Francis, When Are You Ever Going to Play Smart?

quit farting around, Smeggy. I'm serious. Mandy left a message this MORNING on my machine to "drop off the chairs." I'm thinking she wants me, and I only have 3 more hours to figure it out.

damn!!! I show start a Manny Advice thread in the rockets forum right now to get a quicker response, but pasox2 is heyschweeties' dance partner and Batman Jones when to high school with her....so I fear divulging my inner sanctum.

I'm so confused which cc.net Forum I should post this in.

 

SF will never play smart. Now it's up to the coach to decide who to be traded.

 

I vote for Refman.

 

From Sagehare6,

"Moreover, while SF is undersized for the SG spot, you overlook his superhuan vertical. That said, I DO THINK HE can be better than Kobe".

What goes up must come down. Unless SF has anti-gravity ability, he is just too short to be effective at the 2 guard position. If his defense as pg is average at best, what make you think he could play better D at sg.

 

C'mon, atleast give Vescey a sympathy vote.


VesceySux

 

There is no way Steve could stop Gore, he has a great Xover dribble!!!

 

The Xover dribble is useless. Gore needed someone to punch the pregnant chads.

 

i'm new to this writing on this message board but i've been monitoring it for sometime. I am a die hard rockets fan....

The way i see it is, if steve, cat and yao don't take shots who else is going to take them. They are clearly the ONLY guys on the team that can create shots for themselves. (KT does it sometimes) There is never a complaint about stevie missing 10 shots when he has 30. so don't complain when he misses 10 and has 15. whoever made the comment he has a "shooter's mentality" hit it on the spot. he is a shooter, in order to find a rythme he has to shoot the ball.....

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT UNTIL YAO PUTS ON WEIGHT HE IS OUR BEST PLAYER, HANDS DOWM............

 

Manny,

I don't care how divided you are. I only have 2 more hours of trying to figure out if I should call Mandy before my wife gets home!

I need some advice!!

 

If it is Mandy Moore then yes, if not the Gumbo and Mrs Palmer will have to do!!!

 

I think the pg spot is the one spot on the court where its more vital to have a "heady" player than a atheletic one. The pg is the general,coach on the floor who controls the tempo and action. Francis in terms is probably the last player mentally who should be running a team. Would I trade him? Probably not unless it was an offer i couldn't refuse. What was witnessed Saturday is what I've been saying all along is that just because Miller doesn't shoot or try to score 30 every night doesn't mean he can't. Miller just understands the position and what it takes to run a team. I think Francis just had a poor night, but when nights like that happen, thats when he should buckle down on D, and try to set other players up for scores. Its no way Ming should have only gotten 9 shots last night. The only players who seem to play smart are the new guys and not the ones that have been here for more than a couple yrs.

 

First off, excellent post leeb. Going into this season, I was concerned about how this team would eventually fit together considering too many players need the ball and too few are the the role player types that would do the little things to win. However, I was willing to let this thing play out b/c Francis and Mobley as a tandem are capable of hitting big time shots and have that special IT. The moxy that you love in your ball players. However, as a whole I have just not seen this overall improvement in Francis's playmaking ability that some people are talking about. Sure, Francis has shown flashes of being an effective playmaker, but on the whole, the fastbreak is still below average, Francis's decision making is not good and the defense at the point of attack is inconsistent.

I had posted several times that I had already come to the realization that Francis just wont be the effective playmaker for this team. However, I did hope that this attack could still be effective with a passing center like Ming much as the Kings attack is with a lower APG Bibby. I have realized that belief was pure folly and will address that in this post. I have seen a lot of myths being thrown around in this thread and others that I would like to address.

Myth 1: Mike Bibby only averaged about 5 APG so since Steve averages more than that, Steve is an effective PG.

That stat is very true. However, take a look at Mike Bibby's assist to turnover ratio which is what is arguably the most important statistical measure of a PG and compare that to Steve's. Take a look at Steve's assist to turnover ratio this season and over his entire career and see whether or not he has been able to approach 2 to 1 consistently much less 3 to 1 (which is considered good for a PG). The point that needs to be clarified here is that the goal is not just to have a PG averaging 9 APG or what not. The idea is to have a PG that will defer to other and let the offense run through them. Make sure that the inside game gets established consistently every night, make sure the hot hand is getting the ball consistently, be able to effective get the team going in the transition game for easy hoops. Bibby does all these things, Francis does not.

Myth 2: Moving Francis to 2 guard would ruin the Rockets defense.

This is also a big stretch. The most important parts of the defense are the interior and point of attack imo. Basically, preventing an opposing PG from routinely breaking down the defense is very important. If a player like Andre Miller or Jason Williams routinely gets inside the defense, it causes interior players to have to help way too much thus putting them out of position for rebounds and also enabling the opposing team to have more dish or kick out opportunities. This has a much larger effect on a defense than what an off guard can do. Thus, Francis and an Eric Snow type would be a much better on the defensive side of the ball than Francis and Mobley. In addition, Francis's and Mobley's height is not very different despite what people think. If you have been them in person standing next to each other, the height difference is negligible. I sometimes get the feeling the 6-4 on Mobley is slightly fudged. Allowing Francis to play 2 guard and having an Eric Snow like PG would enable him to concentrate on scoring. In this type of situation, Francis could fill it up and scoring 25-30 PPG in the offensive flow.

Myth #3: Steve Francis cannot play off the ball.

Im still wondering what proof there is of this? Just b/c Francis has had the ball in his hands during his career due to him playing PG does not mean he cant play off the ball if required to. Mobley was thought to not be able to do this and has shown more ability to go off the ball. Allen Iverson made the transition from 1 to 2 during his career. Also, the way the offense functions, it wont be a complete off the ball. Francis will still get opportunities after the ball goes through the big men to slash and score. The difference is, Francis will not be driving into a stacked defense and wont have to worry about creating for others.


Conclusion: The Rockets are simply going to be a very inconsistent team with this current alignment the rest of the way. I fully expect nights like the Philly and SA game where everything clicked, but I also expect nights like the various stinkers Memphis, LAC among others. The problem is that this team is clearly lacking an identity and the parts dont mix too well. It seems like the guard iso style offense and big man offense are pulling in two directions. The worse part is that since Mobley's return, it has slowly moved toward the guard offense and less opportunities for Ming. It culminated in the last game where Ming clearly did not get the ball enough. Thus, I see this team as being extremely inconsistent and winning 35-45 games. That may or may not be enough for the playoffs. I think the seeding will be in the 7-10 range, hopefully closer to 7. I just dont see this team as top 4 or 5 material due to the lack of identity, inconsistency, etc.

This team in the long run needs to consider adding role players and subtracting players that need the ball. Complement Steve and Yao with the appropriate pieces b/c these pieces just dont fit (that includes Mobley btw). Larry Brown unloaded a ton of big name talent when landing in Philly (Larry Hughes, Tim Thomas, Jerry Stackhouse, etc) and surrounded Iverson with tough, hard nosed role players that were unselfish and really understood the game. The team went from lottery to playoffs to Finals. Had the Sixers had a legit alternate scorer to Iverson, they would have maintained their stronghold on the East imo. This team really needs to get players that fill the necessary roles, play defense and complete the stars (Francis and Ming).

 

Im not able to edit, sorry for the typos in the post. The last line should be "complement the stars."

 

There are so many fans on this board cannot even bear one little advice people have towards Francis. They will always label you as either a "Yao-Only fan" or "Steve-hater" the moment you point out some areas that Steve needs to improve.

I am really fed up with those people.

 

Well said.

 

You got it there. But if we make our legitimate points, they usual shutup and listen cause you can't argue the facts but some try to do it by changing subject.