I know it's the silly season and people are falling in and out of love with players based on what some poster said that he overheard in the shower of some tennis club, but that has nothing to do with what I'm proposing. My problem with Steve and the current lineup is that they are all horrible passers. There were games last year where the passing was excedllent and there was very little dribbling and the team looked like champions. The problem is that I can count those games on one hand. Is this something that they can improve on? Sure. Will they ever be a even decent passing team? Probably not. The way this team plays, it relies on beating a man off the dribble. Kenny is a black hole on offense. Cato has enough trouble catching a perfect alley-oop, let alone passing a ball to the open man. Maurice is decent, but he disappears in the second half (lack of fire...can't be taught). Cuttino is unpredictable and usually contributes to the opposing SG's hall of fame highlight reel (damn, what happened to the defensive specialist tag he used to have). Francis is a warrior who lacks certain requirements for his position. Moochie, I refuse to even talk about. Screw that, CAN SOMEONE TEACH MOOCHIE TO PASS. No question mark ont hat one as it is obviously rhetorical. So it seems to me that the passing is the biggest problem. Any team can cope with a few bad passers, but when your entire lineup only knows how to bounce pass off the backboard, then you have a problem. My solution. TRADE. Here is my proposal and I don't work out salary's so don't nit-pick the deal. Houston trades: Steve Francis to Chicago Chicago trades: #2 and Marcus Fizer to Cleveland Jamal Crawford to Houston Cleveland trades: Andre Miller and #6 to Houston By doing this you improve the passing with Andre. Get a decent SG backup for Mobley. Get a #6 to address your SF postion. Hell if you want, let's take it one step further. Houston trades: #6 and Kenny Thomas to Clippers LA Clippers trade: Lamar Odom and #12 to Houston or Houston trades: #6 and Kenny Thomas to GS GS trades: #3 and an Interior Decorator for the new arena or Houston trades: #6 and Kenny Thomas Memphis trades: #4 and free early AM service for one year from FedEx I could go on but I forgot what my point was. Anyways, here are the mandatory potential lineups for every trade proposal. PG - Andre Miller/Mooch SG - Cat/Crawford SF - Lamar/Rice/Morris or Butler, Dunleavy, Tskitishvili PF - Maurice/Griffin C - Ming/Cato/Collier I still think you need to get rid of Cato if you get Ming. He will return to the worthless whiner if relegated to the end of the bench. All of that aside. This team would know how to pass. Steve could be the bigshot that they need in Chicago. Besides, there is no one else that can offer him the cash. Cleveland could avoid maxing out Miller. Like I said. I love Francis but the point guard should be a better passer and you can't keep Cat, Mooch, and Stve and expect to reach the Finals. Ming can provide a good post option but it will be worthless if the point guard can get the ball to him on the pick and roll. OK, now let me have it.
Tierre can pass...well anyways, Sacramento had Bibby at point and he doesn't pass better than Steve...The only good passers they have are Webber and Christie and I'd rather have Cat than Christie...I don't think we should get rid of Steve...What about LA, who passes well on that team...what about Boston?Charlotte?Baron is like a Francis clone
Well for starters, Bibby is a better playmaker than Francis. The fact that Webber, Christie and don't forget Vlade are excellent passers is what almost got them to the finals. Think about it. Did anyone dominate? No. Yet they still should have beaten the almighty Lakers. It because they know when to move the ball. This is something that Steve, Cat, and Mooch are relatively clueless at. As for the Lakers. I would bet you that Kobe and Shaq spend less time with the ball in their hands than Steve or Cat and maybe Mooch as well. It's because their teammates move the ball around. Are any of them incredible passers? No. But they do know HOW to pass and they most certainly know WHEN to pass. This is the problem that the Rockets have had and it have cost me any number of remotes watching one of them dribble the ball until there are a few seconds left and then try an off balance shot or pass it to the shoes of a teammate.
First of all Bibby isn't a better playmaker, all he does is run around picks and shoot j's, he doesn't penetrate and dish or pass amazingly well out of double-teams. Yes, Vlade is an excellent passer as well as Webber. You're right, ball movement is what made them almost beat the Lakers. Now about Steve & Cuttino not having any idea about passing...We run a flex offense..that is where one person dribbles the ball and the other 4 run around and depending on reactions of defenders they pass to the one who is mismatched, left open, etc. We don't have the type of offense like NJ or Sacramento. So if you want to blame someone about style of offense, blame Rudy. We still haven't seen how the flex offense runs when everyone is healthy and used to playing together.
Whats the deal with all these TRADE FRANCIS THREADS? It seems like Houston is the only place that wants to trade their star player out of all the teams in the league. Sure Philly talked about trading Iverson and the Lakers talked about trading Kobe a couple of years ago but the LA fans and Philly fans never wanted them to leave. But everyday on this board someone is bashing Steve Francis who is one of the best young players in the league.Francis will be a Rocket until he retires so the trade threads are a waste of time.
We can agree to disagree about Bibby. I think he does a better job on average of getting the ball to people in better places than Francis, but that's entirely debateable. What isn't debateable is Steve's assist to turnover ratio. This was his 3rd year as our PG and his a/t ratio is horrible. I think it was 1.6 this year. This is our best passer. This is the key to our offense. You're right that we run a different offense than the Kings. But I bet the Kings could run our offense a whole lot better than we do. I know that the coaching is partly to blame but my biggest problem is the porr decision making that goes on during the game. I know that I've said that the whole team sucks at passing and here I am asking to trade our best passer. The reason is simple. Steve can be traded for another established PG who may end up being the best in the league one day. It could possibly net us an all star SF and for the cherry on top, it could also net us a backup SG that's worth a damn. And yes I'd still be ecstatic on opening night if Steve is our starting PG.
Doesn't Moochie have the best assist to turnover ratio on the team? It is 2.58 you know. So, tell me again how Moochie doesn't know how to pass. Still need more info, Moochie avg 5 assist per game while only playing 27 minutes. I guess you're one of those "stats don't matter" types.
Steve does need to cut down on TOs because some of them are careless, but the fact is last year he was battling migraines even in many games he was playing and was battling pain. This affects him mentally and physically. He's only played 2 seasons so give him a break. He IS one of the top PGs and is more explosive scoring wise than Andre will ever be. Andre is a good player however but he also wants a MAX contract. Steve's main improvements will come with an increase in experience and studying the game so let's see how he does next year with or without MING.
Let's compare Steve and some other top PG's Steve 21.6ppg 6.3apg 3.9tpg .417FG% Miller 16.5ppg 10.8apg 3.0tpg .451FG% Davis 22.6ppg 7.9apg 3.0tpg .378FG% Payton 22.1ppg 5.8apg 2.6tpg .425FG% Bibby 20.3ppg 5.0apg 1.7tpg .444FG% See, Steve is awesome, but he's not alone. My point is to upgrade another position(SF) without giving up too much at the PG and improving our overall passing and decision making. As far as the rest of the statistical arguements go. Yes Moochie only turns the ball over 1.9 times to his 4.9apg. But this is not a GOOD stat. He ran the point for a good part of the year and all he could do was 4.9apg? Kenny may be a good passer but who would know. He rarely did. He only averaged 1.9apg. This is compared to his 2.1tpg. This is exactly my point. We have to point to Kenny as our 3rd best decision making option and he not only averaged under 2 a game, he also had more TO's than assists. The Rockets Passing and Decision Making sucks! You look at the Kings. Not a single player on their roster had more TO/game tha Assists/game. Vlade averaged 3.7APG and 2.0TPG. Webber had 4.8APG and only 2.9TPG. Hell the Lakers are only two players deep right? Well Horry had 3.2APG and Fox had 3.4APG. This is a team where Kobe is the chief playmaker. I know that what I am proposing is not going to make everyone happy. I also know that Steve has worked hard to make this a better team. I have said nothing about his supposed attitude towards the draft because he hasn't said ANYTHING to the public. This has nothing to do with my proposal. I am simply saying that our passing and decision making SUCKS. The best way for us to improve that and increase our chances of hanging another banner is to trade him. If we could get Andre Miller, Jamal Crawford, and Dunleavy, I say do it. I wouldn't trade Francis for potential (Jay Williams). I would only trade him for Miller and the#6, and another good player. I might even trade him for Baron, but I would need a little more than New Orleans could offer. Blame the coaches or the system if you want, but the players we have cannot do what it takes to make us champions. Just my opinion.
If I was going to trade Francis it would be for Davis, but as I stated in an earlier thread, this isn't going to happen,even though I see your reasoning.
Alright, I see what you're saying about decision-making, but that comes with experience and studying the game. About the turnovers, Steve had 3.9 while the people you want to trade him for had 3.0, so basically if Steve cut down 1 TO per game he'd be okay? I don't think that's that hard to do, especially since you're using last season's stats when he was tripping with migraines. Yeah I have my gripes about Mooch also. I think Tierre will become a much better point guard plus he is way cheaper and runs the offense by far better...anyways... Your main point is "The Rockets Passing and Decision Making sucks! " You say to do this by getting rid of Steve and upgrade the 3. The thing is, Steve is our primary scorer. That's not a sin to have your PG as your main scorer. Andre Miller gets alot of assists but his scoring is nowhere near as good. Baron is almost EXACTLY the same as Steve...actually I think Steve is better but Baron has a much superior frontcourt CURRENTLY, maybe not so in the future. This definitely helps alot with assists. Also in the games Steve played I don't know how many times Steve would penetrate and dish to Langhi, Torres, TMo and they'd throw up wide-open bricks. Trading Steve for Miller, #6(Butler) & another player wouldn't be too bad, but it looks like we'll be fine if everyone is healthy and getting along. Our team had pretty good chemistry two years ago and you can't go swapping players, especially your franchise player, just to make the team hypothetically better. There is great importance in consistency and players developing together as a team. Think about it, if Ming pans out along with a solid4 spot with Eddie & Mo, and one of the best backcourts we will become quite solid. Now if we can get Odom or someone like that as well, who knows what can happen in a few years. "If we could get Andre Miller, Jamal Crawford, and Dunleavy, I say do it. " In one trade? How would we do this? Dunleavy is the #3 most likely, Crawford???Why??? and Andre is a max player "Blame the coaches or the system if you want, but the players we have cannot do what it takes to make us champions. " I disagree. The players we have CAN do what it takes, we just need a more innovative offense. Think about it, in Steve's sophomore season we were sooo close to making the playoffs. Now we have Eddie and who knows what will happen with Ming & #15 & trades...We have a bright future ahead, just give the team some time to play together with the same lineup and get into a rhythm and let's see what happens...Next year we'll see how we're doing. Regardless of Ming we <b> should</b> be able to get #6 or #7,definitely #8 next year. If Ming pans out maybe #5, if things look really good #4. We can't expect just to win a championship first shot in the playoffs. The Lakers didn't do it, The Kings will not have done it...heheh...and we will not do it
The stats for Davis and Miller are NOT regular season averages(must be playoff). Davis was about 18ppg(appr.) and I think that Bibby(could be wrong on this one) was around 13-16 scoring. If davis had that "Kidd" like 38% sp for the whole year I don`t think his stock would be as high as it is now. The only one on that list I would even consider trading straight up for SF would be Davis and thats because he plays such good pressure D. Payton will probably only remain as good as he is for another 2-3 years and his D already seems to have slipped a little. Miller assists(although he is a very good passer) are at least partly a byproduct of the cav`s offensive system(catch and shoot jump shooting team. Plus his 3pt perc. is horrible. Bibby is just a good spot up shooter. He was like that in Van. though he did step up BIGTIME in the playoffs. Although his turnovers DEFINATELY need improvement, one thing that we all need to realize is that not one of those players gets as much attention(double teams) on D that Stevie does. Payton or Davis would probably be second. I think people tend to forget that Steve has only been playing the hardest position in the NBA to learn and execute for 2 YEARS OF HIS LIFE!!! The biggest reason his assists are not that high is because all of the rest of the top scorers on the team hold the ball for several seconds before shooting or driving(Cuttino, Kenny, Maurice, etc...). You do not get many assists from people like that. No one on this team likes to catch and shoot(Cuttino occasionally) except Griffin(because he has NO handles), and we all know what his shooting percentages were. Does Steve make full court between the legs baseball passes? No. Will he ever? Only time will tell. One thing about Steve Francis is he plays hard and he wants to win. He has played through pain the last year with both Meniere`s disease and plantar fascitis(which actually worries me almost as much as the headaches considering what it`s done to Rice`s game). I also feel that SF will keep working on his game till he gets as good as he can possibly be. Look at what he did during the draft lottery. Talked to Jerry West for an hour and a half listening to him talk about not only what he likes about his game but what he didn`t like about it and what he could do to IMPROVE. Which btw was a very,very,very gracious thing for Mr. West to do for a competitor that already was starting on the all star team!!! Do you really think Steve would state that publicly(something which he has NEVER done with Anti-Ming statements) if he did not intend to try to implement the suggestions as soon as he is healthy. He`s never been a selfish player. I remember many games his first 2 yrs when he would not shoot at all in the 1st quarter preferring to try and set his teamates up. Give Stevie "Franchise" time to get healthy and grow into the championship point guard we all want PS: A consistent low post threat(EG maybe someday) or spot up shooter would be nice too.
I wish I could go back to 2002. Stop 9/11, invest in Bitcoin, and stop the Nachbar pick from ever happening.
