Mentioned before -- Bonzi is the sort of player you can easily see being on an NBA champion. Has all the toughness, rebounding, inside play intangibles that title teams are built on. Combine him with Ron, and you have a duo opposing teams are actually intimidated by. These last couple of games have shown precisely why Bonzi can be a weapon against even the toughest teams -- he's a matchup nightmare.
The question with Bonzi becomes two-fold. First, obviously, is price. But there it should be noted he is already being paid $8-$9 mil this season. If that's what it takes to bring him back, it doesn't add to our salary at all. Unless he goes $10+mil (unlikely given his history) he's likely within the affordable range.
Which brings us to the second question -- Kevin Martin. And that's one without an easy answer. I think Kevin has shown enough this year that at the very least he should always be in somebody's rotation. And to take it a step further, I think he's shown enough that if we were a very young lottery team ala Toronto or whatnot, that Kevin could be our starting OG and we could just settle in and see how good he gets. But now, we're a veteran team trying to get back to the top before age starts slowing us down, and the question becomes is Kevin Martin a starting OG on a contender wihtin the next 2-3 years? And that's just a huge "?". He might be. He might not.
Because of that I remain in favor of trying to bring Bonzi back (unless of course we make some megamoves). The platoon is not ideal, and its not really fair to either party. But the way Bonzi has played for us this year he is a movable asset if resigned to a deal in the range of the one he is now. If Kevin continues to show strong and press him, we can always move Bonzi in the future. But letting a guy who has a chance to combine with Ron to define us just walk and hope that Kevin can step up...there's a theory there (cheaper), but its very risky.
