matching up with Dallas...I think athletically speaking we are there. Terry and Co. make up a good back court that could run circles around our back court as a whole in 04-05 but not this year.
I don't think there is any question that V-Span is expected to come in and play point. I would say going into training camp that he is the odds on favorite to start the season as the primary back up to Alston. VSpan has great quickness and is probably the most athletic point guard on the team now. Plus the guy is super aggresive. JLIII certainly has a chance to win the back up point guard position in camp but everything the Rockets brass said about him this summer is that they wanted him as the third point guard. IMO VSpan and LJIII are expected to be the Point Guards of the future for the Rockets.
I am not arguing against spanoulis playing PG - hell anybody but Rafer, I just don't know if he's quick enough to do so in the NBA. I have memories of guys like Jiri Welsch who were billed as PGs but then came over from Europe and were nowhere near quick enough to do so.
I think the fact that Bonzi actually wanted to come here based on the team's potential for winning greatly outweighs Mike James' playing us with his actions which showed me he was pretending to want to come here then dropping us like a bad habit. To me this shows Bonzi wants to be part of a winner, while James was still worried about his peepee being hurt after us trading him and more importantly about "getting his," even though he said all that was water under the bridge. Maybe they've both had issues in the past, but I think this event, in the here and now, show Bonzi wants to be a Rocket and thinks we can win... while James wanted to go where the money was and didn't mind pretending he wanted to come to Houston so he could get more money to go elsewhere which apparently was what he really wanted. Think about it, lots of people thought we'd get James, and we didn't. Fewer thought we'd be able to get Bonzi, and we did...comparing what was offered to both only magnifies the point. That's how I see it... I'm glad things went the way they did with all of it (I wasn't the biggest James proponent, though I wouldn't have minded snagging him at the time). The universe tends to unfold as it should. Good job Rockets... looking forward to the season.
bwahahaha, yes Bonzi secretly wanted to be here all along, that's the ticket, and James had no interest whatsoever...its all water under the bridge at this point (or water under the dam, as stoops would say) but get real. Reality: Wells screwed himself in our laps becaus he and his agent were dumb and greedy, now he is hoping to cash in next year (most likely somewhere else). His loss is our gain in this instance. James is not here because he wanted the "trade kicker" and we wouldn't give it to him like Minnesota did. That's what happened. And the revisionist history that has cropped up in this thread about Mike James being a selfish problem child and Wells being a saint..is, well, I'm not sure if that's more funny or sad.
I don't think I said bonzi secretly wanted to be here all along, just that he turned down better money with other teams to be here when it came down to it (didn't Miami have more to offer him than we did?), while James went somewhere else for the mere difference of a trade exception after claiming he really wanted to come back here. Wonder why a trade exception would be so important to someone like James... I don't remember calling anyone a problem child, saint, or any of that... but through the turn of events of our off season, James DID appear somewhat selfish. No matter what the real reason, Bonzi appeared to want to come here rather than take more money to go elsewhere. I like that. Who cares how and why either found themselves looking for new teams? It's marginal, but unless the thread title was implying a one on one competition or player to player comparison of 2005-2006 stats, I like Wells in this one where the rockets are concerned, for reasons mentioned here. Further, I think Wells is a better fit for this team's needs in the here and now. I like that we got Wells and his 2 year 5 mil deal, and wasn't too disappointed when we didn't get james and his 4 year 20 mil deal, after all that went down... is that so bad?
