Kobe is being ripped because he won't shoot enough and passes too much. Francis is getting ripped because he shoots to much and doesn't pass. Both are racking up triple doubles. Too funny. Losing brings out the worst in us. There are two paths Francis must take in order to be a complete player. One of passing. One of Scoring. Francis is frustrated. He wants to win. In the process he's learning how to score 30. That is the path he has chosen this year. Jordan did the same thing. We should be happy that Francis can drop 30. One day, in the finals, we'll need him to do that. This experience is worth something. One day he will take the path of being point guard. Just as Jordan did. And then he'll learn how important his teammates are to winning. It will all come together in about 4-6 years. Kobe will be hitting his peak about then to. Ought to be fun.
why dont the rockets just move francis to shooting guard if he dont want to pass the ball to anyone any more, and start moochie at the point, then bring cuttino off the bench for extra sixth man scoring? if philly can do the same thing with iverson and make it to the finals, the rockets can try it also and at least make it to the play-offs.
but still ive noticed something about francise thats different from them other season ive seen him play in a rockets uniform. i think steve francise is trying to do too much by himself just to win basketball games. yeah he had nine assist but the rockets only had one assist in the third quarter. the rockets play waay too much one on one basketball. they need to play more as a team and play better defense to win games.
You are dead on about the team D. I think that cost them dearly last night. There is really no reason they should not be a little better in that area. He did have the 5 turnovers (which last night alone would rank 46th in the league). As it stands, Francis has about a 1 to 1 assist/TO ratio.
I didn't get to watch the game last night. Why in the world wasn't he playing in the third quarter? Did he get too many fouls?
I agree.. Francis passed the ball several times and could've easily had 12-15 assists last night, but we missed several easy jump shots in those situations.. As good as Steve is, he can't make his other teammates knock down the open J.
Yep. Not your typical perimeter reach-in fouls. He tried to draw a charge a couple of times and it didn't work.
then, when griffin finally has a decent game. it didnt count cause we lost. i feel that we should do what minnesota tried to do last year. i feel we should write to david stern and make a request to be move to the eastern conferene. it would be less headaches and we can see yao ming shoot jumpers over much smaller centers.
The only reason Kobe and Francis are getting ripped right now is that they are losing. If they were winning then they would be getting praised. They are both superstars who deserve to have the ball in their hands most of the time. Just look at the numbers they are throwing up. The real problem with this offense steams from the fact that it's nearly impossible to win consistently with two offensive minded guards who take a majority of the teams shots. This is going to be the argument that is going to go on all year unless Mobley takes a back seat and reliezes the offense does not go thru him.
It's true, he did pass the ball, and he did a damn good job of it, but to reach another plateau its got to feel effortless. It's got to look effortless. That will give him the energy to go off in the 4th quarter and lead us to victory each night. Gary Payton went through the same struggles.
i heard he had only 3 assists in the second half. is this true? don't know how to/don't feel like looking this up right now...
Please don't get assists and passing confused with running the team and making them better. This all has to do with the flow of the game. Heck, Francis could have 2 assists and still have a great team game. But, this again requires the team. Francis does not give the ball to his teammates in the best position/ situation possible. He just kicks it out the 3-point line because he was cut off the dribble.
Francis is a great player and I have to believe that if you put any other guard at the point in this league, they wouldn't be doing any better. Francis scores because he has to. The real problem is his teamates. When they learn to hit the open shot then we will start winning.
I seem to remember a couple times where Griffin cut to the basket from the ft line and Steve passed to him, but EG would bobble the ball and miss. I want to say that happened 2 times yesterday. And I also remember guys getting wide open shots, but missing them. GP got his teams wide open shots and they hit them, and he has a great passing game. Steve and Mobley(I think mostly SF though.) also started the game giving it to EG, which is probably a lot better than his 25ft man-in-face shots. He made most of them, which I would think would mean that the guards gave the ball to him in a pretty good situation. KT, on the other hand, didn't do so well. He probably had a lot of good situations, but he couldn't make the best of them. Yao...no...no....forget it...I don't want to use him in this. I want to say Cato had a nice open dunk from Francis, but he missed it. (Not sure though.) Not to sure about this as well, but I don't know how many layups or 5ft shots Houston could have gotten when the Sonics went zone. We had open shots, we just couldn't hit them. Seattle did. BTW, I can count at least 9 times where Steve passed to a teammate and they were in a good situation. These are just my opinions. I think Steve did a pretty good job passing last night, and he is improving in that catergory. I feel as though most of Steve has a hard time getting his teammates in the best situation. Most of them are not great shooters, some have butterfingers, and some will just ignore the shot and go iso.
I don't know if ya'll care, but if we had a team full of players with the highest turnovers in the league we would suit up: Kobe Bryant Steve Francis Pau Gasol Glenn Robinson Tracy McGrady Kevin Garnett Antawn Jamison Jason Terry Jason Kidd Vlade Divac Gilbert Arenas and Allan Houston Steve's turnovers just mean he has the ball in his hands a lot. Nearly everyone of those players start the offense or score big points or both. You can look at Steve's assist numbers, but his turnovers mean something different than just not passing.
I think Francis improved greatly last night also versus the first 3 games. I dont think the blame can be placed on Francis for last nights loss. We fell apart during the 3rd quarter, a good portion of which, Francis sat out. So who can we attribute the 3rd quarter breakdown to? Who was running the offense when Steve was out? THE M AND M ISO TWINS I asked this question last night, is their anyone left on the Moochie bandwagon?????
I was laying off him since he probably is still rusty a bit because of his pinky, but after he shot an AIRBALL, a ball made of air, I gave up.
lol Obviously, Moochie's pinky only hurts when he tries to pass the ball and only feels good when he dribbles the ball for 20 seconds (apparently to "loosen up" the finger) and then jacks up an ill advised shot. This could be the only possible explanation.
