"The Franchise" player should be putting up numbers and playing to his ability no matter the amount of time he spends in the game. Be it 20 minutes or 40. IMO if you want to slack off, even if we clinched, sit on the bench to do it.
OK... Stoudamire got him once, fine. That was a Cuttino Mobley game, anyway Francis had the better game and the Rockets won... That was a Yao game... Lue did score 20+ in the other game, you should of used that one instead of this mediocre game, but Francis scored 30+ in the other one. Oh well the Rockets won both... Yuck! Don't remind me of that game, those dudes killed us... Oh well, Rockets won the game and I think Francis blocked a JMac shot that could of tied it... Aww, come on! So now a guy gets his average as a starter, and that's supposed to show Francis is a bad defender? You're trying to hard. In that game we got killed by Stoudamire, Marion, and Johnson A LOT more than that dude, especially in the clutch! Come on guy, besides that being a meaningless game, and Francis being hurt, Francis had 2 assists and that was still more than Arroyo, that game was actually BELOW average for Arroyo. Now THAT was his worse game of the season, and quite possibly the worse game for the Rockets as well, too bad Arroyo did most of his damage against Mark Jackson anyway. Besides the Stoudamire game those were pretty much average games from those dudes, THAT'S supposed to prove that Francis is a bad defender? Again, the only games that show Francis could be a bad defender is the games Cassell, Bibby, Nash, and Davis had against the Rockets, besides those dudes nobody did anything too special.
Armstrong, and Miller are known to be fine defenders as well, Ostertag isn't a bad defender when he wants to be and last season he was. Bobby Sura? Wow! Didn't notice he got one, I dunno, maybe he was the best defender on the Hawks and someone gave him a sympathy vote for trying hard on a sorry squad??
Insert anything you want in there if it makes you happy, it doesn't have to be politics...I give up if you don't understand what I'm trying to say.
That's not possible, I really have no idea what you were trying to say, because I have no idea if Dubya is doing a good job or not, personally I don't care for politics. Some dudes make movies trying their best to make him look bad, and some dudes spend hours on the net trying to make said movie maker look bad, neither of them seem to be making much ground either way. So in the end it's going to be a matter of opinion, if 6 or 7 think he belonged in the Hall of Fame of Presidents so be it, 2 coaches thought Francis was a top 4 defensive guard.
Darrell Armstrong was a pretty good defender back when he still had legs. Nowdays, he's below average. Very few people ever accused Andre Miller of being a good defender. Are you seriously saying that anybody in their right mind would have voted for Ostertag over Ben Wallance and Theo Ratliff? You might be right about the sympathy vote for Sura. That would be similar to somebody voting for a poor defender just because,after four years, he finally put out some effort on the defensive end.
so in this thread i've now seen Sane try to rationalize away the offensive difference between francis and lue, pasox2 try to rationalize away the defensive difference between cato and howard, and snowmt01 call cato our weak link at times, though he may have been the most important defender on the team. i've also seen someone say cuttino didn't really play D before last year, that cato got better last year and not before then, and that as long as yao is in the middle it'll all be ok. we all saw what happened when cato went out last year, right? about a 12 point jump in our opponents average. don't discount cato's importance. with jvg as our coach, i expect the D will be good. whether that's because it actually is that good or because we sacrifice offensive production until it is good, i don't know. hopefully, it's the former because knowing jvg's defensive ego and his disdain for offense, i'm afraid of it being the latter. but who knows, maybe it'll all work out great, better D and better O, but i'm not counting on it.
Well, I still see Armstrong and Miller as pretty good defenders, not good enough to get on a team, but a vote here and there doesn't surprise me. Not the 1st time either of those guys get some love from the voters either... Did Ostertag make a team over those 2? No, again he played good enough defense that 1 vote shouldn't surprise anyone. I don't think it was his 1st time either... What's wrong with some of these guys getting some respect? It's not like they made a team over more deserving players, a vote here and there shouldn't offend anyone, none of them were undeserving of a couple of votes. Well, since Francis came to Maryland with a reputation of being a great defensive PG, left Maryland with the very same reputation, AND has gotten a couple of votes before, this was obviously not the first time he put some effort into defense.
Hey, if all it takes to be a good defender is to get a vote or two for the All-Defensive team, then we're in good shape. Both Yao and Juwan Howard have received votes and McGrady has received a bunch of votes for the all-defensive team. So, we should be a great defensive team, no worries. We also got rid of Mobley that had no votes. If Ostertag got a single vote, then that means that one of the voters voted for him over either Wallace or Ratliff. That should surprise everyone.
No that's not all it takes, but it doesn't hurt an argument that they are good defenders either. Who ever gave that vote to Ostertag knew he wasn't going to win anything anyway, it's not like the guy gave it to him as a joke, the Jazz wouldn't of over achieved like they did without Ostertag. Maybe he's a fan of the +/- rating, or that formula that had him ranked in front of Yao?
