I like Bonner's game as well. ULTRA efficient shooter (take a look at his hot zone chart), plays hard on D (even if he's not that great a defender), and has played both the 4 and the 5. Wonder if Bonner can be had in a trade... the Spurs probably like him, but they got a ton of bigs-- Duncan, Horry, Oberto, and new guys Elson and Butler. Is there enough minutes to actually make use of Bonner's talents? The Rockets already have Padgett and Novak and Battier to shoot 3s from PF, but Bonner actually has experience playing C. Maybe he and Dikembe can be an offense/defense platoon as backup C. Either bring the interior D with Mutombo or really spread the floor for Tracy and/or Bonzi when Yao sits down.
I say when we play the Sperms and Bonner gets minutes, JVG should throw Novak out there to match up with him....would be fun to watch
The Spurs are going to make a trade with us, unless it's hugely one-sided in their favor. If we wanted him, we should have dealt with the Raptors, IMO.
The Spurs traded for Bonner for the same reason we traded for Battier. They are planning on playing a lot of Duncan with Bonner out at the stripe for the dump off bomb just like we are planning to do with Battier. There's no way they want to trade him.
i watched a lot of raptors game for the last 2 seasons, and i love matt 'spicy hot' bonner's game. he'll have stretches where he cant make shots, but he'll never slack on defence and he wont brick himself out of a game. and when the shots are falling, he's like a fantasy basketball sleeper everyone's rushing to get. i was pretty pissed san antonio got him, which means that now everyone knows he's good, and we wont have another chance at getting him for cheap.
Time will tell whether Bonner is better than Novak or just the same product. But now im going for Novak because we dont need Bonner now
great title to this thread JVG was not joking when talking about how much he liked bonner as a player. who wouldn't like him? he plays hard and he's efficient. he have a couple of guys like that. shane, padgett, even novak.
The problem I seem to recall that lead to the Spurs downfall with the Mavs and problems with Sac were athleticism in the forward spots. Neither Bonner or Erik Williams (at this stage of his career) help that. Of course you don't want to leave Bonner wide open, just like you don't want to leave Bowen wide open. But these are easy guys to take out. Guy like Battier and (younger) Horry, who can also drive versus the overplay and play defense--much tougher to deal with. Also consider Bonner is one of the worst rebounders in the league at 6'10" 240. Consider our own Howard and Swift, even our own former 4 Mo Taylor, average more rebounds. IMO the more Bonner plays the less dynamic and less athletic SA is, and I don't think that is good for them versus the increasingly athletic elite teams (Dallas, Phx, maybe us now). For the same reason I see Novak and Padgett type players being very limited for us. Not useless, can be good when you just need 10 minutes and your guys outside shots are not falling, but really nothing more than that.
