Name someone or STFU. You say McGrady showed outstanding leadership but as I recall they had to ship that sorry crap Francis had to play with out of town for McGrady to flourish here. Remember? Jim Jackson, gone. MoTaylor couldn't even get off the damn bench. Name one. Please, or don't respond.
Name one what? A player that stats went up under Francis? Or up under McGrady? You are babbling. Invidually, Tmac can play his own game; ISO, or he can play the team game. He can score 26-32PPG without any help. He can assist 6.5 but also keep his TO down. That's my point. Jim Jackson was playing very well under TMac -- not many wanted him traded because he was playing well. MoT was traded becasue he was an ISO-ball hog. And having MoT, Mobley and Francis on the same team was the worst thing. But what happens when SF is in Orlando away from MoT? Not much. Same old TO, same old bad FG%. Do you get it? It doesn't matter where he goes or what players he has. UNLESS he cuts down his TO or improves his FG%. Give us SOMETHING! Geeesh!
the only thing I get is you can't back up your ridiculous baseless claim. I've already named several players it isn't true for, you can't name one it is true for. GAME SET MATCH YOU LOSE
pgabriel, you can think what you want. Just wait until next year. Get back to me at the end of the season. You'll see. I already told you what SF should (needs to) improve on for him to succeed individually AND team-wise. You chose to ignore this. Ok, fine. Are you Francis? Heh...nevertheless. If he stays the same (hardheadedness) he'll continue to struggle. By the way, the stats of other players you are looking at are a single factor (MoT vs Christie vs Mobley vs Jackson). My point is the individual players stats (star and role players) + plus what they do to mesh the team into a single unit matters greatly. Defense is also important too. That's something you have yet to figure out. All you have to look at his how this team plays after we got smart players (Barry, Sura, Westley and James). Those are the guys you need to mesh with. Not iso-manaics that turn the ball over too many times. Wade is TO prone. But at least he shoots 47%+. Francis need to give us something! This isn't a case where "Jordan can do it alone (back in the 80's)." He still lost many games. But at least he could play individually efficient. Once better players were placed around him he did better as a team. Francis has to improve his individual play before he can improve the team play. You can't have one without the other.
The "are you Francis" dig is funnier after the 100th time. It usually comes out when someone can't back up their claim. Not only can you not name an individual player, the team that was left post Francis with McGrady didn't improve. You have nothing to back it up but your long-winded rants about nothing.
Just wait until the play-off next year. You'll never get it. You want me to say, "Hey, look Francis upped so-and-so players stats from 1.7 to 2.6....etc..." Yeah, and? What's the point? Go ahead. Improve the roster Orlando. Have fun. You'll see. My "are you Francis" is a dig because you are just as hardheaded as he is. By the way, you need to check out the Rockets TO per game (13.1). Please tell me that has no effect on the efficiency of a team? Please...Did you notice that the Magic's team TO went up just like the Rockets during the SF years? Catch a clue. We traded those TO away. Thank god!
for the love of God, pgabriel, please stop quoting him! i have to read it then. he'll never "get it."
Cuttino Mobley Jim Jackson Yao Ming Kenny Thomas James Posey All saw improvements in their stats after getting away from Francis. EDIT: All of them also had more team success after getting away from Francis, with all of them being on 50+ win teams.
Weisbrod personally turned around the Houston Rockets and created excitement for many years to come. I am sad to see him go, we could have exploited him for other prospects.
yeah, jimmy jackson had all kinds of sucess. took a 45-37 rockets team to a 11-13 record while here and a 32-10 suns team to 30-10. it appears he was really able to help teams to worse records than w/o him while being away from steve. yao did win more, but i'm thinking no one is debating that francis is better than tmac for one's wins and losses. w/ an improved supporting cast as well. cuttino had a 25-19 record with the kings. they were 25-13 w/o him. he also had a negative plus/minus (even worse than his usual). clearly he helps a team much more w/o francis holding him back. posey had more success w/ memphis one year (and was a big part of it), then was a negative for the team mostly this year. kt did join a fairly mediocre philly team and play well, and then had no real great team success w/ either philly or sac last year. so, outside of kt's first year in philly, no one had better stats and some even had worse, and virtually nobody had any real team success outside of joining aleady successful teams and holding them back a little. and of course, francis again led his team in plus/minus (you know, the whole having more points than your opponents thing) for like the 4th straight year. he sucks.
Yao Ming scored more points at a higher percentage after losing Francis. He was also a key contributor in getting 50 wins for the Rockets. Cuttino Mobley scored more points at a higher percentage after being traded away from Francis. He was also the second option on a team that finished with 50 wins, the team he left behind went 18-32 (they were 18-14 when he was traded.) James Posey scored more points at a higher percentage after being traded away from Francis. He was a key player in leading the Grizzlies to the best season in franchise history at 50-32. Kenny Thomas scored more points at a higher percentage after being traded away from Francis. He also grabbed more rebounds. He was later traded with Brian Skinner and Corliss Williamson for Chris Webber, and finally got to play with a real point guard. At that point he averaged a career high in ppg and FG%. Jim Jackson scored more points after losing Francis (though not at a higher percentage). His shooting percentage on the Suns (who have a true point guard) was of course higher than it was under Francis. It sure is weird that so many players score more points at a higher percentage immediately after being seperated from Francis. Jim Jackson was the only player I listed that did not have increased production in his new situation, though if you take into account that his increase in field goal attempts was less than in 3pt attempts (ie a higher percentage of his FGs were 3pters), his decline in shooting percentage is easier to understand. His eFG% was basically unchanged. Francis is what he is. He is an Allen Iverson wannabe. AI is consistantly rated among the top players in the NBA, so it is not a bad idea for Steve to try to be like AI necessarily, but he doesn't have the same scoring ability as AI, and AI's methods have not lead to a lot of team success. It is no secret that I am not a Steve Francis fan, so take all of this for what you will, but I am not making any of this up, these are all factual statistics, and my analysis of them.
i'll take it for our usual endless bickering on the subject. i had factual stats, too. you can pretty much spin them how you want. using team success is a pretty good example of that type of spin unless we're talking about superstars. and i think this pretty much came from DavidS somehow arguing steve made christie worse. LOL. he sucked before he got there, then got disgruntled b/c he was coming off the bench, played in an unfamiliar system (johnny davis had a system?), and got injured and so he sucked while he was there.
Good info guys, but WTF does most of this have to do with Weisbrod?? Keep the HATE on Weisbrod, not each other..
All this talk about Tmac vs. Francis.....all I can say is, IF Weisbrod had been smart, not alienated McGrady and tried everything to make him happy and keep him there, INSTEAD of bringing in Francis, he would not have been the laughing stock of NBA. He would also have kept his job. Once he made that move, he went over his head because of his power-trip and made a series of boneheaded moves, while at the same time alienating himself from a lot of NBA people. His handling of business was terrible, especially for a rookie GM, and this did not bode well for Magic franchise as long as he was on board. Ultimately, Weisbrod's downfall was tied in with Magic's (led by Francis) demise in a weak Eastern conference, along with Rocket's (led by Mcgrady) rise in a stronger Western conference.
If you want to bash Francis for the turnovers and occasional boneheaded decisions, I really can't argue with you. But if you want to blame Francis for holding back players, you're delusional. Out of all the player discussed, Kenny Thomas maybe the one player whose stats actually improved after immediately being separated from Francis and then showed some sustained improvemnt. And he was having his worst shooting year before being traded. Before that he was considered one of Rudy's best draft picks. Posey experienced his best play when he was traded to the Rockets, went on to have his best season the next year but has now reverted back to Posey form. If you couldn't see what kind of mediocre players Francis spent most of his career with in Houston the way the Rockets played at the beginning of last season, you aren't paying attention. If your starting forwards are Jim Jackson and Kelvin Cato, your team is only going to get so far. Sacramento used to be considered Title contenders, now do you really think they are as good as they used to be with the two former Rockets? Francis holding back individual teamates are the team in general is a baseless claim.
One player does not make other players better as individual basketball players. I think it's safe to say that players hate it when they work on their game all summer long, they show it on the court and every says it's because so and so made him better. Negating the long hours he put in during the summer. I'll say it again, one player can make others winners, but as far as individual performance, that's on the individual player. EDIT-- During last night's game Amare Stoudemire was quoted as saying that he loves it when people tell him that he's improved, because of the fact that he worked hard this past summer. I wouldn't be surprised if he hates to hear everyone say Steve Nash makes him look better than he really is. -- EDIT Cuttino Mobley on the Kings is the exact same individual player he was everywhere else. Forget the stats (they don't even show enough of a difference to warrant any discussion - on any of these players) and watch him play, he was still going one on one too much, stagnating their offense and he wasn't moving the ball as much as the Kings used to. I thought he was going to have a summer to work with the King's offense and improve on his passing and ball handling within that offense, but now that he's going to be a free agent (word is that the Kings don't even want him back), I think he's going to remain the same player. He'll go somewhere else and do what he does best, score. Kenny Thomas is the one that stands to improve the most, he's on one of the only offenses in the league that put the ball in the hands of it's big guys to not only score, but pass. Some of you guys get WAY past unreasonable when it comes to Francis, arguing about these mediocre players, come on now. It's just making you look silly and getting you guys no where, not like they because all stars without Francis, they're still basically the same players that need to play with all stars to win. Oh and Wiesbrod sucks and stuff.
Is it ok to give Francis credit for the individual success of players on the Magic? Hedu Turkglo had the best season of his career. Grant Hill was never a 50% shooter before and his transition back to the NBA went smoother than most people would have thought. Cuttino Mobley did his thing. Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson both made All Rookie teams. Cato had one of his better seasons, although his defense took like 25 steps back. Well, if you want to take away from minor (if any) improvements Cuttino, Jackson, and Thomas made you SHOULD give him credit for the improvements/succesful individual seasons his teammates had. Of course nobody who took away from him well ever give him anything back, which is why you guys sound silly. Fact of the matter is that everything goes back to WINNING even if you won't admit it. Francis had (IMO) the least successful season of his career because he failed to get those guys to win, despite the individual success he and his teammates had. Oh and again, Wiesbrod sucks and stuff.
The Orlando Magic announced today that General Manager John Weisbrod is stepping down to spend more time with his ego.
