[Chron] Welcome back, James

Randy Foye will be slowly eating up MJ's minutes. He's perfect for the way the game is called nowadays. Just relentlessly attacks the basket.

 

After this performance (which was not atypical compared to last year's Rafer) you really think the Rox made James their #1 priority....to be Rafer's backup?

LOL, it is a fitting, funny end to this thread to watch you finish by defending Rafer in a game in which he and Tmac jacked up shot after shot after shot (13 before the end of the 3rd just for Rafe! ) and drew nothing but iron until the end, when by happy coincidence he managed to make a few -- on a night when Yao was doing damage inside - meanwhile you think a quiet performance by James, in which he clearly didn't have it going, so shut it down and deferred to his teammates, did not try to create his own shot, ran the T-wolves "offense" (which as far as I can tell, consists of 1-on-1 iso's with or without James in the game), did not take covered shots (by my count he took 1, as the ball was passed back out to him as the shot clock was winding down) is somehow worse. I mean I guess I shouldn't be surprised when you think 11-15 is bad....I can only imagine what you'd say if James put on a display like Rafer the Mad Bomber did tonight.

 

And this is why its Clutchfans.net and not Choujiefans.net...

(Okay, had to get that in. Back off to editing the Myspace profile being desparate...)

 

Seriously Sam, after tonight's game, if I were you, I'd tear down all my MJ posters on my bedroom wall, bury my head in a pillow, and weep like a little girl.

 

It's beyond me how people continue to think James is a much better fit for this team than Rafer.

Granted, I'm not saying rafer's the best PG for this team, period, but he's a better fit than James would ever be. James' only success on a winning team was his 04-05 season with us. And I'll attribute that to Yao/TMac playing as well as we've ever seen them play together, as well as solid shooters in Barry. Wesley, and the fact that whenever MJ messed up, thank God we had Sura.

James couldn't cut it in Miami, Boston, Milwaukee, was a scrub on the champion Pistons team (even when they could have used some stability at the backup PG spot), and- wow- had a career year playing for the lowly Raptors, in a CONTRACT year, mind you.

Give Rafer this: at least he didn't quit or stop playing all-out even with a terrible Rockets team last year. James has, seemingly, quit early, and seems content with the fact Foye will eat up all his minutes. He's just a selfish guy. This offseason proved it, and it's not like he doesn't have talent around him in Minny.

Blount is an adequate center in today's NBA, Garnett is Garnett, Davis can score some, and Jaric and Foye are veterans who can play their roles.

Yes, I'd rather have a Chauncey Billups, deron Williams, or somebody like that as PG for this team. But to have James instead of Alston just doesn't make sense. He was alright for us as a backup because we had options and he had to play at least somewhat under control because JVG would have inserted Sura or Wesley back in in a nanosecond.

But James would be taking too much away from this team, and I thank God with each passing day that he's not a Rocket.

 

It's often the case in the playoffs that the role players are the difference between going all the way and losing in the first round.

How many championships Shaq/Kobe, Dream/Drexler, Duncan, and MJ/Pippen would have lost out on without guys like Robert Horry, Mario Elie, Derek Fisher, Steve Kerr, Stephen Jackson, Sam Cassell, and Vernon Maxwell stepping up and playing 'above and beyond' their normal selves in the playoffs?

The superstar players give you the punching power, but the role players are the ones who make a team what it is.

 

How is Foye a "veteran"?

Seriously, between this and your previous post on Mike James (which must have been describing another Mike James, and impostor may be) I am not sure you know what you're talking about, at least in this case.

 

My post wasnt arguing against role players making a difference or not, but rather that, the issue of whether or not the Rockets are or are not contenders is not dependant solely on Rafer Alston. I thought that much would be abundantly clear in my message despoint the typos.

For example, would it have not been silly at the time to say the Rockets in would not have been contenders in 95 without mario ellie or the Spurs or Bulls without Kerr? Those teams may indeed not have achieved the same success without ellie or kerr or Maxwell, but at the time they would still have been considered "contenders" to say the least and no one in their right mind would say they had ZERO chance of being a contender.

Now the question at hand is Alston and while I dont believe or expect him to be as good or fit as well as Ellie, Maxwell, Kerr to their teams, I also dont think the ROckets of 06-07 are not and have no shot at being contenders simply because he is the point guard. If you believe otherwise, I guess we ill have to just agree to disagree, but I for one look forward to the rest of the season thinking the Rockets have a shot at being "contenders."

 

My fault, good catch. I meant Hudson.

 

i wanna kill mj due to his foolish behavior to my mac and juwan.
he is intended and deliberate to make this
WTF

 

that is why rafer is still on the team because tmac is EXPECTED to play HUGE minutes.

if the rockets deemed tmac unable to give them huge minutes, they would have signed gay, just LIKE YOU WANTED.

Rafer was not brought in to play with the rockets because he is going to control the offense. they would have traded his butt out of here during the offseason if that was his role.

you are right, the rockets will lose if rafer gets huge minutes and if tmac is out, but if tmac is out and MJ was on this team now, ain't much going to change either way.

why the rockets didn't give mj that trade kicker? they wanted him, but here is the gist of it, they weren't DESPERATE to give it to him.

as some people have said, mj ain't coming here. and someone who said be sure to keep on mchale's butt about james, how would you make that trade happen? who would you trade for his salary? are you sure mj is going to revoke his trade kicker? and if so why would he do that? why did he sign with the twolves in the first place?

 

BINGO! And in addition to Foye, Hudson and Jaric. They have Davis at the 2/3, McCants coming back much later in the season and even Hassell at the 2/3.

The Wolves going after James was a grasping at straws signing. They were just looking for anything, ANYTHING they could add scoring-wise to this team to make it a playoff team.

But from watching them, there just is NO chemistry. And James' skillset is not being utilized there. Because of this James play looks VERY tentative and disjointed.

Like Clutch said, if I am the Rockets I really work to try to reacquire James. He just represents all of the skillsets and intangibles we are looking for in this offense and on this team.

And that right there is why this team needs a 3rd scorer. Heck, a guy that can dribble/penetrate would be nice. For my money, any time Tmac is OUT of the game, Vspan is in. We need his drive and kick or drive and score.

If we had James, he could do that AND hit wide open 3ptrs.

I would even liken a Vspan/James backcourt to a poor-mans Ginobili/Parker lineup. Guys that ATTACK the basket and at times hit that open 3pt shoot.

Think Yao will be double teamed then? Or are they going to leave Battier open in the corner?

Possibilities.

 

Why's that? The further James slips down in the T-wolves rotation, the more likely he is to come home and take Rafer's job, like he was planned to do this offseason.

You think he can't jack up 10 three pointers and make 2? LOL, I'm pretty sure James could have matched that.

Well, hate to dogpile on since Clutch had pretty much torpedoed your entire argument on this issue repeatedly since the summer...but to see you now rag on him for "quitting" for not shooting enough when you blasted him before for being selfish for shooting all the time is...well......laughably predictable.

 

So the more your man stinks on another team, the more you want him on the Rockets team? LOL, WTH is that? Moreover, MJ has seen this coming all along? What is he, an oracle?

You have some serious f*'d up diehard MJOF syndrome, Sam. Pick another Minny-Rockets game to let out your orgasm.

Well the fact is MJ didn't and couldn't do sh*t. Despite his poor shooting for much of the night, Alston threw the ultimate dagger at Minny. That's clutchness. By all accounts, Alston had a more complete game than MJ. It's not far-fetched to say Alston PWN3D MJ.

Bwahahaha ...

 

Aw come on now, Clutch. The argument is a good one, but I don't think it's fair to dog Rafer for his problems at Toronto -- that is not even pertinent to this topic. Especially when he has been absolutely well behaved since he got here, and for whatever deficiencies he has, he has demonstrated the willingness and discipline to improve and get better. Easy on the guy -- he may not measure up to your standard of a championship worthy PG, but he isn't the bad guy you're making him out to be with those comments either. People get frustrated at their jobs. That's life. Just ask T-Mac.

@wnes -- There's no question Mike James is a better player than Rafer (especially when he's motivated). But as far as last night was concerned, Rafer won that matchup from pure hustle and motivation, despite the bad shooting. The thing about Mike James is drive -- his level of drive and passion dictates his production. His drive (and spite against the Rockets) was what motivated him to have a career year in Toronto. Then this year he made the wrong choice and went up into the Tundra. His life sucks now and his game reflects it. If you asked me, I'm glad he didn't grudgingly accept the contract without the trade kicker ... "great fit" or not, he would probably be sucking here as well, not playing up to his abilities. And we wouldn't have a Spanoulis to go to on the bench, either.

 

Oh please, if somebody here has overwhelming, Manimalian lust for a certain player..... you and a certain subgroup of fans has proven that time and time again to an extent that I can only hope to imitate....remind me how you became a Rockets fan again?

The fact is, he also didn't do the things or play in the style his critics (check the post above yours, they're not faring too well, are they? ) said he did or would do, and in fact did he exact opposite -- while his counterpart did the exact things that people said he did not do and James did do.

I'm not going to lie and say his production was good; it was not - but I don't think it's a stretch to say it wasn't as detrimental as Alston (" the ultimate dagger" - too bad he used his chainsaw on the Rockets for the first 45 minutes against a team we should have blown out easily.) I can't imagine what jokers like Rocket111 would be posting if James put up Alston's numbers last night.

 

Seriously we need to lay off this MJames love. I personally don't think it's going to make any difference if we have either James or Alston on the team. And realistically there's no way we could get James now since Minnesota was dumb enough to let him have his trade kicker, which means James will get 15% of his contract as a bonus if he were to be traded. I am sure MJames would welcome that but I don't think the Wolves would be too thrilled about that.

 

Clutch, that's just not fair showing those YouTube's of Mike James on the Rockets. Teasing! Watching him actually ATTACK the basket on a break and finish. sigh.

As good as the Rockets are with their defense, imagine if we could get another 6-8 points a night offensively just because we had guys that could finish on fast breaks!