steve needs to play bottom line theres a reason why hes a 3 time allstar and mike james and rafer are not..... and belive me mj and rafer have both played on bad teams and coulndnt do what steve did it wasnt even but three years ago on a young orlando team were he put up 21pts and 7ast. and orlando was doing fairly well for a little while. anytime mike james has been the starter on any team they have sucked. bottom line if mike james starts we are doomed i think if he comes off the bench then he will be great though so i deff dont hate the guy.
it's sad but it's not francis' fault. he was just set up to fail. francis never had any IQ or sense of playing without the ball, but his insane altheticism and his ability to put ball in the hoop masked his inefficiencies. now that francis isnt the man, his weaknesses are more exposed than ever.
I was happy with the Francis signing as it seemed to be a low risk, potentially high reward type of play. Right now, it looks like he is the odd man out, but let's wait and see if RA can get something going that suits his skill set. It is a little ironic as I used to always say that once Francis loses his athleticism his career will come crashing down, because his B-Ball IQ is not all that great. Man do I hope to be wrong on that now... DD
Potential doesn't mean you're a crappy player, that's a stupid comment. Francis will be fine and will be a major contributor on this team once he gets his feet wet. This is just Adelman's way of calming the fans down since Francis isn't going to be the starting PG early in the season.
SF3 should be fine for a backup player, he can still jump, and drive, Rox can use him for attacking the basket. As for Rafer, he showed his old form last night. MJ maybe be better in a long run.
I want to see Harris guard 3's and big 2's in the next 3 games. If he does a good job,keep him and trade Snyder for a 2nd rounder.
Truer words have never been said. Players aren't robots...some improve greatly as the season progresses and coaches can change their opinion from their initial evaluation. Sure the starting unit had great plus minus numbers, but how much of the plus minus numbers is due to the fact that we had Yao, Tmac, Battier as the core? When you start with those guys and add in Hayes who is a smart defender....you're going to have great plus minus numbers. Just because it was good, does it mean that we can't improve. How much better would those plus minus numbers be if we added Scola and a point guard with a lot of offensive firepower to the starting lineup. Our starting five also wasn't without their limitations either. What was the biggest complaint in last year's playoffs? Under the intensity of the playoffs when good defensive teams tighten the screws and have watched hundreds of hours of game film on you, your weaknesses will get exposed. No one outside of Yao and Tmac could consistently put the ball in the hole. Despite whatever public statements were made, management must have seen that too or else we wouldn't have 5 point guards on the team, with the 3 new additions all being explosive scoring point guards. Like someone smartly said here, the playoffs are a different animal. It's easy to look good in the softness of preseason when teams aren't laying out their best specific schemes to beat you, are experimenting with stuff they might not even use and aren't playing at the level of the playoffs. Going 1-9 and not being able to finish around the baskets does matter. It puts the team in a disadvantageous position of going 4 on 5....or more like 2 on 5 in last year's playoffs when Hayes and Battier seemed limited offensively. We still need guys to punish Deron Williams on the other end and force him to play defense and maybe commit fouls....or take it right to Boozer's suspect defense and force him to commit fouls. Right now, Steve needs to work hard on learning the offense.....but he's not garbage that should be discarded. He's still our best point guard at attacking the rim, getting fouled and creating his shot (Brooks might be getting there too....). We could really use his talents....and I'm hoping he turns things around like Bonzi seems to have done this year compared to last.
I dont have much hope for Francis grapsing Adelman's "complex" offense. He has never fully grasped any offensive system in his whole career. It's a shame, because we could really use his ability to get to the basket.
I don't wanna align myself with Insider, however, it is utterly astounding how far in denial we fans are about Reefer's abilities. he is simply trade fodder
that last spot will come down to steve or luther. However, when rafer comes down to earth, i still think he'll be the odd man out. He still has yet to prove himself in a regular season game as a rocket. Until he does that, I will reamin skeptical about him.
No. SF's role on this team is a work in progress more than anyone else on the team. That's why it's silly to draw so many conclusions about him and Rafer based on 1, maybe 2, legit pre-season games. Speed of adapting to Adelman, plus playing with Tracy/Yao/Shane/etc the last two seasons gives Rafer the early advantage over MJ & SF. As time goes by that advantage decreases. Why these recent Rafer supporters don't see that is puzzling.
lots of yall are jumping into conclusions really quick, based off what a coach says. what if he is some good actor/magician and have francis starts and rafer gets traded. i'm just gonna wait one more week and a half.
Well said. MJ and SF have a lot more talent and can get better exponentially as they start to understand Adelman's offense....when that happens the gap will close quickly.
