Both Francis and Mobley had clutch plays in the OT last night. But if either one of them had a higher bb-IQ and team-oriented mentality, we wouldn't even go to OT.
You make a fair point. But I think the record comparison is very deceptive. It took a few games for the Rockets to get the rotation right after Mobley went down. They did manage to beat the Spurs without Mobley and the Kings with Mobley going 5-15 on the night. They would've lost last night had it not been for Yao's 8 offensive boards, the big blocks by Yao and Griffin, and Franchise's clutch 3 at the buzzer. How do you go from blowing out Phillie to going to overtime against the Griz and the Heat? Who does Miami have outside of Jones? You've got a 6-9 PF up against a 7-6 Center and Yao only gets 6 shots? I think it's problematic when both Franchise and Mobley take 40+ shots a night bc it doesn't allow the other members of the team to get involved. It doesn't soften up the oposing defense either. Look at the victories over Phillie, Sac-town, and the Spurs. They had a lot of assists and the shots were very evenly distributed between the big 3. Lot's of bench production. Against those three powerhouses, we not only won, we manhandled them. In the games in December where Mobley has jacked up more than 15 shots, we've either lost or barely won. We shouldn't have lost to the Griz, the Clips, or eaked out a W against the Heat. The Rocks probably overlooked them after their big W's against Phillie, Kings, and Spurs and abandoned the selfless play that got them those W's to begin with. Mobley is a great player but he needs to learn how to work WITHIN THE MOTION OFFENSE.
It's hard to make a case for Mobes *hurting* the team when he shoots 45% ( 9 - 20 ) and 44% is his career average. I think what's bothering so many people are Yao's touches, and without claiming that Yao is the be-all and end-all for this team, I think it has to be said that this team would have a lot better balance if they went inside more than 4-5 times a game. I have to assume Rudy's not blind. The game -after- the game where Ming only got 3 attempts, he got a ton the next game. I think we need to wait and see if this is a one game trend or a persistent pattern. Dave
I understand your point of view Rocks, but here's the thing: Miami doesn't need a go-to guy. They're rebuilding. I just don't understand, are you saying we lose too much or Miami loose too much? Miami doesn't care about wins. Miami is the #1 city for players to go, has one of the league's best coaches, and has management that is serious about contending. More than picks, cap space is important for them. You mention Chicago wanting to trade Jones....Tell me, how? The only big contracts they have are Donyell Marshall, Jalen Rose, and Eddie Robinson. Miami wouldn't want Rose, because he's old, Donyell Marshall is a nice player, but nicer than Mobley? E-Rob is worse than MoT in the injury department. Phoenix want Brian Grant? If they hade anyone they could trade for him, I still doubt they would now that Amare is there. Like I said, Dallas is a possibility for Grant. That's just about it. If you believe our team improves after this trade, then let's look at it this way: Convince me that there's a better deal out there for a team looking to DEFINITELY unload the 2 MAX contracts, and only take back ONE risk in return. Mobley is a sure thing. KT will play hard, and has no contract. Rice is pure cap space, he's a PLUS. MoT is the risk. Basically, in summers, Miami will have 6M invested in Mobley, and 7.5M in Mo Taylor, with 11M (one of the max contracts) cleared. Mobley is pure value for money. MoT is the only risk, and chances are, with consistent playing time, he'll get back to 90% of what he was, STILL they're in MUCH better shape than ever before. For Miami, being competitive means nothing this season. It's about coming back strong. About setting up for FA's. About getting rid of 2 MAX contracts. Ming/Cato Grant/Griffin T-Mo/Boki Jones/Hawkins Francis/Mooch Come on. Tell me we aren't one of the best, if not THE best, teams in the league. With Ming dominating inside, Grant doing the dirty work and Francis ripping up the perimeter, and Jones taking advantage of all the attention Ming and Francis get? Fugghetaboutit.
I appreciate your balanced comments but I've had issues with Mobley's shot selection for a couple of years now. I don't think he's a bad shooter at all. You really decrease the likelihood of your shot going in when you drive in the lane and take an off-balanced fade away rainbow over sometimes two or three defenders. The motion offense can work if Mobley would just have faith in it. He simply all too often takes bad shots at often the worst times. I would agree that Yao needs the ball more but so does KT. That can't happen when both Francis and Mobley are dueling for the most attempts on the night award.
Cat, Cat, Cat....Eddie is the focus of our Defense while Mobley is the third option. Furthermore Mobley can get better shots by feeding of SF or Yao while Eddie has to feed others for easy shots. O, we didnt' score as much b/c it took teams a little more time to score on us with Juaquin Hawkins instead of cat. Still though, I have to agree the guy is not a cancer like that of Dennis Rodman, Latrell Sprewell, or even J.R Rider. At least Cuttino have a good attitude, but I wonder if that would be the case if he was benched, how he would react then????
I certainly don't see Mobley as a cancer. I think that is a pretty harsh term usually reserved for guys like Derek Coleman and the like that cause "chemistry problems" for teams. I like Mobley as a player and like his passion for the game. My ONLY real complaint is that it seems that Mobley takes shots AWAY from Yao Ming in the fact that he takes TOO MANY shots and because of this I don't think Yao Ming gets ENOUGH shots. I am not saying that Mobley is not passing the ball to Ming, as much as trying to equal out the shots in GENERAL. I think for this team to get to the "next level" the shot distribution should be (from most to least) 1) Steve Francis 2) Yao Ming 3) Cat Mobley 4) Glen Rice 5) KT/Eddie Griffin Yao Ming needs to take the second most shots on this team. He is just too effective to do be doing this. Not to turn this into a Yao Ming thread but the last few games Yao Ming's number of shots is way below Francis, Ming, Rice, the PFs etc. This can't happen. Back to Mobley....again, I think he needs to differ some of his shots to Yao Ming. I think the same can be said for KT/Griffin. I think if that can happen then much of the problems with Mobley will go away. Just my two cents. Chris
a. as was already brought up: 9-6 with Cat 4-4 without b. does anyone actually remember the offense when Cat went out??? the first game was beautiful, everyone was hitting their shots. then a long period of horrible suckiness happened. we couldn't score for crap. even the big spurs win i believe involved 85 points. then Cat comes back and we have arguably our two best offensive games of the season against Sactown and Philly. even the memphis loss i believe we scored over 100. c. how anyone could look at last night as a knock on cuttino i'll never know. he scored 27 on 9/20 shooting. if you don't like that, then you like almost 0 shooting guards in the nba. eddie jones is roundly praised for 32 points even though it took 27 shots which is a lower PPS than mobley. mobley D'd up, hit big shots, hustled, and rebounded. what more do you want. did he make some mistakes, sure, but that's called being human. no one seems to be bothered by Yao's 4 turnovers, 3 of which came when posting up and another when he didn't hold his man off well enough. hell, in the last 3 minutes alone he offensive goaltended a shot that may have rattled in and then spun baseline when he had no room and turned it over. yet all i hear about is the "the guards" mistakes down the stretch. d. since coming back we are 3-2, mobley is shooting 43.2% (avg for a SG i think) and is avg 3 assists, which is all anyone ever seemed to ask of him anyway. e. we had 6 TO's either from yao or from trying to pass into yao, at some point you can't just keep forcing what isn't working on a given night and hope you can fix it next game. and people need to stop saying "YAO WAS 5/6 AND WE STOPPED FEEDING HIM!!!." he wasn't 5/6 b/c we were feeding him b/c he couldn't establish position to be fed. he was 5/6 b/c all of his shots were two foot putbacks or dishes from steve (in OT) or rice (set play in 4th quarter) that set up a dunk and layup. it wasn't like he was abusing grant in the post and they just ignored him. in fact, he turned it over 3 times against grant in the post, it just wasn't working out. but i suppose those TO's were the guards fault, too. and finally, ever wonder why he got 8 offensive rebounds. maybe all that fronting that kept him from getting the ball had something to do with it. it also helps when two people run and steve and cat when they penetrate and shoot which opens up some lanes inside to crash the glass. frankly, i don't know why anyone's pissed at anyone for last night. everyone played pretty well and everyone made some mistakes (yes even yao) and we luckily won.
Mobley is absolutely terrific, IMO Cancer is such a strong and negative word that is inappropriately used here. Sure there's been some adjusting to do since Mobley came back, but how can anyone say that the Rockets are a worse team WITH Mobley than without? I for one believ thae that Rockets are clearly a BETTER TEAM WITH MOBLEY. The dude is doing a great job on both ends of the floor, and decision wise, he's one of the smartest players on the player. Take last nite's game for example 1. Did you see Mobley D up on Jones that ended in a steal by Francis? Francis got the stat but it was Mobley who initiated that great steal. 2. Did you see Mobley free up as regulation ended? We had a clear second CLEAN option to shoot a three had Francis passed on it. Bottom line: Mobley is an awesome guard and perfect tandem to Francis. I think we fault him too much for passing too little, but u know what? shoot 50% on 17 shots and he can shoot as much as he wants.
Mobley adds a third leg to the Rox assault that has NEVER been witnessed before in the NBA. The closest tandem + center I could think of was Detroit with Isaiah, Joe Dumars, and a rotation in center with Laimbeer. But with the Rox we have a legit franchise center, a legit franchise guard, and an ADDITIONAL all-star caliber guard. How powerful is that? The Yao, Mobley and Francis chemistry adjustment will take some time. But just back up a second and think. Isn't the holy grail for most teams to find potent guards to complement a potent center and vice versa?. No team in the NBA has been carried to the championships on the back of a PF or a SF. A center and guard... that's all you really need. And we have TWO, count 'em, TWO all-star caliber guards. Mobley and Cat are also so well balanced. You never see them contesting with each other for the ball. You also never see them have "ego" issues with who's the "bigger man." These two are about as close as any all-star guard pair. My prediction is you'll hear Yao-Francis-AND Mobley in the same breath much like you do Stockton-Malone. I really hope all three make it to the All-Star game. They really deserve to go as a triplet. theSAGE
Valid points but look how difficult it was for the Rockets to beat a terrible team like the Heat. Jones has to jack up 27 shots because whoelse is going to score? Until Jones heated up in the 4th, they were losing pretty bad to the Rockets. Mobley, however, no longer needs to get 20 shots a night. We have plenty of scorers between Franchise, KT, Rice, Yao, and at times Griffin. You're not running an offense when your two guards take 40 shots. You're playing pickup ball at Fonde Rec Center. You referenced the games vs. Sactown and Phillie with Cat playing where we had great offensive production. Let's look at those two games. Against Phillie, Yao-11 shots, Stevie-17 shots, Cat 13 shots. Total assists 27. Margin of victory against one of the best teams in the NBA? 25. Against Sactown, Yao-14shots, Stevie- 17 shots, Cat-15 shots Total assists 20 Margin of victory against 2nd best team in west? 7pts (although it was over 20 earlier in the game) Keep in mind that Mobley was 5-15 that night and we still won despite his poor shot selection in the 4th quarter. Now let's look at last night's victory in OT against one of the worst teams in the NBA. Yao-6shots, Stevie-17shots, Cat-20shots Total assists-12 The offense is much more fluid when it flows through Yao. In the two huge victories over major NBA powers, the big three had an even distribution of the shooting load with about 10~15 shots each. Everyone is more involved and get a lot more open looks instead of forcing the offense through the guards engaging in wreckless drives to the hole.
say what you want...the bottom line is this team needs two consistent scorers...francis and mobley. yao is still young and underdeveloped. some of ming's passes have been easily picked off. sure he looks great and the skys the limit for this kid...but for right now it's francis and mobley. as ming progresses it could change. we are so quick to say give him the ball more or let the offense flow through him...well he's still learning and trying to adapt to the speed of the nba. Rudy T is doing an excellent job of giving him touches and letting him learn the system over time instead of funneling the offense totally to him and risk him hitting the rookie wall and having to resort back to the old ways. in case you haven't noticed mobley plays the 2 or SHOOTING guard position. that's what they pay him to do.
Great points! It is exactly what I was trying to say in my post above. Yao Ming needs to be the 2nd option on the team and not the 4th or 5th. Notice that Steve's number of shots are the constant (17 in this example) and Yao's and Cat's shots are the ones that are changing. Cat should get around 13 shots and Ming should get around the same amount not the 6/20 ratio of last night. Chris
I feel like I need to clarify. I do believe Yao is very good and WILL BE great in the future. He is extremely intelligent and makes smart decisions although some of his nifty passes do end up in the wrong hands. I'll take those 3 TO's a night though bc they are happening as a result of Yao trying to hit the cutter or open player. One thing that I really want to clarify is that I don't necessarily think Yao has to get 15 shots a night per se. What I do think is that Yao NEEDS TO GET THE BALL IN THE POST A LOT. He has demonstrated himself to be a disciplined and selective shooter. He has great court awareness and will hit the perimeter man or the cutter. If he has good position, he will shoot it. He always seems to seek the path of least resistance which is what being a team player is all about. To go along with his great talent and limitless, untapped potential is a brain that he actively uses. Am I ready to crown him as the main go to guy? Not yet. His time will come. But he has demonstrated that he opens up the offense when he gets his touches. Give the man the ball and let him to continue to help his teammates vs. the typical NBA player who is usually looking to help his stats.
NY Knicks, 1973: G Walt Frazier, G Earl Monroe, C Willis Reed Lakers, 1972: G Jerry West, G Gail Goodrich, C Wilt Chamberlain. Phila 76er, 1967: G Hal Greer, G Wally Jones, a reserve G named Billy Cunningham, and a guy at C named Chamberlain. Boston, late 1950s-early 1960s: G Bob Cousey, G Bill Sharman (later, G Sam Jones), C Bill Russell I'm sure some of the 1980s Lakers teams would qualify as well, with Magic at G and Jabbar at C. Another person who never heard of the St Louis Hawks, I'm assuming. And I guess Larry Bird was a guard... PFs who were the most important part of championship teams: Bob Pettit (1958), Elvin Hayes (1977-1978). SFs who were major contributors of championship teams: Dr J (1983), Larry Bird (many) And though Elgin Baylor didn't win a championship per se, I don't think many championship teams of the 1960s would have refused him in a trade. The same, I believe, can be said of Karl Malone in the 1990s. Dave
oh there's no doubt that the offense is much more beautiful when there is more passing, more even distribution and what not. i was simply stating the offense is much better what Cat is here than when he isn't and that seems to have been proven quite conclusively. i really didn't feel steve and cat were out of line last night simply b/c it was so hard to get ming the ball. in an ideal world, i want the 10-15 shot range for all 3 also, and i wanna see the sac and phi games replayed over and over on offense, but if the situation dictates (which i feel it did last night) then francis and cuttino should take more of the offensive load for now and help us win on that night, which they did. i'm certainly not arguing we should see 6 shots a night for yao all the time, but when it's ain't working, it ain't working and adjustments should be made and i though cat and steve did what was necessary, if not pretty, to win.
The Rockets have too many shooters, and while they might shoot themselves into the playoffs, it's almost impossible to win championships that way, unless your name is Jordan. The Rockets have a lopsided team, with too many shooters and not enough bangers. YM represents their only viable inside threat, and for too many quarters he is reduced to the 5th option role. YM should be the first option, not the 5th. Pass the ball inside, and let him kick it out, if he's surrounded. That's how the Rockets won two championships btw. The Rockets rarely win againt great teams, and barely win against bad teams. This team has problems, and a victory against a very very bad Miami team, does not make those problems go away. Personally, I'm at the point now, where I'd try to bundle CM and MT for a point guard or small forward. Raven
I watched the second half last night and I saw several occasions where Franchise or at times Moochie would bring the ball down and I could see that huge 7'6" guy dwarfing Brian Grant on the high post calling for the ball but they would just ignore him and pass it around the perimeter or often times would waste time trying to break down their defender with an impressive array of fancy dribbling. If you can't break down your defender on the first couple of moves, you need to pass it out and try to set it up again instead of forcing a jump shot up. I was getting really pissed last night because I could see Memphis all over again. The ending was exactly the same. A few seconds on the clock and down by 3. Yao Ming takes the in bound near the three point line and screens off half of the court while Franchise brushes past and takes the pass for the game tying 3. Great shot Stevie.....bad game guards bc they are the ones who put the team in that position to begin with. After several years of NBA experience, you'd think that Mobley and Franchise would learn that you need to let the game come to you and not force the game.
In addition to the whole Miami trading situation, people are forgetting that they are playing their PF Grant at the center position this season, due to losing Mourning to sickness. It isnt conceivable that Miami would ever trade him away with their lack of size. He's already the one of the biggest and strongest players on the team at 6'9 (at best) and to trade him away for "cap reasons" would be plain stupid. The Rockets, nor many teams, have extra big men on the team. Most teams refuse to give away size anyway. Miami is in a real funk right now, and trading is not the answer...free agency is. Houston really has nothing terribly appealing to Miami, nor too many other teams given the financial reality of most teams, and besides...constant trade talk regarding players on the team the Rockets played the night before is pointless. How many big trades actually occur in the NBA within the course of a year? Not that many. Be happy with the team as it is, and hope for the best, because its probably not changing any time soon
