Heres a heads up to anyone interested, Bill and Larry just said that Mike James will join them on the Astros telecast in a little bit.
I caught the interview w/ MJ. He mentioned he was excited about the coming season after the strong finish last year and the addition of SS. He sounded like he was happy to be a Rocket and I hope we can keep him in our rotation for a few years. This dude is gonna get more PT this year than many suspect. Earz
He scored 81 points in the playoffs vs Dallas. He was our 3rd leading scorer behind Tmac and Yao. Glad to see he is excited about the upcoming season. Sura was the 4th leading scorer at about 60 points.
I agree...I don't understand why he gets so much **** from this board though... I think he can creat his own shot, drive to the hoop, bring the ball up the court, and he can hit the open jumper...3rd on the team against the mavs is great... I was PRAYING that we wouldn't trade him away...
i think the fact that he said he will sign with whoever gives him the biggest contract turned a lot of us off to him. mike would be a fine starter if we had tmac bring up the ball. the problem with that is then yao would have to be the first option which JVG decided is not a good idea. if MJ were to bring up the ball he would take too much time off the clock before passing.
The first part doesn't bother me. We're not talking about a guy who has already earned 100 million dollars over his career. We're talking about a guy who got into the NBA the hard way. I'd go for the money too. My problem with Mike James stems more from the way he plays like a poor mans Steve Francis. I had enough of the dribbling down the clock and taking ill advised shots during the reign of the Franchise. Despite those flaws, I think Mike James is a valuable contributor off the bench. He brings energy and instant offense. I just don't like it when people project him as our starter. I don't know if he'll ever be a starter in this league. I'll tell you who he really reminds me of - John Starks.
totally understand what you mean for not having any loyalty? (Whatever) that means allot to me in a player as well...even if he WAS looking for more money...if he would have said it like...I'd really like to stay or what not...yeah I feel you there... however I still think he is DEFF as good as it get bang for your buck...if not an amazing deal...he plays his role... and people wanna complain about him being like franshise??? LOL...how many years did we enjoy the way franshise played here...and how MANY of you guys were upset that we gave him up...that's not making sense to me... but about the first point I can accept that...
Thing about Mike James is, he's yet another undersized shooting guard. And how many times can you foul a guy when he's shooting the 3? Memo to James: don't.
What are you talking about? People enjoyed Franchise's style of play until they realized that he wasn't going to take us to the next level. That doesn't justify the amount of hate he got (and still gets) from posters on this board, because it's not really his fault, but that's the reason why people wanted him gone. Not many of us were upset to see him traded when we got T-Mac. People were upset when we started losing games early in the season. I don't agree that Mike James necessarily plays like Stevie, but I do agree that he's better in the role as a scorer off the bench. He can't really run an offense. But he IS the best backup PG in the league. And aside from David Wesley, he's the most underappreciated member of our team (on this board, at least).
Anyone who thinks Mike James should start isn't seeing the real player he is. Mike James has 6th man written all over him, ESPECIALLY for our team. First of all, we dont have a legit 6th man scoring threat. That's where he belongs. His mentality is find the best shot for himself, and if he can't, he'll use the last 8-10 seconds to quickly set someone else up. Sure he can catch and shoot, but I think his best asset is his ability to create his own shot, and with that, his style is to dominate the ball to find that shot. That style of play is a very effective 6th man/bench player. That way, we dont lose much when our superstars are out resting. James would be a starting player on a team with maybe a couple stars or one superstar. But we have two superstars, and he just doesn't complement them well as a starter.
I agree with this. In addition, his aggressive, high energy defense is also beter utilized off the bench.
Mike James played a mere 27 games with us last season. How are you guys going to proclaim he is better used off the bench, or proclaim at all how he'd be better used? Let's let the coaching staff figure that out. Let's look at some positives. Although we don't have an all star player at the point....we do have arguably the most depth at the position in the league. James, Sura, Ward, Moochie - all of these guys would/could likely start or play a major role on other teams (Moochie likely would not start anywhere, but he is capable of playing backup for several teams). I think I am reserving judgement on James until he gets a full season under his belt in our system. What I did see from him, all things considered, was he can help us in a major way. He can score in bunches and plays good defense. He is very quick. He can change the tempo of the game. He is a threat that take some pressure off McGrady/Yao.
Uh...Mike James is 10,000,000,000,000 times better than Moochie. MJames is a better: player off the dribble shooter defender MJames could be productive starting or off the bench. MJames could be productive playing PG or SG. MJames has a smaller contract than Moochie. MJames has more drive than Moochie. Basically, James is better than Moochie in every facet of the game. btw, I agree James would be better suited to come off the bench on this team as it is contructed. We need his offensive punch from the bench.
I think people enjoyed watching Franchise play until they realized that he was never going to outgrow his horrible decession making and extream turnover ways. A lot of the things he did in year 4 were excusable and somewhat acceptable in his 1st couple of years because he was young and still learning how to play in the NBA. But after a few years and Steve was still just as bad at running the offense I could not stand watching his style of play. He could have and should have been so much better. I love MJ's style of play. Maybe because he brings it off of the bench, maybe because he is not the focal point of the offense or maybe because he is the most athletic guard on a team full of guards that are almost in the retirement home. In any event he is a better defender than Steve was IMO....a hundred times better defender than Mooche ever was and while he is a shoot first type of guard I don't think he makes anywhere nere the kind of mental mistakes that we saw from Steve or Mooche.
