will be there something influenced him ? like this always his team and he is the center ? and now he found things will be change and differences? and he might be someone like Kobe in the team ? well. kobe is not a point guy but a shooter and SF is a point guy just some guesses. i like this team and like yao and SF work like Ok and how about add another good shooter or a PF ? will it be another triangle ?
Really not much to wonder about here. His early-season performance set expectation levels too high. You can't expect a back-court player -- even as athletic and talented as Steve -- to sustain shooting at such a high-percentage. You're going to be streaky when you have more jumpers in your shot mix. The adjustment to playing with Yao -- in terms of both execution and emotional issues -- may just be prolonging his bad streak. I dont think it's the root cause. But after this adjustment period, the presence of Yao should lessen the impact and duration of these streaks. The impact is obviously lessened since there's someone else to help carry the burden. The duration should be shortened because guys in shooting slumps often get out of them by making a few easy baskets -- and there should be more of those with Yao around.
disagree, we need guards to take over the 4th quarter, YM(and outher good centers) is usually a non-factor offensively in 4th
Of course he is missing his usual shots, his rythmn is off on his entire game. Especially on the road. Steve is adjsuting (as is the rest of the team) to having a BIG BIG BIG man on the blocks. Think of it this way, before Yao started playing defenders had to lay off Steve otherwise he would blow by them and get to the hole....now Yao is in the paint and if Steve blows by his man, there is a defender waiting for him. NBA defenders know this, so they are playing tighter on him at the top of the key. The whole rythmn of the team is off, no one knows their set roles, and once that all gets worked out, this team will take off. DD
An absolutely well-thought out and concise post. I agree that Steve has an incredible amount of athleticism and can pretty much do it all. Unfortunately, his decision making skills as a PG is not where it could be. Is it fair to ask him to be a superb passer that dicticates his team's offense with precision? I don't know...I think it's one of those instinctive basketball skills that are hard to teach. Making an extra pass is one thing, setting up your offense, involving all your teammates, and having the ability to see the entire court better than the other 9 players out there are abilities that can't be taught. (ala...Magic, Stockton, I. Thomas, and Kidd). Steve just has too many turnovers. Elite PGs should have an assist to turnover ratio around 3:1. Unfortunately, for the Rockets to take it to the next step is do what the 76ers did when they had Iverson and Stackhouse. Iverson was an explosive scorer, but he couldn't really handle the point, at least not along the lines of the top tier PGs. So they got rid of Stackhouse and moved him to SG and let him utilize his skills, which is to be a scorer. If the Rockets move Steve to SG, he can effectively move without the ball and with his athleticism, he can cause havoc for the other team trying to chase him around the court. It's just too bad he's not 6'7", or he'd be right up there with Kobe and McGrady. And as for the pressure he's facing...well he signed his $80+ million extension and the great ones always thrive in pressure situations. Just my 2 cents...
Oh yeah? Let's see if it's the Rockets that are pulling Francis' hind legs or vice versa. The Rockets rank at the 14th in FG% league wide, guess which team is the 15th? The Nets. Jason Kidd still gets 2.3 more assists per game. Give Kidd Yao Ming I bet he can average an additional two more. Pheonix is shooting at 40% and ranks 25th, that doesn't prevent Marbury from averaging 8.4 assists, compared to Francis' 5.9. The next surprise is that Francis is out of the 50 league leaders in assists/tos ratio, even Moochie does a better job. I know Francis is bad at it, but THAT BAD? At around 1.47 Francis is doing a fantastic job at the point, for the opponents. The only way ppl can call Francis as one of the best point guards is because he happens to play the point. Just like Kobe can be called the top three point guard if he chooses to play the point.
