Chron: Francis would "love" to play the 2... On the Rockets

To appease my own curiosity, is Andre Miller a good on-ball defender? His steals figures would suggest so, but as we all know, Griffin gets a lot of blocks, but is not the best on-ball defender, although I've got give love out to Griffin, hang in there, you'll a stud soon enough.

question, second time: would we have Bird rights on 'Dre? I'm not a cap-ologist, but that would be a huge selling point if the Rockets could lock down deal-matching with Dre. Although, I'm sure if we have Bird rights, the day that free agency hits, UTAH calls Dre and offers the MAXIMUM, to hopefully land him, but to nonetheless stick it to the Rockets. In the end, that may be a sticking point...

 

Francis as a two wouldn't change anything. He would still handle the ball the same amount of time. You know, that's how you get turnovers...handling the ball.

Like if we said, "move Yao Ming to the 4, and start Cato at the 5". Would that change Yao's role? No.

People are too concerned with prototypes. Just put your best players on the court. Let them figure it out on their own. If people want the offense run through Ming, why do you care if Francis is a 1 or a 2? Huh? Why does it matter? Could you imagine if we said, "move Mad Max to the one, and put Kenny at the two"? Would that change anything? Hell no, you still throw it into Hakeem. Francis at the one or two is a non-issue.

 

land_sharks,
Miller will be restricted free agent at the end of the season, meaning that we could match any offer that a team gives him. And I really don't see the Jazz giving Miller the max next year.

 

The Freak,

I disagree with you. The problems that the Rockets have IMHO is that there is little ball movement. The two players who have the ball most of the time, do not operate as point guards (somewhat of a pass-first mentality). I concur that calling Francis a one or a two, or Mobley the same for that matter, doesn't change the fact that they are COMBO guards and not true point guards.

Secondly, Ming is not ready to take the workload that Hakeem took on during the championship run. He's great and all, but the offense is designed to be a motion offense, thus better utilizing Ming's skills. His skill set could stretch him farther from the basket than Hakeem.

This team is too talented to be a dribble down court and pass to ming, backing it in, backing it in, triple team, kick it out. Also, there is now a ZONE to worry about that would have likely stifled the ISO ran through Hakeem, if he indeed was stopable during those years.

All in all, we need a point guard, who's intent from the tipoff is to get the other players involved...Posey cutting, Griffin down low, etc. etc. Too many times all but two players are frozen out of the play due to dribble, dribble, dribble.

 

True. Francis forgets that he's a PG, not a SG with a "almost as high turnovers as Kobe" percentage.

 

Francis overdominates the ball as the point guard. It kills the offensive flow when he dribbles for 15 seconds and makes a shot off isos. For every 2 points that SF scores off isos, their value must be diminished as those points comes at the sacrifice of involving teammates. Move him to the 2 will force him to try to score more within the flow. That's ultimately better not only for the team but also for SF. Francis will find out that he has a easier time to score and prolong his career with less driving into three defenders as the last resort to score.Francis will love to play with a good pg that knows how to set him up. As for the defense, I don't think the one inch of height Mobley has over Francis compenstates the benefit of Francis playing his natural position. In one word, yes.

 

edit.

 

Interesting development. Hopefully a fruitful for the ultimate betterment of our beloved team.

 

I understand what you are saying, I just do not agree with you. This group, when they play togather have beaten Portland, Lakers, Spurs, Phil, Sac, Ind, and Minn. Now to say we need to make a change means to me we are saying that we have lost faith in the players we have to play togather on a regular basis.

That may be true, or not, I hate to give up so easily and start over with the chemistry and players learning new players.

To me if we are going to start trading and bringing all new players we need to go ahead and except rebuilding all over and get rid of anyone that might be a problem and build around Ming and then be another 2-3 years away from making the play-offs.

My first choice would be to get the players we have to accept the passing offense and keep the group we have.

 

I'm getting Jazzed about the trade deadline. (I hope we screw them, just for fun). I think something good is going to happen.

However ... my take on the move Steve to the 2 thing is that's not important in the right set. Was Ron Harper a great point guard? I'll just answer - NO. He was big and strong and a good defender and deferred to the plan. Fisher is cut the same way, somewhat diminished. MJ never had a good point guard. " True point" skillz are only special as realized if the recipients of those brilliant passes are otherwise just "ok" or above average playas...like Jason Kidd's teammates, or Isiah's back in the day. The point is more and more irrelevant. Big big big players who can move the ball up and over the opponent have brought the point 2 and point foward into focus. And WE have Yao Ming. Steve is a great scorer and someone else SHOULD deliver him the ball, but it doesn't have to be a Jason Kidd to set that stud up. Rather, a good big defender is perfectly adequate if Ming has backing and a triangle of options from the front and back. You don't even have to run the tri to see the evolution in the game. We just need that third guy to be big, strong and smart.

 

Francis seems to acknowledge that he is finding the 1 position to be harder than he thought it would be. By saying he would love to move to the 2 it's quite obvious that the only way that he and Mobley could co-exist is if the Cat came off the bench. It's going to be hard to get a better point guard unless Mobley is traded along with either Griffin or Cato.
I would like to see Snow on the team but not at the expense of moving Mobley for him.As much as I admire Cato's improvement and our need for helping Yao,I would rather like to see him in a potential trade to Philly for Snow.
However I feel that it will be hard for Mobley to play for only a few minutes off the bench as a SG but if Francis also can be a reserve point along with a starting 2 then Mobley still might have a role with the team but even that will be hard.
I think that Mobley's days are limited with the Rockets and we should try to get a solid point guard for him as it seems that Francis can't get along with him any longer.

 

when the going gets tough doing what you said you wanted originally, the flakey get going.

"Oh, it's not my fault, just move me to the two, so I won't get blamed. But, I still get to control the ball like Kobe and Iverson, right?"

 

Heypee,

Do you think Fracis will hold on to the ball just as long if he's moved to the 2?

We have to consider the fact that he will be handling it less anyway with Yao probably controlling a larger chink of the offense next year.

 

Sane,

I think it depends on who the point guard is. If it's a star or semi-star (e.g. Miller), Francis will be handling the ball less. If it's just a role player (e.g. Snow), I am pretty sure he will be like Iverson or Kobe, as HP points out.

That's why I believe if you want to get the ball out of Francis' hand, you've got to get a star point guard. Players like Snow just won't cut it.

 

The Paper Clips have coveted Cat before (and why not? good contract, Odom's buddy).

I wouldn't be surprised if Cat is trade bait for Dre Miller. Dre's unhappy there. And I'll tell you what, he'd likely go to Utah in the off-season. So the Clips would lose him for nothing.

I think they might do this, especially if they, say, do something like trade Maggette for Crawford (Maggette has Chicago ties, the Bulls need to relieve the PG problem, etc etc).

And Dre is a tall PG (6'4") and a decent defender, so maybe he could guard the 2's and Francis could guard the points.

P.S. Dre is a very good point guard. But the contract distractions of all the players, the death of Dre's stepdad, the presence of Lamar point-forward Odom, maybe even the distractions of playing in his hometown....

Come what may, Dre would be a good addition, and Cat (although I like the guy), would be a nice subtraction.

P.P.S. Cat and Boki is too high a price, though. Cat and a second round pick is OK. Because Cat on that team might let them keep Lamar.

 

Miller is wanted by a lot of teams and if the Rockets really want him they probably will have to give up a lot for him.That's why I thought it might be easier to get Snow although he is not as good as Miller and is better suited as a backup point guard even though he is a better passer than Francis.
Point guards like centers are prized commodities and I just don't think we can really get a guy like Miller.

 

Andre Miller is not 6'4... If anyone is going to guard the two, it will be Francis, just because he has a few inches on Miller.

I don't get what the fascination with Andre Miller is...His first three years he put up very good numbers on very bad teams. This year he has put up decent numbers on a bad team that should be a very good team. He even coughs the ball up 3 times a game(Not as bad as Francis, but, still, two wrongs don't make a right).

And, like HP has said time and time again, it doesn't matter what position Steve is supposed to be playing or who he is playing alongside...He is going to handle the ball.

I am surprised and dismayed that Steve Francis said this.

 

Almost makes you wonder if somethings up...

 

The most disturbing aspect of all of this is bad chemistry between Francis and Mobley which will be very harmful to our chances of making it into the playoffs and for the future of our team.

 

One of two guys will be controlling the offense on this team. Ming or Steve. As such, there is no reason to move Steve to the two and bring in a point guard. If Steve is running the offense, then he is the real PG, no matter what he is labeled. If Ming is running the show, you don't need a point guard, you need a shooter/slasher, like Mobley. The only way we need a point guard is if we trade Francis. If you move Francis to upgrade the PF position, and you don't want the post to initiate the offense, then you need to bring in a point guard to run the show. While that could be a viable option, there is absolutely no reason to move Steve to the shooting guard spot. It just doesn't accomplish anything, except maybe us getting lit up by 2's as badly as we now get lit up by 1's.