ding ding ding. i fully expect jvg to run bonzi to death. if he truly came into camp at the alleged 268# mark, that is absolutely inexcusable. do groin issues make it difficult to push away from the table???
I'll take Mike James every day of the week and twice on Sundays. This team would be scary with James in the mix, with or without a healthy TMac. The Alston-James trade, STILL one of the stupidest trades in Rocket's history, hands down.
dude, i respect your opinion, but i watched almost all of the raptors game last year and the year before last. most of the time, mike played sg. the real pg of the team was jose calderon, a rookie. and while mike scored a lot, and had a few clutch plays, what people didnt realize was the few bone headed plays he had before the big shot. he was a crowd favourite, and therefore the raptors coach never came down as hard on him as he did on his pg the previous year. the raptors had breakout years from chris bosh, c villanueva, mo pete, and mike james, and they still couldnt make the playoffs in the east. why? because they couldnt close out games. something a vet like mike james shouldve handled, but he didnt. theres a reason why teams dont hang on to him. he needs the ball all the time, if not, he's useless. would he have helped our scoring last year without tmac n yao in the game? definitely with the scoring, but we'd still lose the same number of games. and he'd be useless with a team of tmac n yao ming. this year, try to give rafer a chance. its going to be sweet seeing yao ming getting great entry passes into the paint.
Yep.... all you guys talking about Bonzi being fat and all need to relax. I'd rather have alston and bonzi on the team anyday over michelle james
ill take a rental bonzi, a young vspan and 3 year deals for novak and jl3 over a mike james anyday. According to NBA.com Minny is his 8th team since he came into the league in the 01-02 season. There has to be a reason for that. i like what teh rockets have done after not getting him and i think they are better off now and definantly in the future.
I not saying James instead of Wells or VSpan, I am saying with them. James is a talent. He is fast, pesky defender, and he can shoot. True, James is not a classic PG, but he would be a great addition to the team.
Let 's wait and see, how James will play in Minnesota ... I really don 't think he can play in the same team with KG!
I give Bonzi a break because he didnt have a contract in summer. Injury could cost Bonzi bigtime. Nothing to worry about, it a long gruelling season.
Wrong. It is entirely possible that right now we'd have neither Mike James OR Rafer Alston. 1. James said he was looking for a payday. Why are you so confident James would have resigned with us? If he didn't, VSpan would be our starting PG! 2. James didn't make the trade look bad until AFTER the trade. Prior to the trade, Jame's stats and Rafer's stats were comperable albeit differenty "type" of players but comperable players nontheless. Nobody could have predicted he'd put up 20ppg. 3. James played his best ball in a contract year. Lets wait to see if he continues that play this season. 4. Rafer played his WORST ball in an injury laden year and was asked to do things he's not capable of. Already this season we are seeing that Rafer is a legit player. I'm giving this trade one more year before declaring it the 'worst' ever. Also IMO, the Scotty Quitten trade would easily surpass James/Alston trade as the worst ever. That Quitten trade was the first event that launched the Rockets into destitude for years to come the likes of which was HOPEFULLY will dig out from finally THIS season. You can't come close to saying the same about the Rafer/James trade.
Just watch what happens w/ Mike James when he's struggling for minutes shots with Randy Foye and Trenton Hassell breathing down his back. Also there is the very strong possibility that KG is gone from the Wolves by midseason, leaving James on a rebuilding team in the stronger Western Conference. His stats in Toronto don't mean a thing, Chris Bosh and all the other Raptors thought was selfish. The wolves did us a favor.
So, why do your arguments make me think I am still right? Essentially, you are saying last year is an aberration. Maybe, maybe not. I would have kept James, one way or another. Today, we would be an even better team. Alston is not the only one in the universe capable of feeding the ball to Ming. Actually VSpan does it better.
The Alston-Mike James wasn't that big of a mistake, let alone the biggest mistake in Rockets history (ridiculous).
I think Alston will be a better fit for a healthy McGrady and Yao. I think Rafer is set to have a big year.
You are making the assumption that we would be a better team BECAUSE James is on the team. James may have bolted after his contract was up. Plus I think it is entirely possible that Rafer will have an overall better season than Mike James. In preseason, James averaged 10ppg shooting 33%. Wow. The old James is back. Conversely, Rafer averaged 10ppg while shooting 46%. Much more efficient! And we know Rafer is a better chemistry guy. At the end of this season, I think Rafer and James will have comperable seasons statistically and we'll have Rafer locked up long term. We traded James because we knew he was gonna bolt after the season and he wasn't a true PG. Now we have long term PG (hopefully) and meshes well with the team.
Mike James is a selfish player, you could see him getting into it with TMac when he was here...... IMHO, Tmac was willing to let it go because the team needed talent..ANY TALENT !! However, MJ is a cancer to team chemistry.....I am VERY glad he is not here and think the team stacks up better as a TEAM without him. There are clear roles on this team, and MJ would have come in disrupting the order of things. You have TMac and Yao...and then everyone else knows their role.... This team is stacked. DD
The regular season "sample" from last year is more compelling to me. Alston is going to have to improve significantly over last year. Overall, I thought he stunk. James had an All Star season. Alston is now surrounded by better talent, so he should look better. But he does not have the size and mental toughness that James does. DaDakota's point about "attitude" has substance, but interestingly, that was Alston's reputation as well. Time will tell. To be continued.
The regular season "sample" is not accurate for comparing MJ and Alston, one was a ballhog who only cared if he could score, the one was playing PG and played mostly with scrubs and sometimes had to create his own shots. Bottomline, if Toronto could not stand him when he had a career high, there must be some issues, then why should we?
Of course it is ...as it should be. But I've been saying for probably 6 months that things will be different in 06-07 and so far we are already seeing evidence of that. It's certainly not conclusive evidence, however. Yup, we'll find out soon enough.
I was all for the Alston Trade. I think it is often a misconception that if you take 2+2 it would equal 4 on the basketball court. James is a +2 on scoring, and -3 on teamwork. So overall, his contribution would be detrimental to the team if he was to start. Not only is James not a conventional point guard, he really isn't one at all. Why would anyone not favor the trade when we have been complaining about ballhogs for the past 5-7 years since the Franchise came on board. I don't think you understand that having James on the court would not allow Yao or T-mac to maximize their effectiveness. We need players to finish and play their roles, not ones that need the ball in their hands to be remotely effective. Watch my word, Randy Foye will eventually edge out James for the point. James is a lot better off the bench than starting.
Among the other fabrications and revisionist histories in this thread, this is perhaps the funniest when it gets recycled. You forgot to add "purple monkey dishwasher" after the end of it. Like I said - Bonzi who? Not familiar with him. Is he the fat guy who shows up in street clothes sometimes and decided to skip preseason because ti was inconvenient? Yeah, team player him........
