Suns vs Rockets 3:30 pm 7/10/17 (NBA TV)

[SweetD]

Overall this game was meh:

James is really starting to be a little bit of a ball hog. Ullis would have been huge in this SL year.

Chriss, Bender and Jackson keep playing well enough for Summer League.

Reed dropped down a few notches, didn't play within the game and tried to score to much.

 

[Ronin]

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[Finito]

James is trying to make a roster but he needs to understand he's here to make the roster players look good.

Better game by Chriss, Bender looked good today

I thought the exact same thing about Jackson being a Marion type. You look up and he Gots 20 points like where did that come from

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Overall this game was meh:

James is really starting to be a little bit of a ball hog. Ullis would have been huge in this SL year.

Chriss, Bender and Jackson keep playing well enough for Summer League.

Reed dropped down a few notches, didn't play within the game and tried to score to much.

And yet Reed is one of only two players with positive +/-

 

[ColdPickleNachos]

Overall this game was meh:

James is really starting to be a little bit of a ball hog. Ullis would have been huge in this SL year.

Chriss, Bender and Jackson keep playing well enough for Summer League.

Reed dropped down a few notches, didn't play within the game and tried to score to much.

Hated James' body language the whole game. Sat five rows back and witnessed arguments with him and Bender and then Reed getting annoyed when he wouldn't swing it back so he could get it in to Bender on a crucial play.

Seemed surly as he was correcting Jackson too.

I get that he might view himself as a veteran helping out, but his ball-hogging ruined game flow repeatedly. Very frustrating to watch.

He is talented and might even work as a third string microwave scorer off the bench, but not the right point guard to put with a front court filled with top ten picks because he is all about Mike James.

 

[hsandhu]

Bender was good in the first half then disappeared in the second, again not sure how much it is him and how much crappy coaches not using him properly.

I like the muscle chriss has put on, but does seem to take away some of his stamina. But it has allowed him to start to show development of a post game.

I absolutely love jackson. His shot trash, but... if he develops it, he is kawahi leonard. He is a second potential superstar next to booker.

He already has a superb handle, and unless the defender plays way off can get to the rim when he wants.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

Bender was good in the first half then disappeared in the second, again not sure how much it is him and how much crappy coaches not using him properly.

I like the muscle chriss has put on, but does seem to take away some of his stamina. But it has allowed him to start to show development of a post game.

I absolutely love jackson. His shot trash, but... if he develops it, he is kawahi leonard. He is a second potential superstar next to booker.

He already has a superb handle, and unless the defender plays way off can get to the rim when he wants.

Earl Watson himself said that Chriss needs to get into better shape. I think he has been focusing on bulking up and will move his focus on getting conditioned before training camp.

 

[leclerc]

Booker said the same thing as I did yesterday, that the 2nd year top picks need to dominate and show that they should not be here (in summer league), but obviously both Chriss and Bender has work to do, so they (especially Chriss) needs to raise their head and put some great games together. 20 and 10 should be their target.

 

[JS22]

Pretty sure this team would be undefeated with Ulis. I liked James a few years ago but man ... he has been bringing the entire offense down.

Chriss looks like he tried to add weight by eating bags of Cheeto's for breakfast.

Bender looks a little bigger and still inconsistent. But last night was impressive.

Jackson needs to ditch the fro' so he can shoot the ball from above his head and not from his chest. His handles are a lot better than I thought they'd be.

Reed looks like an NBA-ready career backup. Defense is pretty solid and he's got a nice shot. Kind of up and down but doesn't look lost at all.

 

[ColdPickleNachos]

I remember not liking James at all in 2015 and then being swayed when he went off in the championship game. But he is one of those point guards where he becomes the entire reason the team wins or loses. Everything revolves around him. It's why I don't miss Thomas, even though he is the elite version of that kind of player.

 

[95pro]

I did like James a while back. Went to watch them in 2015. But now he's just what we don't need, he makes it where he's the greatest player on the floor so that the others can pick up the scraps.

 

[Mainstreet]

I remember not liking James at all in 2015 and then being swayed when he went off in the championship game. But he is one of those point guards where he becomes the entire reason the team wins or loses. Everything revolves around him. It's why I don't miss Thomas, even though he is the elite version of that kind of player.

As you note, James is a SG posing as a PG.

I would guess, this is why the Suns didn't keep him in 2015. IMO, the same is likely to occur again. I'd like for the Suns to add a third PG before the season.

 

[SirStefan32]

I thought they already signed James?

 

[Chaplin]

I thought they already signed James?

They did. A 2-way contract.

 

[ColdPickleNachos]

The biggest issue with James going forward imo is that you don't want an alpha dog as your 15th man.

 

[3rdside]

Dude just screams roster killer, an acquisition MO, apparently, of one Ryan McDonough


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[Mainstreet]

I thought they already signed James?

They did but I cannot find the details of the contract. I'm hoping there is not a lot of guaranteed money involved.

 

[Chaplin]

They did but I cannot find the details of the contract. I'm hoping there is not a lot of guaranteed money involved.

I must be on ignore. IT'S A TWO-WAY CONTRACT.

 

[Chaplin]

I guess I'm not getting how Mike James has become Marcus Banks all of a sudden. Yes, he isn't a Nash-style point guard and he probably doesn't have much of a big future with the team, but he's probably been our most consistently decent player along with JJ. His statline is actually quite good for Summer League: 16ppg, almost 5apg and just under 6rpg. That's a pretty solid line for the Summer League, which is some of the ugliest and sloppiest basketball on the planet.

 

[ColdPickleNachos]

For me, the frustration comes from his style of play and the way he runs the offense. He's the point guard for a summer league team with this year's #4 pick and two top 10 picks from last year and he carried himself all three games like a guy who thought he was the team's top option. It was frustrating for me and, at least from my perspective, seemed to be frustrating the other Suns players as well.

I think he's talented, but he's another guy who is much more comfortable creating for himself than for others. As a result, we had a team running isolation plays over and over again. There was no flow to the offense. Part of that is on the coaches, part on inexperience, and a lot of it on this being summer league. But it was a bigger problem with the Suns than most of the other teams I saw, and I think it starts with the point guard.

Having a guy like that with the ball in his hand for this particular team seems counterproductive.

 

[SirStefan32]

It's summer league. He is auditioning to be the third PG on the roster instead of playing in the developmental league. He is not going to be a rotation player. I am not a fan of James, but I don't get why he's getting so much criticism.

 

[ColdPickleNachos]

Because why negatively impact Jackson, Chriss, Bender, etc. with a point guard who doesn't put them in good positions?

 

[SirStefan32]

Because why negatively impact Jackson, Chriss, Bender, etc. with a point guard who doesn't put them in good positions?

Who would you put on the roster for summer league instead of James? You are scraping the bottom of the talent pool. James appears to be able to score/ shoot, he is not an awful defender, and he has some ability to pass. Ulis is hurt- he can't play. Pass-first point guards don't grow on trees.

 

[3rdside]

Who would you put on the roster for summer league instead of James? You are scraping the bottom of the talent pool. James appears to be able to score/ shoot, he is not an awful defender, and he has some ability to pass. Ulis is hurt- he can't play. Pass-first point guards don't grow on trees.

Someone a little quieter? He seemed to feature in the game write ups and comments sections a little too frequently and not usually for the right reasons imo.

 

[ColdPickleNachos]

I'm not even asking for someone more talented or even better than Mike James; just someone who is comfortable not being the headline of every game. For instance, I would much rather have either of the point guards from the game I watched right before Suns-Rockets. Kevin Pangos had seven turnovers, but he was looking to distribute the whole time and looked to set up others before himself. London Perrantes is nothing special, but he let the other Heat players, like Adebayo, take center stage.

Or how about Joe Jackson, the backup on this team? He's nothing special, but he tries hard on defense and doesn't make himself the focus of every play.

Mike James is, at best, the fourth most important prospect on this team (and probably 6th), and he acts like he is the featured player, which is a problem when he has the ball in his hands at the start of almost every play.