Man, all I can say is THANK YOU! Thank you for actually having faith in the team we have now, seeing as how there aren't many people around here who do anymore. I agree that we need to just let this team grow instead of trying to trade away our best players. Did the Lakers trade Kobe just because him and Shaq were arguing? NO! they left the team together and got 2 more championships out of it. And the thing is, Yao and Steve get along great already! You guys are just taking everything out of context and TRYING to convince yourselves that they're feuding with each other.
This got to be the funniest trade proposal I have heard. Beat the Dirk for Mobley trade proposal. If you ever want is just playoffs, maybe Amare and Butler are fine. But if you want championship, it is definitely Yao! Yao is clearly a better player than Amare and Butler right now, with more much potential in the 7-6, 310 pound frame. Not to mention popularity/marketing draw. Yao's trade value is probably only behind Duncan, while Amare is probably out of top 30, Butler out of top 50.
Opinions are opinions, but numbers don't lie. By the stats, Amare and Yao are a dead heat. And Amare has just as much upside. Who knows how either of them will develop? How could the Rocks not be better by exchanging player with almost the exact same stats and by adding other players? In fact, the Rocks could have traded Yao for Odom, Amare and another player. Their lineup could have been: Amare/Cato EG/Taylor/Kenny Thomas Odom/Butler/Rice Mobley/Butler Francis/Moochie That would have gotten them to the playoffs last year. In my opinion, Odom, Amare, and Caron > Yao.
QUOTE: and i think that your exposure to "h-town" whining and crying about everything is basically because this city has the biggest and best forum for discussion. when your team underperforms, what reactions do you think are going to be the most common? "gee wiz nice try this year guys. great effort!" ... only in magical ideal fairy land i think said team is going to be open for critisism. the longer this team sucks, the closer francis gets to being expendable. This CITY is FULL of CRY babies. FRANCIS IS the ONLY player along with KEVIN Garnett to average 20+ PPG, 6+ APG, 6+RBG and still gets criticized. He has no HELP here in Houston. He has average players, Including YAO. Based on last season YAO is not an every night dependable star that will carry the team. I don't expect fans not to critisize the team but come on it's the preseason MAN!!! Francis has only played like 20 mins and everyone is talking we need to trade him??? You are the same fans that did NOT want to draft YAO b/c you thought he was the next Shawn Bradley without even giving him a chance or knowing anything about him. You are the same fans that cried for a STAR, athletic, quick of the driblle point guard when Kenny Smith got raped by Stockton and Payton (Now we have that star and you wanna get rid of him). You are the same fans who cried when trading Horry and Cassell for Barkley who helped bring us to within 2 games from the Finals. Quit jumping the gun and give it some time. The championship WON'T be won overnight and trading your best player for a few mediocre ones definitely won't make that dream come true either. All I am saying is give the team a chance. IT"S ONLY PRE-SEASON!!!
I think I've been too influenced by this board to dislike Francis! But he is actually a great player... I think he is an awesome player. There's nothing wrong with him or Yao. But the people that play with him needs some editting. Eddie is looking one and seems to be a perfect guy if he continues to improve and get stronger and don't do drugs! He seems like a perfect fit. Mobley...is a good shooting guard...but I think we could find someone better to fit. All we need is someone like Piatkowski who can shoot 3's. All we need is a role player...PIatkowski fits with us...but unfortunately has no chance on defense against most guys. Jim Jackson is a good veteran...don't think he's a starter though. It would be better if he could shoot. Taylor is a good inside post player and I love him...makes quite a bit of money though. And all those guys who hustle and play hard should be good for our team. Francis and Yao make up our core! Duncan, Shaq, Garnett, T-Mac, Nowitzki, and Vince Carter and probably Allen Iverson...I would trade him for, except the other team would not trade their guy for Francis. 11 players for Francis!
Numbers lie all the time in basketball. Dana Barros, after all, did once average 20ppg. Statistics are far more useful in sports (baseball!) where factors are easily numerically isolated. There are too many variables in basketball for them to mean much. Stoudamire played with A. an excellent front court player to distract attention from him and B. a PG who can actually distribute the ball (gives hope for Francis in the future though, since Marbury used to be Starbury...). Yao played with A. no front court help to distract the defense and B. a couple of guards who never met a shot they didn't like and only passed when they met a dead-end after 22 seconds of dribbling. To compare players primarily w/stats is foolish. To say that because Francis averages 20/6/6 he's untradeable if foolish. Bleh.
OK let's for one minute assume that Amare and Caron will suceed on this team. Let's even assume that Amare has as much upside as Yao (seeing he didn't start with much skill), how do you propose we get him and Caron Butler? Amare was drafted 9th and Caron 10th so we have to have 2 first round picks BEFORE the 9th pick (unless as I said before, we can somehow pull off a complicated 3 way trade involving the Suns and the Heat). That's reason number 1 we don't get both Butler and Stoudamire. The only team with 2 early first round picks is Denver (5th and 7th). If we give them the 1st over all they'd do it in half a second. Then unless we have a time machine and know exactly who's gonna be good, we would have picked at best, Caron and Dajuan Wagner. Would you trade Yao for Caron Butler and Dajuan Wagner? I sure as hell wouldn't. Not to mention given CD's draft record, we could have ended up with worse. That's reason 2 we don't do this trade. Finally, a good center (Yao type) now comes out once in a blue moon. Several good PF and SF's come out every year. They are better than Amare, have more upside AND only adds to the slew of MUCH BETTER THAN Amare PF's currently in the league. Still want to do the trade?
What is your point by the way? *Tracy Mcgrady was a free agent signing of Orlando (not via trade) *Jermaine was a victim of numbers - a loaded Portland team. There is arguably no way he would have developed to the point he is at right now. The team was not built around him and was not looking to be that way with 'Sheed around. *Kobe forced Charlotte's hand. The Hornets did not want to trade him. Kobe Bryant EMPHATICALLY stated that it was NEW YORK OR BUST!!! The ball was never in Charlotte's court. ****I all these out not to pik apart your input rather an attempt to set the records straight.
A. are you inferring that KG does not get critisized by minnesota fans? im positive he does B. they are both great players. francis gets critisized for not making the playoffs, KG gets critisized for not winning in the playoffs C. im sure it was a great consolation to warriors fans that jamison put up great stats. we care about playoffs here. D. you cant ask fans who were used to winning championships to be fine with missing the playoffs for 4 years straight E. just pretend that some of us ARENT whiners and are having fun with this thread F. i wanted yao, i loved smith and maloney, and i nearly pissed my pants when the barkley trade went down just relax a bit. the people love trades. we "are trading" the starting point guard for the west. oh the possibilities. <sigh> its too bad were keeping him and goin to the playoffs with "average" old yao for years to come
The Clippers had picks 8 and 12 so we couldn't have gotten Butler, but we could have gotten someone or even traded the pick. We still would have Odom and Amare. Rudy was really high on Amare so I'm sure he would have picked him. Also, I have heard it mentioned over and over again about good centers only come along so often etc... It doesn't matter what position you play as long as you are dominant. If you look back more often than not over the past fifteen years, the team with the most dominant player has won the ring - no matter what position that player played. Be it Jordan or Duncan or Shaq or Dream. Yao already has the reputation of being a little soft. The book on him is to push him around, rough him up, and he's not nearly as effective. That''s what you started to see the second half of the year. I hope he turns into the player Yetti and some of the others think he will be. I just don't see it. So, for me, personally, I'd rather have Odom, Amare and another lottery pick.
Why do people do this??? I hate that "change in team outlook crap. Nothing personal MLC1MGC2ALC3, but that is the biggest load of crap i've ever heard. (the change in team outlook thing, not the trade). I don't know how you can just take the numbers do the math and decide you want to do the deal. Example, a star on a crappy team come s in and is a starter or a role player in houston (hmmm... MOT?). I really wouldn't do Francis for Brand straight up, because then we're without a pg at all... Anyone who has read anything I've ever posted knows i'm not a big fan of francis at the pg spot, but if he's not there and we get no pg in return we're just screwed. What should we put mobley at the pg? lol or Moochie?. And that's exactly what i'm talking about with the "change in team outlook thing" lol, I hope CD doesn't do that when evaluating trades. Mike
CAREER AVERAGES REBOUNDS PER GAME YEAR TEAM G GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% OFF DEF RPG APG SPG BPG TO PF PPG 99-00 HOU 77 77 36.1 .445 .345 .786 2.00 3.30 5.30 6.6 1.53 .38 3.97 3.00 18.0 00-01 HOU 80 79 39.9 .451 .396 .817 2.40 4.50 6.90 6.5 1.76 .39 3.31 3.40 19.9 01-02 HOU 57 56 41.1 .417 .324 .773 1.80 5.20 7.00 6.4 1.25 .44 3.88 3.00 21.6 02-03 HOU 81 81 41.0 .435 .354 .800 2.00 4.20 6.20 6.2 1.74 .51 3.69 3.10 21.0 Career 295 293 39.4 .438 .359 .795 2.00 4.30 6.30 6.4 1.60 .43 3.70 3.10 20.1 All-Star 2 2 25.0 .500 .500 .500 1.00 1.00 2.00 6.0 1.00 .00 2.50 1.00 11.5 CAREER TOTALS Ok I did want Yao to start with. Give it some time? Let me lay the situation out real quick. And again, I'm not in favor of trading francis unless we get something better in return, and we get a pg back but consider this. Francis is 26 almost 27. 1 He's been in the league 4 years. 2 Everyone in the league is enamored with is athleticism. 3 Almost everyone says he needs to make better decisions. 4 He turns the ball over .3 times less a game than he did as a rookie and that's with a better team around him. 5 He has hovered around 6-7 apg his entire career. 6 Last year he had a career LOW 6.2 apg (the year he gets YAO no less) 7 I have yet to hear people outside of Houston say anything along the lines of "Francis has really matured as a player", or "Francis makes much better decisions now than he did as a rookie or sophemore". While these things shouldn't mean trade the guy right now, they should mean take a look and see if he's improving. As I've said before his athleticism isn't going to last forever. I'm not going to argue that he doesn't have awsome skills, there's no question that he does. But If he doesn't learn to make better decisions keep in mind that an atheletes best year is usually between 26-28 and then the decline begins slowly. Now if he's gonna be a sg, that's fine, I can live with that but if he's gonna run the team we need to see some improvement in his mental game soon. If management determines that we're not seeing that improvement, then they should trade him, as his value will only fall as he ages. I know i've said it before, but Riv's post has been said before too. What about Amare for Stevie? I might do that just cause they're both so young and man.. what a building block. I know it wouldn't have happened, just pointing out that everyone is quick to say oh man we could have had amare and francis and blah blah blah.. what about Yao and Amare?? wow. Mike
You wouldn't trade Steve Francis for Jermaine O'neal and Jamaal Tinsley straight up?!! I believe in being loyal to your team but sheesh. no.1 : Francis is talented but doesn't know how to run an offense no.2: Francis thinks he's Iverson. obviously, he isn't. no.3: Francis isn't even Marbury. no.4: Jermaine O'neal and Ben Wallace are two of the most premiere Forward/Centers in the league. If anyone is stupid enough to take Francis for these players then more power to them. no.5: I dont know why I cared enough to reply to this. OH YEAH! Because you're an idiot and Francis is no.2..
I don't like dissin people but this is a pretty stupid post. What offense?? I love Rudy but the past 4 years the ROX have had no kind of offensive system. He sets up guys and they don't knock down shots, it's not his fault that EG can't hit open jump shots, or Posey couldn't hit a 3 if his life depended on it and on and on. Francis has his shortcumings as does every player in the league but I am sick and tired of him being blamed for every single thing. This is a TEAM, they all should get a fare share of critism. How do you know that??? Are you Steve Francis? Are you in his mind?? Have you spoken to him and he told you I wanna be Iverson, I think I am him??? Francis is Francis. How can he be Marbury, he is Francis. Once again, they are 2 different people. They have similar game, except for Marbury has teamates that actually delivered when called upon and actually make shots when he passes the ball to them. Your one good point, but the East is weak. Obviously you did care, take a chill pill and relax alittle.
