Is Yao the reason Steve Francis made it to the playoffs?

NO.

 

I don't know if you've noticed, but normally it's Yao playing second fiddle...

 

Well, Francis missed the playoffs with us 4 years in a row. The two major changes that helped us get there were Yao's emergence and JVG.

Apparently, Yao, JVG and a few solid veterans are the difference between a 21 win team in the east and a (hopefully) 50 win team in the west.

 

Francis and Mobley carried this team through the final stretch of the regular season. Francis was by far our best player in the playoffs. I don't care what spin you wanna put on it, Francis carried this team last year.

 

Do we really need to argue over this again?

 

No,steve is the main reason we made the playoffs last year!

 

agreeed

... of course, ironically enough, he was also the main reason we were the 7th seed and not higher (TOs, inconsisent play, Superbowl)

 

HAHA! Yeah right! To move up they had to win 51 games. Last year's squad was not a 50 win team by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Francis was the reason the 03-04 Rockets made the playoffs? I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.

The 1st year VG team won in spite of Francis not because of him.
Any decent NBA point guard on team with Cuttino Mobley as the SG, Jim Jackson (having a near career year) at SF, Kelvin Cato at PF, Yao Ming at C, 6th man of the year runner-up Mo Taylor and coached by Van Gundy is at a bare minimum a 7th seed.

And puh-leeeze don't give me that weak argument of what our record was when Francis was out. The argument is based upon him not being there as the key while totally ignoring what impact $11m worth of other NBA players would add.

 

EXACTLY what I was going to type... word for word.

Francis should have been able to excel in JVG's motion offense, but he couldn't hit an 18 ft. jump shot at all last year... refusing to shoot the open looks, he'd try and drive it in, often leading to turnovers.

The guys who fit JVG's mold perfectly were Jim Jackson, and Cuttino. You gotta think that they were desperatly sad to see Cuttino go, but that was the only way the T-mac deal gets done... and so far this year, Wesley has been a better version of JJ.

Yao played a big role last year... but Steve never benefited from having him around, because he couldn't make the open looks, and he still tried to do his own thing (dribble dribble, crossover, drive into the lane, has nowhere to go, etc.)

I thought the games that Steve "got it" (most notably the one regular season Lakers game), were signs of turning the corner... but we'll never get a chance to see if they would have FINALLY clicked together.

Meanwhile, it took Tracy, and the rest of this elite team less than half a season to realize that the spacing that Yao creates for others is more than enough to get almost 20 wide open shots a game... and then all you have to do his hit an open jump shot.

 

Yao was our leading scorer, rebounder, and shot blocker and shot over 11% better from the field than steve...I think Yao had A LOT to do with it...
JVG's defense also helped a A LOT too.

When you look back last year, I remember everyone being down on JVG's offense b/c it was a 'slow down' offense and we did not run a lot to maximize our 'great' offensive ability. BUT, our primary ball handlers were all low percentage shooters that did not take care of the ball well...so wouldn't a high/uptempo game actually hurt our chances to win, while tiring out our best offensive option (Yao)? Strange how all the sudden with steve gone and our team finally getting comfortable with the system that we actually run a lot and have scored over 100 points a hell of a lot more than we did last year.

Something to think about.

 

Let's not get carried away, Gater -- Jackson has had some 8 or 9 years better than the one he had last year. Unless you're going to say that it was because of things that don't show up in the stats, in which case it would be pretty hard to compare.

 

Cuttino Mobley is a below average starting shooting guard.

Jim Jackson is a below average starting small forward.

Kelvin Cato is a below average starting power forward.

Mo Taylor sucks.

The only player out of those guys who is repeating his success from last year is Mobley, that should tell you all you need to know.

Steve Francis and Yao Ming were the only players worth anything on last year's team, they carried the Rockets, everyone else could of been upgraded.

 

It was neither Yao nor Francis, it was JVG.

JVG put the shackles on SF3 and forced him to play a certain way. It worked and the Rockets made the playoffs the first time in 5 tries.

enough said.

 

CORRECTION...you said they have 3 of our starting 5...no they currently have only 2 steve and kato, bc weisbrod was dumb enough to trade cat for a decaying doug christie...but when they WERE using 3 of our former starting five, they were definetly playing well and were on pace to make the playoffs.....

 

I was going to say something like that also. Isn't it odd that
Steve's WORST statistical year is the only year he made it to the playoffs?

 

Statistics don't make the playoffs. Wins do. T-Mac is having one of his worst statistical seasons, but still having his best season overall because he's winning more than he ever has. Francis' statistics weren't his best but last season was the most successful of his career because of the Rockets success.

 

Exactly, his most successful season was his absolute worst statistical season ever (so far). That's what I said.
The less Steve dominates the ball, the better the team will do.
You can see it in Orlando, he's playing the game 'his way' and it doesn't look that great. He's too inconsistent to be 'the man' on a team...he needed to share more and that's what JVG made him do last year, much to Steve's dislike.

 

The haters here are amazing.