Bonzi's role maybe not be so obvious (numbers and skills)

I think Bonzi's most pivotal role is when Tmac and/or Yao are out.

As the third scoring option, this is how it should be. Wells allows the Rockets to always have two solid scoring options on the floor for the whole game.

 

Correct, but the idea is that Battier can spread the floor and drain jumpers for us. Bonzi can penetrate and get garbage points from rebounds. Plus he can post people up if Yao is out of the game.

Also, Bonzi's three point numbers from last year were way way off his career average. He's usually good for about 34% (which isn't great by anymeans) but also is significantly better than last years numbers.

 

If Bonzi wants to play in the starting lineup, he'll have to be a much better 3-point shooter for us.

 

Like I said elsewhere, I'm not too worried about it. Bonzi shoots the same % as Sura beyond the arc for the career. Last year, his role was just to hang around the basket since the Kings had other good shooters who can handle the perimeter duty. My guess is the opposing D will at least have to send a man to run out at him when he's open at the 3 pt line.


May not be a bad idea on offense, though, to have Battier draw the opposing PF out to the corner 3 pt line and send Bonzi in to crash the offensive boards with Yao.

 

If Bonzi starts, I expect him to play the Bob Sura role, give us some perimeter rebounding and toughness. Well isn't the greatest shooter but he definitely has a jumper defenses will have to respect. The 04-05 season was the perfect example of how our role players were getting wide open jumpers from the attention Yao/TMac got, hopefully Battier and Wells can fill in nicely enough.

 

Nice post, Sir Scarvajal. That said, I am still excited we got him - I think that Battier and Head can make up for some of Wells' weaknesses, and that his strengths will be great to have, especially when Yao and/or T-Mac are out, as you say.

I can't wait for the season to begin!

 

Good post, Bonzi's agent indirectly acknowledged his 3 point shooting limitation by saying one of the reasons they chose the Rox was he felt his mid-range game would be perfect for the Rox, playing between Yao's post game and T-Mac's long range game. Bonzi is a good player but he definitely has some baggage, I wasn't aware of how much baggage until he decided to sign with the Rox.

I was most taken with what Battier said or didn't say about Bonzi, he seemed to be not exactly positive about Bonzi's ability to be a team player. I think he said something like this "I know what Bonzi can do, I played with him for 2 years" .... "What you need to win is a commitment by the players to the goal and everyone on the team has to have this focus." Battier bringing this up when talking about Bonzi in the same breath tells me that Bonzi was lacking this commitment when he played in Memphis.

On the positive side, I think Bonzi is going to be playing his heart out like he did in Sactown to showcase himself and if the Rox have a special kind of season I can see Bonzi really feeding off the winning.

 

That's a good point. He also prefaced his comments about Wells with, "if he plays with the right attitude" or something like that.

 

More important than his attitude, or maybe caused by his attitude, was the fact that Bonzi was 30 lbs overweight when he was with Memphis. If he shows up physically in shape (like he did last season), he'll be productive.

 

I don't know if it will work because I don't know if Bonzi can pass out of the post , but I think Yao at the high post with Bonzi down low might actually be interesting.

1. Yao is an excellent passer
2. Yao is an excellent midrange shooter
3. Bonzi should be posting up a guard that will need help and could draw a double team possibly either Yao's man or Tmac's

Can Bonzi get the open man the ball?

 

Brad Miller in the high post passing to Bonzi in the low post happened a lot last year. Battier in the high post passing to Bonzi in the low post is interesting. However, Yao in the high post passing to Bonzi in the low post better not happen very often unless Bonzi is on fire.

On offense, Bonzi at SG and Battier at PF compliment each other very well as long as Bonzi stays out of Yao's way. If Bonzi's presence gives his defender an opportunity to cheat and double Yao, we must be able to punish that ploy or it will be a problem. Against good defensive teams, spacing is just as important as talent and Bonzi has never played with someone like Yao.

What could end up being huge over the course of the season is Bonzi's presence may allow Tracy and Yao to play fewer minutes. Of course, their stats will go down but winning games and being at our best for the playoffs is the important thing.

 

This is a formula for Yao to go back to the days when he was "soft," "without a mean streak," "plays with too much finesse," and "not aggressive enough." Now that those silly statements have finally lost their relevance I don't want any fuel for them to come back up again.

 

What the team has now are options and weapons to deal with various matchups and situations.


Yao is likely the most effective post player overall, you can post up Bonzi, for example, if you want to physically wear out an opposing star wing player who is guarding him instead of McGrady. You can also post up Bonzi if he's facing a poor defender or an undersized 2. You can spot Yao up for midrange Js or send him crashing the offensive boards if Bonzi has the ball-- or vice versa.

Even Battier has enough size and post-up skills (remember he was National Player of the Year at Duke as a PF) to exploit certain matchups.

During the last couple of seasons, the opposing teams could ALWAYS rest a star wing player on D or hide a weak wing defender by taking him off McGrady since guys like Sura, Barry, Wesley, Bogans, etc, were not gonna go off on them. This year, not so much.

 

I've seen him play in most productive way when coming off the bench when he use to play with Jailblazers and Grizz. He is lethal on the floor coming off the bench. That's the kind of role JVG should set for Bonzi!

 

bonzi isnt a perfect fit, per se. He isnt a great shooter and doesnt create as well off the dribble as you might want a SG. BUt he does help. And like someone else implied, he will be most important when yao and/or tmac are off the court.

If yao and tmac were both off the court how would that offense look?


but you throw tmac in there to post up some smaller guard and at least you have a little something to work with.


This may be good for snyder too. He will have to work to get on te court. ANd really, imo, i think that he is the biggest X factor for the team.

 

Some other stats on Bonzi Wells...

Code:

Year	Tm	FG%	3P%	FT%	RbR	PER	ORtg	DRtg	lgRtg
1999	POR	0.550	0.333	0.444	14.8	26.3	96	97	102
2000	POR	0.492	0.377	0.682	9.2	17.3	103	100	104
2001	POR	0.533	0.340	0.663	11	18.8	106	102	104
2002	POR	0.469	0.384	0.741	11.1	18.4	104	103	105
2003	POR	0.441	0.292	0.722	9.9	15.7	98	101	104
2004	POR	0.389	0.125	0.778	9	11.3	87	105	103
	MEM	0.437	0.344	0.750	7.7	13.5	93	103	103
	TOT	0.427	0.319	0.754	7.9	13	92	103	103
2005	MEM	0.441	0.346	0.750	9.2	15.9	100	101	106
2006	SAC	0.463	0.222	0.679	13.9	16.6	101	101	106
Career		0.464	0.335	0.712	10.4	16.6	100	102	104

PER is at 16.6 - above the league avg 14. ORtg I was a little surprised by - his offensive efficiency is not all that spectacular and pretty much consistently below the league avg. DRtg is quite good though in that he appears to stifle the players matched up with his position. Rebounding Rate is something to really take notice of as a guard however.

Just a quick comparison of some reboounding stats for guards known as rebounding guards (05-06 Season - except Sura - 04-05 season)...

2005-2006 (Sura 2004-2005)

Code:

Guard ------	RBG	RB40	RBR
Bonzi Wells	7.7	9.5	13.9
Larry Hughes	4.5	5.0	7.4
Steve Francis	4.1	4.8	7.5
Bob Sura	5.5	7.0	10.2
Jason Kidd	7.3	7.8	11.4

Career

Code:

Guard ------	RBG	RB40	RBR
Bonzi Wells	4.7	7.0	10.4
Larry Hughes	4.7	5.9	8.3
Steve Francis	5.8	6.0	8.7
Bob Sura	3.4	5.7	8.4
Jason Kidd	6.5	7.0	9.9

RBR = Rebounding Rate which is the % of total missed shots in a game that the player rebounds.

His rebounding is what probably gives him an above average PER of 16.6 when his offensive efficiency rating is below average.

The numbers seem to give us some other insight. Besides his contribution to the offense with his midrange game, the two other things that may even more significant are his ability to be a lockdown defender and getting 2nd chance shots for the Rockets.

 

What are Bonzi's best scoring moves. He's certainly capable of scoring a lot of points but I keep reading that he's not a great outside shooter. Is he mostly a post up fast break kind of scorer or what?

 

return of the no-look pass?