OK, now Boki is seeming to get into the flow of the offense: vs the Bulls, 8 pts, 6 rb's and 5 assists! 2 bs's and 1 steal. all in 30 minutes. Sounds like the Bokester is contributing. Still would be nice to know what he is contributing on defense other than 3 fouls. But it does seem safe to say that Boki will catch on somewhere next year.
Ask Yao Ming if coaches develop players. Stupid argument. If it wasn't for the coaching that Ming has gotten since he came into the NBA he would be already be on the bench and headed back to China. Ever heard of Pete Newell? How about the coaching staff of the Mavs? They've got a coach for every player just about. Shooting coaches, defensive coaches. There are very few players that come into the NBA with a finished game that does not need to be developed. As good as Lebron is, his game still needs developing by good coaches. He may not need to develop his physical skills (although his shooting was suspect and still is to some extent) but he still needs to develop his awareness of the NBA and game situations and defensive skills. In the vast majority of NBA players, their defensive game has to be trained and practiced. Boki was no different in this area than any other Euro. The bottom line on Boki is he worked his tail off while he was here and was not given an opportunity. He spent all summer in the gym with Van Gundy using him as an example to the rest of the team on how to work out in the offseason. Then Van Gundy dumped him for whatever reason. Maybe he didn't fit here? I don't know. But I do know if he stays healthy that he will develop into a good 3rd to 4th scoring option for somebody in this league and have a very good career. As far as the trade goes, looking back on it, I had been in favor of removing JJ from this team for a long time. Obviously adding DW was a plus. We got rid of the coaches pet, who was affecting our team chemistry and slowing down the ball movement, and we got a gritty defender, who can stick the 3 and swings the ball very quickly and is totally unselfish. I just don't think we got full value for Boki.........because Gundy sat him on the bench and didn't develop him. This was going on while MoT was running up and down the floor, playing less than zero defense, not rebounding, and being a black hole with the ball. Van Gundy had MoT and JJ playing big minutes for us and Boki was sitting. The trade has worked for us for what we needed at this time. But in a couple years, I think we are going to see DW getting beat consistently off the dribble, and his shooting percentage fade, and we are going to see Boki averaging 12-15 ppg with an outstanding shooting percentage because we decided to go with experience. We should have played Boki, and developed him, so that if we were gonna move him, we could get more for him instead of wasting time trying to do this with MoT who had already established an identity in this league which will never change at this point. Anyway, that's all spilt milk at this point. This team is definitely playing much better. It's probably mostly due to the subtracting of JJ from the lineup and the addition of DW to the lineup and the fact that Van Gundy took a lot of hands off TMac and turned him loose as far as shot selection. It really has nothing to do with how bad/good Boki was. And Boki's stats now are still against NBA competition. You can make the excuse that on a bad team, somebody has to score, but he is still scoring and having an impact on his team. Antoine Walker was scoring on one of the worst teams, if not the worst team, in the league. Now he is playing very well for a playoff contender. You can't ignore a player's skill set and potential just because he is doing it on a losing team. Boki will continue to improve with good developmental coaching and playing time.
Boki has a double-digit first half vs. the Celts! He's on fire - 5/5 shooting, 13 points. He's going to be a player. The Hornets youth movement is a mixed bag: J.R. Smith is gonna be great, Boki is good, Dickau and Speedy are good. The rest of those guys, except for maybe Lampe, don't have much value.
Boki could develop into a NBA starter. Damn, I want him back!!! Don't get me wrong, Wesley is good, I love him. But JJ for Wesley alone would have be a better deal.
Boki's final stats against the Celtics: 19pts in 23mins on 6/8 fg, 3/5 3-pt, 4/4 ft Not bad, not bad at all
I hope the Rockets can sign him next season, wait! what am i saying, JVG will put him right back on the bench. Dallas or NJ would be a nice fit for him. Or he can stay in N.O. and be the medium fish in the small pond. I hope he does well in the league, remember when he was working out for the Rockets before being drafted and he actually wrote a letter to the team saying that he enjoyed the team and wanted to play for the Rockets. Seemed like a nice gesture. He also signed my original Rockets jersey i bought when i thought he was going to be the next Peja. oh well.
It's good to see him do well for the Hornets. I think they will probably resign him since he has been a good fit for them. I thought we gave up on him too quickly. The Rockets should take a look at him in the offseason and see if they can bring him back, but I don't think they will give him another chance and Boki probably won't want to come back either.
Dont forget that Boki was on the verge of falling off the NO roster too recently... He needed a lot of playing time getting to this stage, and it is doubtful that any playoff contender could have given it to him. Without having seen his play it is difficult to say whether he would yet be earning serious playing time for a good team. But he certainly seems to have earned an NBA paycheck for next year.
Boki will join his former coach in Phoenix. Bank on it. D'antoni loves the kid and was one of the reasons he was drafted so high.
Phoenix is already so loaded with swingmen (Johnson, Marion, Richrdson, JJ), I would be surprised if they went after another.
I think they will S&T Joe Johnson for a big man such as Nene and salary cap, maybe Theo Ratliffe, and then they will bring in Boki as his replacement. It took Boki playing a lot of minutes to get to this point?????????? What league are you talking about? Because he sure hasn't been playing a lot of minutes in the NBA the last 3 years. Where would he be if he had played as many minutes as say Kyle Korver?
I took his comments as Boki is finally getting alot of minutes from his team, (just needed a team to take a chance and consistently give him 20+ minutes) and that was a reason for his rise in confidence & increase in productivity. Minutes are crucial for any young player to grow in this league. I did not take it as a comment "in a negative light", such as it took Boki lots of minutes from the start of the season to the end of the season for him to finally step it up. I don't know if you are even confused about clarifying that point, but who cares anyways. Congrats to Boki for working hard and providing a very solid presence off the bench.
Happy for Boki. Is there a Hornets fan forum and is anyone talking about his offensive and defensive contributions? Seemed to be JVG's big complaint about Boki was his defensive shortcomings, but then a lot of players are not very good defenders.
