man those were some fun games to watch. Yao would have had more time to develop and take over by the time francis had his talent dropoff. a few second round exits maybe even one conference finals exit. we wouldve had a better team surrounding yao.
For the WIN... LMFAO @ the 2003-2004 Rockets team down the road beating anyone in the 1st round...done lost y'all minds.
maybe if steve accomplished anything worthwhile elsewhere, i could understand the argument....but i just can't imagine thinking that sticking with steve francis was the thing to do.
imagine a healthy steve when he was here the second time with tmac and co? i bet he coulda filled in when tmac went down in 09. too bad he was hurt
I mean really... They had the same team pretty much in Orlando. Francis, Cuttino, Cato, young center, and a 67 game Grant Hill that put up 20...and they STILL missed the playoffs in the east. But we would have got out the 1st round with those 2? Man....
i would have continued watching bball and punched myself in the face 82 times a season. Terrible era of bball
Hmm, maybe we were watching a different steve francis? Francis wasn't productive ever after he was traded, he stunk it up on the Magic as soon as he arrived. Mobley was serviceable and certainly would have been better than the trash we got on the wings aside from Battier and Tmac. Also no one will ever convince me you can have heart and leave it all on the table but never put in the work to improve your game. If you have passion and really want to win games then you work on your shooting or playmaking skills during off days and after the game. Francis ditched practice to go to the Superbowl game and he has heart? LOL!
Anyone who thinks that Steve Francis + Cuttino Mobley would have been better than T-Mac in those years is just confused.
LOL you're nuts if you think Francis and Mobley would have given us a better record than the 1-11 era. IIRC the original Yao Ming injury was due to a freak accident, and then his chinese team never really gave him ample time to recover. Not sure how having Francis and Mobley would have helped there. The whole second round exit is ridiculous. If tmac couldn't hang with dirk and Deron Williams, you think Steve Francis could do it? Seriously?!?! The same guy Magic dumped for free on NY? LOL!
I believe it's a combination of things. Francis and Mobley worked under Rudy T because Rudy coached to their strengths. I actually think Francis played alright under JVG but his coach/player relationship was not as a good. I thought that team that lost to the Lakers was only going to improve. The trade was shocking but we traded for a guy who was much more talented than both of them. Still though, you wonder if Francis wouldn't have fallen off so much if he stayed with the Rockets. No doubt he LOVED the Rockets and Houston.
that's why it's speculation. because we won't know. your logic: Hakeem couldnt handle Kemp and the Sonics who were beat by MJs Bulls thus Hakeem's Rox wouldve lost to the Bulls. who says we wouldve had the same record n ended up with the same opponents? and Dirk's Mavs were knocked out by a no. 8 GS in the first rd. before. Anything is possible. Just b/c tmac couldnt get it done doesnt mean it was an impossible situation. he dominated the Mavs early and then kinda choked that series away.
No they didn't have Mobley for that whole year, they traded him away. I remember this season very well. We all know Steve dropped in performance after Cat left. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/moblecu01.html 2004-05 29 TOT NBA 66 64 2388 408 932 .438 150 342 .439 168 205 .820 45 184 229 188 74 30 133 152 1134 2004-05 29 ORL NBA 23 21 726 128 296 .432 58 125 .464 55 69 .797 11 52 63 42 23 9 41 49 369 2004-05 29 SAC NBA 43 43 1662 280 636 .440 92 217 .424 113 136 .831 34 132 166 146 51 21 92 103 765
I think the Mobley/Francis/Yao trio would have been successful. Not championship caliber but would have made the playoffs easily and probably would have gotten out of the first round against teams not named Lakers or Spurs. I just wished it wouldn't have ended that soon because, despite the obvious style clash, I think Francis and JVG would have worked out given time. Be that as it may, even with knowing what I know now, I would have still made that trade. This is like trading: an All Star-caliber scorer (Francis or, in present time, Martin) a very good guard who plays pretty good defense (Mobley or, in present time, Lowry) for a 2 Two Time Scoring champion (McGrady or, in present time, Durant) You make those trades 10 times out of 10.
Mobley would've been a great player as a back-up for Tracy or stay as the starting SG for 2-3 more years. Francis would've never made us better, he was only good as a one-on-one player or throwing the ball to Cat or the bigs for alley-oops.
The whole thread is speculation, but some things would have happened regardless, such as Francis' performance dropping off or Mobley's condition forcing him to retire. Even with all the me-mac issues, the it's on me drama and the choking problems Tmac was better than Francis+Mobley from the moment we traded for him up to the moment we traded him away. I'm not sure why you think keeping Francis+mobley would have resulted in all these 2nd round exits, just look at how badly Francis played after we traded him. Your logic argument doesn't hold water because the Rox DID meet the Bulls, and they defeated them in the regular season. I'm not even sure why you think they're the same, trading players versus power levels of Bulls, Rox and Sonics? Uhhh
If it was just love I think Francis would have been pretty good when we brought him back, honestly I think he just got too old and got to the point where his athleticism couldn't mask his inept shooting and basketball skills anymore. Also I think Rudy T really gave Francis all the love in the world, he just let him iso the ball to his heart's content, and that wouldn't fly on any other team.
I keep seeing people talking about how much heart Steve Francis had. It's driving me nuts. I'm not going to deny that Francis was a pretty fierce competitor when he was on the court - but we're also talking about a guy who never improved a single facet of his game the entire time he was in the league. The players that really have heart are guys like Hakeem, Jordan, Magic, Bird, Duncan, Kobe, Steve Nash and, as much as it pains me to acknowledge it, Dirk. Guys who spend countless hours trying to improve. Guys who are NEVER satisfied with the level they're playing at. Guys who do everything in their power to be the absolute best player they can be. Steve wasn't one of those guys. Not by a long shot.
I felt that we wouldn't have been better w/ Francis and Mobley, but this thread is irritating me just on not having correct information. Francis actually RAPED his 1st year in Orlando, he fell apart once Mobley was traded. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/f/francst01.html 20/6/6.6 w/ 42% FG (nothing special there) & 82% FT. Would he have been able to keep it up had he kept Mobley, and would Yao have stayed healthy if we had them. My guess is Francis had 2 more good years than what he showed in Orlando, had Mobley and him been together, but Yao would've still gotten hurt. The ONLY benefit we would've gotten was starting rebuilding a lot earlier. Had Tmac had ANY success elsewhere, this same thread would likely have been started claiming, if we had done the Tmac trade what could have been.
Thanks , it's obvious that are people here who don't remember or didn't have a memory of that season We all know that Cuttino and Francis were boyz. However replacing him Mrs Christie must have been disheartening for Steve. Steve : "Yo, Doug, want to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with me?" Doug: "Nah Dawg, my wife won't let me" http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1964051 The Sacramento Kings traded Doug Christie to the Orlando Magic for Cuttino Mobley on Monday in a swap of starting shooting guards.
