Yes they are different players. And nobody is comparing them as players and what they can do. Tmac is averaging 20/6/6 with 41% shooting and Francis was averaging 20/6/6 with silmilar shooting percentage. All I am saying the production are similar. Now if you say SF was the #1 option and now Yao is the #1 option and we are playing different ball than Frnacis era, that's better than just saying the stats comparison is stupid. You are missing the mark.
Though I disagree with comparing TMac to SF. I think it's not good to claim other's thread as stupid. YallMean has his points, like it or not.
There's nothing to elaborate, if you think 2 MVPs already don't tell the story, with "less" stats than Marbury.
Did I say Nahs was not better than Starbulry? Nash posted far better stats as Suns than Starbulry ever did, efficiency wise too.
if you watch NY vs. houston....it is clear that this two shouldnt even be compared. numbers dont make the player.
Call me crazy, but I only care about one stat and that's "Wins". Everything else I could care less about. People want the old Orlando T-Mac, but what they don't understand is that in order to average over 30 ppg, he's gonna have to take a hell of a lot more shots. That means less shots for Yao, and that's just stupid. T-Mac should be playing the role of pass-1st point forward who takes over in small spurts when Yao is out or at the end of games. he shouldnt be jacking up 30 shots, ESPECIALLY right now when he is extremely rusty and still trying to find his shot! Watch some games, seriously. Stats really don't tell the whole story. half of T-Mac's turnovers are from brilliant passes that are bobbled out of bounds. Watch when he gets the ball 3 feet passed the 3 point line and is STILL automatically doubled (tripled if he opts to drive). Watch all the secondary assists that his being doubled creates, as the ball is swung around for an open three, or the extra pass is made to yao. Watch how fluid the offense is when it is ran through him. Watch every other player around him get better simply because they play off him. The comparison to Francis is stupid... I'm sorry. But if you watch the games, you'll see what I mean. T-Mac makes everyone including Yao's jobs easier and he gets all this flack for not doing that on top of scoring 30 a night. I for one am glad that T-mac is defering to yao, while his efficiency is steadily improving every night, and he is slowly getting back to form. One more thing... Last year we started 3-11, the year before we started 6-11, this year we are currently 9-4 (on a 3 game winning streak), and our schedule has been brutal. 9-4, thats all that matters.
Maybe that is the difference in their games: T-mac 37min/game Ast/TO 2.07 SF3 (using 02-03) 41min/game Ast/TO 1.68
Are you arguing that there have never been stupid threads? Or in your 1 month here there have never been stupid threads? What do you think posters are saying about a thread when they vote a 1 or 2? There are specific rules here that Clutch and the Admins enforce. Beyond that, the quality of the board is largely up to the posters. If a thread is stupid, I'll voice my opinion. In this case, it's simple. TMac and Stevie have nothing to do with each other. If people are desparate to start a thread with their name, they should work harder than finding some stats that appear similar.
stats don't tell the whole story, but they tell a large part of it. you're just rationalizing if you try to say tmac's first 13 games have been any better than what francis did his first 4 years here. his 2nd and 4th years are better than this year for tmac, but averaging the first 4 years, you get: 20.1/6.4/6.3 to tmac's 19.2/6.7/6.2. those are basically equal numbers. francis turned it over 3.7 to tmac's 3.2 but he also got 1.6 steals to tmac's 1.1. now i'm sure francis' steals don't count because all he did was gamble and all of tmac's turnovers are everybody else's fault, but that's just silly. of course the big difference is tmac is shooting 41.6/29.6/66.3 while francis shot 43.8/35.9/79.5. a significant advantage in efficiency for francis. that's one reason we don't want tmac shooting a lot to score a lot, because he can't shoot right now. and it's not like tmac is taking over down the stretch with big 4th quarters or stopping big runs by the other team or being aggressive and taking it to the other team. right now, he basically is playing like francis and having the same effect as francis. it's not like his +/- or roland rating or anything are out of this world. francis has numbers just as good in those categories, too. would i rather have francis than tmac? no. can tmac at his best do more than francis ever could? yes. but until he starts doing that he's not really dong much more than francis ever did.
You know what they say... "There are lies, damned lies, and then there are..." Anyway, yes, there are people who are productive, but to the detriment of the team. SF3 is clearly one of those kinds of people. TMac potentially can be one of those kinds of people, but I believe is helping the team more and more despite a decline in his statistics.
Also francis was a 20-6-6 guy as the number one option, tmac is 20-6-6 as the #2 option. if he goes back to being the #1 option it is going to be at everyone else's (yao included) expense. Then we start seeing the "Me-mac is selfish" threads. I swear T-Mac is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" guy unless he's putting up astronomical suprhuman numbers while locking up the opponent's best man (ala against dallas). otherwise, people will always hate. 9-4....
How on this earth could you ask this question or even make such a consideration!!Francis was a very poor playmaker and T Mc is one of the very best.Francis avoided passing to Yao Ming and Tracy tries to especially to pass to Yao Ming
Francis was not a bad player. Those teams were generally not horrible teams, either. They were in the lottery because the Western Conference was very difficult. I remember pretty much every year they were at least near .500, if not at or above it. The only exception being the one year that Francis missed a lot of games due to this inner ear problem and they ended up with Yao Ming. The problem with Francis was that he never truely "developed" much as a player. Rudy (and Mobley) were kinda enablers to his dribble-mania playing style, a style that could get a team a .500 record, but not much more. I just saw Francis last night at the MSG and was reminded of why I loved the guy as a Rocket. He rebounded in traffic, he had decent offensive production, he still overdribbled and made stupid decisions(as did Crawford and Robinson) but more importantly, he seemed to be always talking to and encouraging teammates even after they make mistsakes. Maybe it stood out because Marbury was in full sulk mode. Francis is definitely a flawed player and a lesser player compared to McGrady. But that doesn't mean we can't appreciate his talent and personality or that we need to put him down constantly just to argue that the current team is better.
I won't even bother reading the posts in this thead. Comparing what Tracy is doing now as a facilitator to Steve Francis' domination of the ball is crazy. The points, assists and rebounds may be similar but the effect on the team is not, especially Yao. When Tracy dominates the ball, he will get 13 assists instead of 6 or will score 30+ points instead of 20. He's also playing consistent defense, which SF did very selectively.
20/6/6 <> 20/6/6. this is a perfect example of how stats do not tell a story in its entirety. "how" the primary ballhandler involves his teammates cannot fairly or accurately be tracked by statistics. "how" the primary leader of a team leads cannot fairly or accurately be tracked by statistics. have you guys learned nothing from watching shane battier on the rox??? not everything can be valuated by #s. some things are "intangible". ex. drive to the hole, find you have no where to go, so you fling it out to an unsuspecting teammate for a 20 footer with 1 sec on the shot clock - or - drive to the hole early in the clock, get cut off, then find a waiting teammate for a wide open shot. if both shots go in, it's still an assist. still, the 2nd example is more of a "quality" assist. it's a play that lets his teammates know that he is looking for them...not as just a bailout but as an option (1a or 2) on that play. the 1st example leaves teammates alienated and disinterested. they know that they are bailouts, become stagnant, eventually dispassionate, and in the end...losers. i like to think we're pretty bright here on cf.net, but some comments make me wonder...
Francis never drew the kind of attention that Mac draws just by handling the ball and I dare say that if SF3 was playing with a dominate Yao his numbers would be down tremendously. Stevie had to carry the Rockets on most nights and he carried them with his gaudy numbers...right to the lotto each year except the first rd loss to Kobe and Shaq. Steve didn't play any D and didn't make the role players around him better. If he's so great what happened to him since? Orlando has a young team that is playing great...why isn't he apart of that experience rather than riding Isiah's jock on the bench during crunch time. I enjoyed Stevie while he was here the first few years but Hakeem had difficulty playing with him and he didn't help Yao out at all with making the game easier. I bet Yao is happy to have Mac now versus Francis...
a very level-headed post. I agree whole heartedly, as a francis lover I can definitly agree that his biggest problem was his development. its like what's going on with michael vick right now. I have to say another thing, francis had his best nights when he didn't dominate the ball. he didn't need to dominate the ball to be good, he just had to limit mistakes. dominating the ball doesn't matter until you dribble the shot clock down to 2 and either take a stupid shot or make a stupid pass. as far as making role players better, we can go round and round on the talent of those teams but they weren't very good.
