Lil Francis I have watched and recorded Rox games for a long time!! I know this , if Francis trys to be a big scorer on a healthy Rox 02/03 he will NOT BE PROVIDING THE FUNCTION OF HIS POSITION AT POINT GUARD and hell could be his next direction, after the Rox Management have given him his orders! 02/03 should bring us with a healthy Rox team full of great scorers............ ..Mobley,Nachbar,Rice,Taylor,Thomas,Francis Ming Yao plus the rest. The basic job of a point guard is the bringing the ball up and distributing it to an open man or passing it to someone who can pass it to a potential shot maker & himself to score when he can. Upto now Steve Francis has not concentrated on his duties at the Point Guard Position as there has been the need for him to lead in scoring. Now with a healthy Rox and RT's new game plan that must change inorder for the Rox to advance into a top ranking team in the 04/05 season. IMHO PS. Iam sure SF . realises this (pouting all Off season.
I hope Yao and the Rockets focus on his defensive presence; I want to see big rebound and blocked shot numbers like an avg. of 10 rebounds a game and 3 blocks a game. That would be wonderful, and if he could add 8-12 pts a game that would be great. I want to see Fransis, Mobley, and Griffin averaging 20 per game each. Hello playoffs.
Yetti, if Francis doesn't score at least 18 points per game next season, the fans are going to riot. Because we'll be LOSING.
this one is easy : 0pts. 0 rebs. 0 minutes If I knew how to bet online with you guys ,I honestly would bet $500 right now that Ming never plays a single regular season game. Any takers? How bout a "i told you so " verbal bet?
count me in on that "verbal" bet. I will take your $500 & double that, if you like? this is not a friendly, I told you so bet. put your money where your mouth is.
Yeah I feel what you saying but its hard to think Francis average will drop that much. Francis likes to score just as much as Mobley so his average might go up.
Lil Francis:- Not for one moment have I thaught that Steve Francis was not going to be a team player and make his fellow Rockets better, instead of playing the selfish role. I feel sure that his tenure leading the Rox would be very limited if he didn't. I also feel sure that this has been indicated to him by the Coaching Staff! Les wont stand for any selfishness that causes disharmony on his team after all the trouble they have gone through to put together a potential winner!! Lets leave it to the ones that do the coaching and see how it works out during the season. Go Rox!
If the ball is distributed without bias then Mobleys average should drop slightly but both he ans Steve will have much better Stats in other ways.There could be 5 Rox with an average of circa. 15pts+ /gm.
man i really don't know. But for some reason i think he will average 18-22 ppg. He francis, and brand did it as rookies. Why can't they. Look at pau. Yao has a hell of a lot more ablity than pau has right now. He's about the same spped, better shot, better D, better offene, better passer, bigger, stronger, and more experienced.IMHO
My prediction: For his rookie season, Yao will average 8-11 ppg, 10 rpg, 2-3 bpg, 2 apg, 4 fpg in 20-25 mpg while shooting over 50%. The Rockets have many scorers and Yao will not get a lot of shots on this team. Besides, Ming is a not a player who will look to score. In his games he has shown that he is very patient on offense and rarely rushes his shot. Therefore, expect him to shoot a high percentage. Rudy will teach Ming right away what he needs to do on this team, which is to play defense and be a presense in the middle. Given Yao's height, he will get his fair share of blocks and rebounds even if he gets pushed a bit in the paint at this stage of his career. There is a chance that he will average more rebounds than points. I think that I've read somewhere that Yao Ming thinks himself as a defensive center first and he enjoys playing defense. If that is true, he will fit in very well with the rest of this Rox team and make a much bigger impact than a lot of people expect.
very good idea, he does not look to score, but i'm sure framcis, and cat will pass him the ball if the trust he can put it in the cup. And he can. I go with 15ppg at the least now.
14 points 10 rebounds 2 blocks I did a mathematic deduction based on the transform pattern of Yao's countryman Bateer from CBA to NBA, to get these numbers.(my heads still hurts from all those numbers! ) So needless to say, my prediction is the most scientific and accountable one.
Yao is a player that Rocket wants to build the team around with besides Stevie. So, he will be the first or second shooting option of the whole team soon. If Yao looks stupidly open without ball passing to him, then farewell Houston after four years.
