BONZI WELLS: "i didn't come to run a marathon, i came to play basketball"

a-freakin-men! if bonzi - after getting shafted last year - can't find the motivation to stay in shape in a contract year, you have to question his desire to play at all.

 

Apparently Bowen didn't do something right because he's not even in the NBA and Bonzi is. I don''t think Bonzi is in the right, but we do need him. Now I can see you have your own opinions of his methods of madness, but overall, Bonzi along with others aren't playing which means those minutes are being logged into the starters time on the floor which is bad in the long haul. Assistant coach has a laundry list on why he wont play guys, and not why he should. He loves Bowen although his game was Jr High material and has turned the team into a bunch of moping pessismist who can't figure out why they continue to collapse huge leads. They sound like carbon copies of him.

 

I have no problem with Gundy here ... He like every other fan should demand minimum requrirements of players such as staying in shape. It also bothered me when Bonzi wouldn't go to the game in the preseason (Dallas?) when asked to go for team unity reasons. I applaud Van Gundy for demanding more than that from players on this team. If someone can't be a professional off the court, they shouldn't be on the court. If he gets in shape and works hard, he will work his way back into Gundy's rotation. Then, and only then, will he deserve to play.

 

No, he did everything right, that's how he got to the NBA.

He just wasn't talented enough to stay there.

Bonzi meanwhile is doing everything wrong this season, and is paying the price.

No tears. If Bonzi doesn't want to help the Rockets, the Rockets don't need him, it's as simple as that.

 

Why are you comparing starting Bowen over what we had last year over playing Novak when we have other players that are contributing and allowing us to WIN!? Is he hurting your fantasy team that much that you have to resort to bashing "assistant" coach JVG?

We've had wins against teams that people are picking to be a championship contender this year and collapsed against one of them. Yao's playing like a madman and Padgett backs off and allowed them to take jumpers while Novak has been letting people drive past them on the baseline throughout the preseason.

We win by having Yao and possibly TMac AVOIDING foul trouble! If people drive past Novak all the time, you bet people will do what they can to jump into Yao.

This bashing is over... what... Bonzi NOT playing? If he's on any other team not coached by JVG, you'd say what an idiot he is. You're not in shape, you can't play full-heartedly. You can say you hustle all you want, but if you're not at the right spots, you're ... just NOT playing good defense. However good you guys claim Bonzi is on defense, if he's not in shape, he's not moving right laterally.

Novak, yeah, I would like to see him play, but ONLY if we need a shooter that knows where he's going. He's been getting shots on the corners, that's it. Why is that a problem? You're basically playing 4 on 4 otherwise, while the 5th guy can wander around 10 feet of Novak. so you're playing 4 on 4.5 on a small court. That doesn't help unless Novak can learn to set a pick or two, cut to the basket, and be fast enough to get back on defense on missed shots. Imagine this. You're not fast, you're camping at the corner, and the guy that's "semi-guarding" you takes off. You're at a disadvantage at every rebound that goes the other way. Padgett's been playing decent, so I don't know what people are complaining about. He's a fillin for Hayes right now and he's getting some nice cuts and setting some picks. Knowing the offensive set HELPS. You need to know where you should be at all situation, it's an instinct, but one that you get accustomed to after years in the league. Don't think for a second that Novak/Spanoulis aren't getting plenty of stuff accomplished IN PRACTICE.

You simply don't play 12 guys a game just because you could. You'll never find enough minutes for all 12 (3 inactive) and you're bringing in a lot of people cold because they've been sitting for awhile. You want SOME rhythm out there. You ride on that rhythm and right now, we're winning. 66.67 winning percentage is really nice, and we've played some road games as well. We've played Dallas, Miami, San Antonio, and Chicago and won 3 of those. Yao's been amazing for the most part and 2 of our 3 losses have him getting in foul trouble and sitting on the bench early and often! If a team is winning, WHY are people complaining about the strategies?

Guess what?!? runs HAPPEN in the NBA. The great teams are more likely to stop them, but they do it with an INSIDE game, which Bonzi has but could not employ because he's out of shape. When shots aren't falling, other teams are likely to get on a run. Yao needs to take it more inside as well as TMac and not shoot as many medium range jumpers. Shooting is contagious. You miss a few and an 18 footer will feel like a 25 footer. This is the NBA! Most leads don't continue to expand when time is running out. The game-plan becomes "don't foul," and "don't stop the clock." You let them shoot and they're likely to hurry shots and miss some. Guess what, they haven't been missing. Bell from Milwaukee made 2 21 footers, a 27 and a 28 foot 3 pointer in desperation. Did anyone heard JVG chewing Snyder out on that foul? He told them SPECIFICALLY not to crash the board too hard and do NOT foul. Snyder went after the ball, stopping the click, fouled. JVG could be heard shouting, I JUST TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT! What can you do? You coach and you tell them what you need to watch out for. If they make that mistake, it's his fault? Players have to keep their self-control, they can't be told to. So far, the Rockets have been well-prepared for almost all their games, with the opener being a possible exception.

As long as the team is winning, you let them get comfortable. You bring in Snyder, Wells, Spanoulis, Novak, Padgett (again), etc. You have Hayes, Rafer, Head , etc. in their second year with the Rockets. You can expect this team getting time to know each other. You can tell the Bulls weren't that comfortable and their only real acquisition is Ben Wallace. They had NO idea how to get him involved all game. This isn't streetball. There are playbooks and gameplans. It takes time to get used to what each person does. And it takes more than a preseason to get them together.

 

JVG should make Bonzi run the Chevron Houston Marathon in January or be fined. That would be funny.

 

I agree about Bonzi, but let him in there at least. If he wants to be a moron package him with Juwan for a real big man or whatever.
Bowen didn't have any talent at all. Noone wanted him then except Assistant coach Gundy, and noone wants him now. He didn't do everything right. He didn't rebound, couldn't shoot, had wildly overrated defense and essentially made the team a 4 on 5 matchup.

Hustle players like Cardinal and Mark Madsen bring more to the table than him but only assistant coach Gundy loved him enough to start him as if he really would deserve to start on any team.

 

I am not a Van Gundy hater by any stretch of the imagination, but I wouldn’t be sad if he wasn’t our coach anymore.

With that said, I don’t think he is a motivator at all; and he most certainly isn’t a developer of talent.

Bonzi may never be motivated under any coach; but Adleman sure got something out of him.

Hubbie Brown was able to get production out of him. I think it comes down to Gundy not wanting him on this team.

So, he will make him miserable enough to say something in the public so Gundy wont look like the bad guy yet again.

I wish I was on Rome so I could say, “War Bonzi choking Gundy ala Sprewell”.

Not really, but it does make you think.

 

I agree that Bowen is not starting material, but with our bench depleted, do you really want him to be someone to play backup when Bogans could be a possible better solution to score as a 6th man? I think last year was about slowing the ball down and play half court and Rybo hustles.

I'm happier than most people when he's cut this year, and that's because I like our depth and we can resemble a running team on offense again. I just don't think we have too many choices last year. Who knows, maybe starting Bowen was the closest thing to tanking for a draft pick....

 

Running a bussiness, you would be a loser. Some people can be handled with discipline, some with cautious approach. It's up to the boss how will he handle his business. The only question is - will you TRY different approach with different people and try to get the best out of them the other way.

 

Rudy should have let Thomas "Two Sandwiches" Hamilton play more minutes, the guy was the next Shaq if only Rudy the taskmaster gave him a chance....

I don't know where the evidence is that Bonzi deserves the kid gloves treatment, his years with Rasheed, Rapin Patterson, and the rest of the Jail Blazers tend to indicate that the more rope you give these chumps, the more they tend to hang themselves with it.

 

Bonzi will be traded for Chris Webber.

 

You are 100% right. You have to be able to read people. What might motivate one will really tick off another.

You cant treat everyone the same. That is why we dont have Anderson, Taylor, or even Griffin; Gundy scared the mess out of Griff!

You have to know how to work your people.

 

I dont advoacte Kid gloves; just a different approach.

Jeff is the one who lucky he didnt get a Spreewell or a Barkley or anyone else for that matter that had the combination of cloat and balls to stand up to his "small man's" way.

 

uhhhh....the irony of this sentence speaks volumes. As does the fact that LS did not show up NY fat and ready to mail in training camp and preseason out of a sense of spite as to his own personal circumstance (which had nothing to do with the team for which he then played)

 

Right, how funny

My mistake. Your knowledge of Rockets and NBA ball amazes us all

My point is simple. Van Gundy is lucky one of his players hasnt stood up to bulling ways.

I cant wait till a parents tears Bobby KNight a new butthole, or when a player finally stands up to the "little Nazi"

Iverson can replace Spree, even Garnett, or Maxwell.

 

Players like Sprewell and others havne't had that problem because JVG isn't the guy you tend to portray him as. Even Knight have had some situations where the media blows it out of proportion.

Van Gundy, more often than not, have had sitdowns with players and these players are more than happy to go to war for him, except for one guy who tends to sit down and whine about it. Now, if you have people like Snyder and others who could play minutes while Bonzi whines about not playing and not wanting to work out, what did you expect?

You don't want to set the example that hard working players are not rewarded, AND, at the same time, playing Bonzi while he was out of shape was detrimental to the Rockets more than helpful. Have you seen those minutes out there for Wells? His postup moves weren't there. His turnaround shot from his postups, he took so long turning around and he was barely 3 inches off the air trying to get off a shot, not to mention he practically threw a laser pass at the square on the backboard on one of such said shots.

He's slow on defense and shooting guards will blow by him and cause Yao more foul trouble than he'll help. If you're not in shape in the NBA, you better be at least 6'11" and can take up the whole paint and not get 3 second violations. Our team revolves around Yao and TMac, let's not get them too many fouls because one out of shape guy refuses to work out and allows faster players to get by because they're trimmer.

 

Alright, enough humorous sarcasm. How ever fun it may be for us to write and them to read.

Let’s go back to what originally made me respond to you; the kid gloves.

I basically said, Bonzi doesn’t need to be babied. He just needs a different approach.

Gundy could let him play 7, then 10, then 15 minutes a game and so forth; where we wouldn’t be throwing 2 million away for this year, and getting jack for him next year.

We couldn’t get Webber for him, or Etan Thomas or even Two Sandwiches for him at this point.

Don’t baby him, but at least put him on the court, he is a pro athlete, he will get in shape. His motivation is different.

I love to run and be active, but I have A.D.D. and I get bored running, so I play basketball and Racquet ball to stay healthy. Maybe he just needs different motivation.

 

I did watch that game where he played, and it was sad. But I do feel he could have worked himself into shape. ALOT of players do it and have done it in the past.

And you are right Gundy isnt as bad as I make him out to be. I am very faustrated with him as a coach.

Mostly because I dont feel like he does much coaching. He is not motivational, he doesnt develop talent.

We have decent young talent sitting on the bench this year gaining no "in-game" experince.

V-span should be getting time, so should Novak. but they wont because Van Gundy coaches like Rybo plays.

 

It is also called "double standard". Lest a young and impressionable guy like Steve Novak or Kill Bill see what someone who complains and whinge can get away with.

Plus... who's to say that this is not the best way to handle Bonzi (at this point in time)? Sure, he is impatient to play, and hence is voicing his frustration, but that is perfectly normal. The very second he finishes putting in the hard yards, VG will whiz him back on court, and he will be a huge contributor.