Actually, you're not talking about that. You just repeated a stock cliche about pass first PGs, now you're switching tracks entirely and trying to blame the Game 7 abortion loss on James, which is an entirely different subject, while ignoring the good games he had in that series, which is yet another different subject. I wished he'd shot more in that last game rather than watching Tracy jack up brick after brick from behind the arc. Anyway Meowgi, since it's fair to view him in the context of that one game and disregard any others, can I tar and feather McGrady too? Let me know.
Hindsight is grand. Makes even the slowest folks appear bright. I'd rather have TMac going into next season than MJ. How about you?
Foresight is better, when you have old and/or injury prone players and don't have much else in the way of shooting or scoring - which is why a lot of people protested the move at the time. yes because heaven knows, the two are mutually exclusive..... ....anyway if you're down to comparing Tracy versus Mike James I think my point has been established as clearly as it could. Oh, sorry, Holllinger, go back to your in-depth analysis, hope your feelings aren't too damaged.
so they should have traded everyone but tracy and yao. and using last year's playoffs when james was the only guard who played any defense actually favors keeping him especially with rafer's defense.
OK. Well, the reality of it is this team is built around Yao and Tmac. Great teams are defined by their stars ...not their role players. If the star(s) faulters ...so goes the team. If Yao or TMac are hurt often, it doesn't matter who else we have on this team ...it won't live up to the potential. Do you honestly beleive having James on this team is the difference between us being a contender and being lottery bound? Somebody else said James is MUCH better and it isn't even debatable. Well, it is in fact being debated on both sides here. Maybe you have your opinion but it certainly is DEBATABLE.
Yes, for the reasons already stated. He's strong in all the areas the rockets were weak this year. ...ergo logic dictates he would have made us a better team, and our record would have reflected it. It really can't get much more clear.
If I had the power to reverse the Alston/James trade, I would do so in a heartbeat. The Rockets can shop for another PG elsewhere. One that can shoot.
I liked MJ just fine last year. I prefer a passing PG who will run an offense, cliche or no. There's a reason why folks like PGs like Nash and Kidd (who BTW was criticized early on for his lack of a shot) My response was directed to your 'point' which was: 'I'd rather have a healthy good player for 82 games than an ailing superstar who plays for 40 games. This is reality, not NBA 2k6 Were you not comparing TMac and MJ? And can't think of many here that would trade an ailing TMac for MJ. Whatcha think?
All I know is that if we had Mike James since the start of the season, we'd be 5 or 6 wins better. At least two of those would be from the fact that he's not at Toronto tearing us up. We needed his offense bad and there were plenty of shots for him. Our chemistry has been crap anyway so James pursuing his own agenda wouldn't have made a difference IMO.
It's the same thing. It's not the shooting but the passing that's the problem. we have three other players for outside shooting, and Alston can still hit some. Our offense was very stale during that game 7.
I think that it is obvious that James would have been the better player for us for THIS YEAR. We had no way of knowing during training camp that McGrady and Yao were going to miss so much time and how desparately our lack of a 3rd scorer would hurt us. If Yao and Tracy had been healthy, and Rafer had been healthy throughout the seaon, then obviously Rafer's numbers would probably be skewed towards 9 or 10 assists per game, and his PPG would probably be increased by a couple with all the attention being shifted away from and towards the big 2, especially with Yao coming alive so much in the last couple months. And his shooting percentage would be higher because of an extra easy layup or two created by the defensive diversion away from him. So Rafer would at least have held his own in the Rafer-James debate. The problem was we replaced James' offense with expected offense from DA and DA got hurt and didn't bring it. We've got to get the 3rd scorer and Rafer will look a ton better with a healthy Yao, TMac, and shooter.
That ol' hindsight again. Isn't this season done? Do we care? I prefer a Championship. A true, traditional, cliche PG betters our chances. It's obvious.
You don't need to look at the Lakers, look at the Rockets. Kenny Smith was a spot-up shooter and Cassell was a scorer. McGrady and Yao don't need anyone to set them up; they should set everyone else up.
The double team is what sets them up. There is no double team on Yao and Tmac unless they get the ball.
No, it's called foresight - ignore it all you want, but the evidence was there. Go back and read the old threads from when he was traded. My first reaction was - "why are we giving up shooting and defense for a 'playmaker' when we already have 2 of them". That looks to be the correct reaction - in hindsight, and foresight. Again, name one traditional "distributor" PG who was not a scoring threat who has won an NBA title over the last 10 years. I can name Avery Johnson in 1999. That's it. You can side with 10%. I'll take 90%. Nope, I woudn't either because that takes into account future value - I'm solely focused on assessing PAST PERFORMANCE in 2005-06. And the fact is that James scored more points than McGrady this year, while shooting a significantly higher percentage. Again, this is all a tangent of the idiotic "well the Raptors have a crappy record" line. News flash - so do we, with MUCH better players at the core of the team.
Trivia Question: In all the games Rockets played against Dallas THIS SEASON, which one is the closest? Who played, who didn't in that game?
How hard is it to find someone who can dribble across the half cout, then hand it to Tmac, and being able to hit a shot if totally open?
