I still think it was a good trade.... but as far as tonite... Mike James might as well have gone ahead and had sex with Rafer Alston's wife too because it's pretty apparent Rafer wasn't going to attempt to maintain any level of self respect.
I don't think James is what we needed here and that's why we traded him. There is such as thing as a good player not being a good fit for your team. I just wish Rafer was a better fit than he has shown.
Disagree. It was all about having a player under contract and knowing that MJames was likely to walk off to the highest bidder. I am willing to bet that the Rockets' thinking was along the lines of, "Well, since we're going to be consistently over the cap from now on, we need to acquire players under contracts, because that's the only way we can acquire players through trades in the future".
I am not sure if James is what Toronto needs either. They have improved talentwise with Villanueva this year, but their record is worse than last year. Rockets are worse, but we don't know how good they are when they are healthy. Is there such a thing as a lose-lose trade?
If by "has a winning attitude" you mean "is a piece of sh*t." Clearly James is the more talented scorer, but he also seems like a punk. If we had Mike James instead of Rafer with all the same pieces/injuries we have had this season, I guarantee our record would not be much better. Look at the Raps. They have James, and four other very solid starters and they are one of the worst teams in the league. Why is that? I think of this year's injury depleted team with Mike James much like the year Francis was injured and Mobley was our leading scorer. We didn't win much. The problem is that Yao is injured. We aren't gonna be sweeping many roadtrips without Yao, period. Oh and what would it have taken to have Bowen come in and throw James an elbow to the noggin, for Juwan's sake? We were gonna lose anyway.
Then Bowen would be the "punk" right? Its ok for our players to do it, but not theirs? James didn't do anything physical, he was just talking a little trash, like Gary Payton used to do. And it worked.
It's pretty obvious after the incident tonight that some of the Rockets weren't in love with James, hence the trade.
McGrady seemed fine with him after the game, so there goes the loaded **** about McGrady and James not liking one another. It was a contract move, period.
It would have been interesting if we had of kept Mike James for trade bait at the deadline to see what we could have gotten for him and our other expirings.
And I was worried I would come to the BBS tonight to see 5 whiner threads about the trade. I'm impressed to see so much rationality for once!
Not really sure of your point but... The point of view that James was going to opt out for a big contract has a serious flaw...teams with significant cap space looking for a starting PG. Let me define significant $. James is basically worth more than an MLE but nowhere near $10+m. For discussion $7m-8m...Mobley $. Further, no one is going to pay that much to a backup. Here is a list of teams with significant summer 2006 cap space...Bobcats, Hornets, Hawks, and Bulls. You might be able to make a case for the Hawks but there is the Lottery Draft and re-signing Harrington well ahead of James. If we didn't like James next summer, we would have had his full Bird Rights and could have easily done a SnT giving him the $ he wanted and us a player with a longer contract which we wanted. Bottomline...we have no consistent 3rd scorer, dribble penetration by opposing quick guards is one of our worst flaws, & (with Sura down) we have no Pitt Bull. Folks can call James "a punk" all day long but at least he plays with passion 95+% of the time.
Ya know, I love all this "contract year" talk, as if that's the only reason Mike James plays well. Well sorry to tell ya but, although not at this level, last year he played pretty well too, as well as with Detroit in their championship run. The only difference is he didn't fit our system (ie. not passing the ball to Yao, TMac, among other things). On the other hand, after he went to Toronto (which has 0 stars), he's really allowed to shine. Sorry to say but, Mike James is simply a better player. Hands down. Especially compared to what Rafer has shown us this year (with the exception of 1 or 2 games). People keep saying that "well Rafer has been injured and wasn't given the chance to shine" as if it is a plus. Well, last time I checked a healthy player is almost always worth more than an injured one sitting on the bench, even if it is TMac. As far as the trade go, I don't disagree with it, even though I fully admit that Mike James is the better player. Why? Because we would never have had the money to re-sign him, so it's better to get something out of it. That's another thing I like about Mike James. At least he told us in advance he's going after the money. He could have been a ***** and left us to dry
I don't agree with this. Duncan a first name? What about Juwan Howard? Michael Jordan? Devean George?
Good post, I agree with what you said, and I have stated that we should just let it go and move on, no point to dwell on the past. With trades, there are always winners and losers. Last season we made trades in mid-season and we came out looking like geniuses. This season, we can't get wrong right; that's just life in the NBA, and that's how things go. Every dog has his day...
That is a pretty absurd thing to say. It isn't like he was lazy and overweight which resulted in a chronic injurty. Rafer had a broken leg! Are you upset he didn't drink enough milk?
