much agreed. I don't care about a player's "issues" if he's good you play him. Rodman is a perfect example. You play him regardless if you like him or not. He was one of the best rebounders the nba had ever seen. Who cares if he is nice??? Why choose who plays by picking the guys who will kiss your butt? The goal is winning. at any cost. you play whoever gets you wins. Even if you can't get along with them.
So do you believe if Rudy was coaching the Rockets, the Bonzi situation would have still been the same?
Bonzi only quit after jvg jerked him around all year and made the relationship personal. How anyone can honestly blame bonzi for the situation and not JVG is beyond me.
Bonzi wasn't Rodman. Rodman was rebounding leader for the league, and defensive player of the year and playing for a team where the players (Jordan in particular) signed off on dealing with his crap. Bonzi was an above avereage role player. Compromising your rules for a mid level exception role player risks alienating the rest of the team. How do you demand Tracy and Yao and the rest of the team follow your rules if you let a role player do whatever he wants? Especially when that role player comes to camp out of shape and doesn't do anything beyond average with the time he does have? Then when Bonzi got a chance he did nothing to take advantage but complain about not getting even more minutes. I can totally empathize with Jeff reigning him in. Sure I would have loved to have a contributing Bonzi, and maybe another coach would have handled it better. Then again maybe another coach doesn't keep us with a winning record during the 2 months Yao is out. Can't blame Van Gundy for everything that goes wrong and not credit him for what went right. I blamed Van Gundy for Bonzi alot more before Wells just quit the team by not showing up after Van Gundy started to give him play time again.
hell yeah bonzi could've helped. i realize that JVG never gave some other players a chance at the rotation, but none of the others listed are truly proven nba talents. bonzi is (or has been). he was deserving of some serious minutes off the bench. he did score 28 in the only start he had this year. if JVG gave him 25 minutes for a 15-20 game stretch and bonzi STILL didn't improve, then fine. banish him to the end of the bench. but JVG never gave him the chance to show his talent here. out of shape, injured (was he really? lots of injuries are ghost injuries), or whatever. this team BADLY needed another scorer. and the series against the jazz proved it.
If the injuries were not real, they were faked by Bonzi. There is no longer any reason for a player to be listed as injured to be on the inactive list. By most accounts Bonzi was bitter about the money he lost out on by not resigning with Sacramento. The thing is he wanted special treatment like he was a super star who was getting better than Sacramento money rather than an MLE roleplayer which is what he was. I would have loved a contributing Bonzi, but ultimately it was Bonzi that quit the team regardless of what prompted him to do so.
I completely agree. Yeah if he was another scrub like Snyder, V-span, or Novak you can screw around with him all you want because they are unproven. But Bonzi on the other hand is a proven player. He can be borderline all-star if he wants. This is why you take the risk of putting him in a LONG stretch of games where he will get 25+ minutes. He is worth the risk. Bottom line JVG is a great X and O's coach. He can be considered the greatest assistant coach in history followed by Tex Winters. But that is where these kinds of coaches belong during the game, on the bench. Because they are not able to handle players and motivate them. This is why you have a Phil Jackson with Winters sitting right behind him. That is where JVG belongs, behind Pat Riley. Some people said in the other thread that they want Rick Adelman as head coach. I would love to have Van Gundy sitting right behind him, only because Adelman can motivate his players and get the most out of them much better than Van Gundy.
Hell YEAH Bonzi would have helped. Not so much with his talents, but little things like showing up to the games, acting like he gave a darn, showed interest in being a Rockets basketball player...Instead of dragging the team down with his sloppiness and depression. Bonzi's past history hurt him though. Van Gundy isnt the greatest coach for those types of situations but he did what he could. Ultimatedly it was up to Bonzi to show up to practice and be professional but he didnt want it bad enough...Some of you are saying well Van Gundy SHOULD have done ___. But how many coaches out there are really that lenient? Weird situation, we might never know the real details. BUT, I'da STILL used fat Bonzi...all I care about is effectiveness on the court regardless if they're a rotund round body or not. If Oliver Miller could have D'ed up on Boozer for limited stretches I'd do it. Whatever slob or scrub it takes to advance that's better than what you have.
yeah bonzi would have helped. i was dissapointed that bonzi would quit the team the way he did, but JVG had me scratching my head. If our team was filled with low post and midrange studs i'd understand why a coach could blow off a less motivated player. We had Hayes starting at PF and Head logging time at SG. You'd think JVG would be more flexible and try to handle Bonzi better. Even Riley doesnt use the doghouse the way JVG does, and he has wayyy more talent to work with.
Do you think there is any chance that Bonzi returns next year to play for the Rockets? Imagine this scenario playing out. Teams are afraid to sign Bonzi during the offseason because of his lack of conditioning, his time away from the game (essentially an entire year), his mental issues (never got over the contract debacle), and his strange departure from the team. Meanwhile, the Rockets get a new coach like Rick Adelman who coached him in Sacramento. So instead of opting out of the second year in his contract, he decides to exercise the option and play for our team. Am I deluding myself? Basically, I thought we were a good team after our last offseason, but I knew we would have a disappointing postseason and have to shake up the team again. But that all changed when we Bonzi fell into our laps. At that point, I thought we would win the championship this year. That came to a sudden halt when JVG mentally abused Bonzi and he ultimately quit.
I didn't vote because you didn't state which Bonzi we were voting on. The "against the Spurs" Bonzi would have taken us to the WC Finals. The fat, out of shape Bonzi that showed up in camp not able to play and later quit couldn't have made a difference.
No. With his work ethic and lack of physical conditioning he would have gotten murdered by the Jazz offense worse than anybody that actually played.
No, not "his work ethic and lack of physical conditioning." It's his JVG-does-not-like work ethic and lack of JVG-liked physical conditioning.
why would that make any difference?? just a reminder: if you want to play Bonzi, you have to bench either Tmac or Shane...... Shane did his part on game 7, hitting his 3pts, defended well. Don't think bonzi could have provided much more.
Bonzi sucked so bad during the last couple games of the season, why would anyone think this will change once he enters the playoff and faces a better team? you guys are smoking something goooood.
Well, I certainly see the side that you took on the issue, so I'll agree to disagree. The side I took was perception. I only know what I saw with my own eyes, and that was an out of shape Bonzi Wells. Anything else is pure speculation and he-said-he-said.
