we need EG back!! i never thought i would say this but its true. right now we are very weak at the PF position. sure cato is a good defender but he supplies nothing on offense and Mo T can hold his own but he'll have trouble againts bigger PFs. now if any yall remember, EG defended players like duncan and garnett very well. he even blocked their shots a couple times. right now i just hope we can get griffin back in our lineup and even though he hasn't show anything, we can still give him a chance can't we? c'mon anything is better than giving cato open jumpers every other play. yao is not ready..........yet all these yao-only fans pissssss me off. yao is only in his 2nd year and is not ready to take the team on his shoulders just yet. you just can't expect yao to become a leader in a place that he is still adjusting. i also think yao needs to put more moves together. let him take a look at old tapes of the dream and try to learn the moves. if yao isn't strong enough to beat down opponents, why not have him use his finess to beat his opponents. it worked good with the dream didn't it? don't trade the franchise, its not his fault i am also sick of all these fans complaning that steve needs to be traded and that he is the main problem. the last time i checked, basketball is a team game and u can't just blame it all on steve. its not only steve that gets into shooting slumps, its the whole team. its not only steve turning over the ball, its the whole team. its not only steve missing shots, its the whole team. and yall say trade this man? francis is the closest thing this team has to a leader, if we trade him, who will be the leader? not yao cuz he is not ready yet and who would we trade him for? a better PG? c'mon folks, steve is more than that. did yall forget how clutch he was last season and how through games he would carry the whole team? yes he did that and now tell me if we trade steve, who will be the one carrying us down the stretch of the 4th quater. he is just what his nickname says, the franchise and you don't trade away your franchise. 'NUFF SAID
Rockets need a passing point guard. Team offense will continue to be mediocre at best due to the inability for the passer to find open teammates at the right time. This handicap automatically creates a situation in which the great teams press this handicap until the Rockets get blownout. This has happened in basically every game against the great Western Conference teams. Mike Newlin emphasized the poor passing on this team yesterday after the game. He basically said that players getting open have just a second or so to get the ball before they get covered again by the defender. If Raul Lopez were on this team, I think this team's offense would look much better.
I believe Steve can be a great shooting guard. He hasn't fulfilled his potential yet because he has to worry about passing the ball. Here's some objective analysis from some draft analysts concerning Steve when he was coming out of Maryland. Just so we can adapt this article to the NBA, replace Duke with the Lakers, Spurs, Kings, and Mavs. http://www.ibiblio.org/craig/draft/1999_draft/Players/francis.html Scouting reports Scout: David Edelman [dedelman@acpub.duke.edu] Looked terrible both times against Duke, so this evaluation may be more negative than it should be. But I have real doubts about how good a pro Francis is going to be. He's an extraordinary athlete who is as much fun to watch in transition as anybody in the NCAA (well, maybe Baron Davis). But he's not comfortable at all in the half-court offense, either at point or on the wing. He's not a particularly good long-range shooter nor does he distribute the ball well in the half-court. He's very intense, but he's often TOO intense; he tries to play beyond what he can handle in big games and makes crucial mistakes. He's a good rebounder for a guard and a decent man defender. Francis is too good an athlete to wash out entirely. But he's awfully short to play off guard and will have to learn half-court point guard skills almost from scratch. If he can't do that he may end up more as an elite 6th man, an instant excitement off the bench type, than as a starting point guard. And you really don't want to spend an early or even mid- lottery pick on that kind of player. Very high upside, but I like other point guards better in this draft. Scout: Jeffrey Burgoyne [burgoyne@ultimate-sports.com] Very high in the draft lists of teams. He adds instance excitement and athleticism to any NBA team. With the need for PG expected to be high among the top teams in the draft, he's a sure top 5 pick. The concern on Francis seems to lie in the fact he tends to play more like a SG than a PG, and he doesn't have the hieght to play SG effectively. Neither does he have the range of a SG. Some people see an Allen Iverson type when they see Francis, but he just does not have Iversons speed. Francis is a great player in transition and loves to run the court, but his ability to run a half court offense has been questioned. Certainly last year was his first year against top notch competition, so its expected he still has a fair upside to develop and while le learns a different role on the floor. When pitted against the tougher competition last year Francis did not respond as well as some scouts had hoped. The transition to the NBA may not be easy for Francis, but in three years he will justify his draft position. PG's are notouriously slow to develop in the NBA, and Francis has to change his game to play PG in the NBA. I cannot think of an NBA player that Francis resembles coming into this draft.
EG - couldn't agree less. I said 2 years ago to dump him while the value was high because he's not all that. He won't bang, his fg% is pathetic for a PF. Your right about needing a pf , but Cato is better than EG in all aspects. Yao is ready, he just need support in consistant good passes when he's in position. And a few decent p-n-r plays. Kareem never beat his opponents with muscle - does he stink? We need a pg that thinks teammates 1st, his shot second - Steve is not that guy. Why during games do we start out good, Yao gets hot, then the person bringing the ball up doesn't call his number anymore? I think it's jealousy and ego that HE's the BEST. Steve will never get a ring - not for any team - waayy too selfish and conceeded.
Even Cynthia Cooper who is an unabashed Steve supporter said he is a shoot first, pass second player. Steve's selfishiness can be put to good use as a shooting guard. Having a selfish passer basically handicaps the team and gives the opposing defense an edge. They know Steve isn't looking to setup his teammates, so they pounce on this weakness. Look at how the good teams have played defense against the Rockets.
Man the rockets analysis is so simple: Steve Francis is way too selfish. He makes Rickey Davis look like John Stockton. Despite his constant public stance of him wanting to win first, his play still clearly shows he's a me first stats type of player.
...or his play shows he's a "this team needs me to score by myself" type of player. Misguided maybe, but not Ricky Davis-type selfish. However, both is a matter of opinion. The only thing I really disagree with in your post is "clearly." That scouting report was right on the money except for the bit about transition. Was he finishing in transition in college or what? I would have liked to have Eddie back too, but I don't think he would have helped too much. His defense was not as good as Cato's, even with Cato's flaws. And while his range was good, his shooting percentage was horrible, as bad as Cato's is right now. But it's a moot point now.
OK, forget about Eddie, it's done with....gone. The PF situation is not horrible. Each PF brings something valuable to the team. Cato is a defensive stalwart who hustles and is a willing team player, yet has horrible shot selection. Taylor is a nice offensive player who is instant offense and has shown vast improvement in his rebounding. What we need is to learn how to distinguish minutes accordingly between the two, according to the appropriate game situations. You're right in that SF is not the problem. However, he is not the answer at PG. There is quite a dilemma. The Rockets offense is struggling because they do not have a pure point guard who can penetrate and has the others' looks in his best interest. Trading Francis is not the answer. He is a great talent, with superb offensive skills but he is a 2 GUARD. He is the lone player on the Rockets who can breakdown defenses consistently and can attack the basket with regularity. He is no doubt an integral aspect of the Rockets future, but its not at PG. Yao's aggressiveness is also a huge problem. We are talking about a 7'6", athletic big man who averages 9 rebounds in 35 minutes. There is no way he should only get 2 boards (vs. Minnesota) in a game. He is passive and does not attack, offensively or defensively. He has to realize that this is his team, and as he goes, they go. Overall, I think its important to note that the Rockets are extraordinary on the defensive end, which is usually the one aspect of NBA ball that teams have a hard time mastering. Their offense will come eventually, simply because they are too talented of a team to only be averaging 80-85 points a game. This team will make the playoffs this year.
The PF situation is horrible. Cato does a fairly good job defensively, but he's a center and has trouble with a quick PF. His shot selection is not bad. He's simply unable to shot OR finish around the basket. MoT is good offensively, but his defense is poor, and his rebounding is NOT improved. He does okay on the offensive glass(because it gets him more shots), but he is just pathetic on the defensive boards. He gets the same number of defensive rebounds per minute as Steve and Cuttino, and less than Jim Jackson.
Maurice: 4.7 rpg this year; 3.6 last year=rebounding, improved 2.7 defensive rebs/game this year; 2.1 last year Cato also is in the top 20 in blocks, bpg and rebounds per 48 minutes. And yes, his shot selection is horrific. Watch the games. The last game vs. Cleveland it was better, but before that he was shootin 15-18 footers consistently. So no, it is not a horrible situation.
It's too bad for him that the Rockets already have a 2 guard who plays the two better than he does, especially in this offense. Steve is really a 6'2" small forward that can't effectively guard any position on the floor. The best thing for him and the Rockets is to trade him to a team that is willing to base their offense around Francis isolations like Rudy used too. That will allow Steve to get his numbers (20-6-6, yay) and it will allow the Rockets to put a winning product on the floor, consisting of players that can score within an offensive scheme and can defend their positions man-to-man.
