[ch 2 video] Francis interview: "I definately didn't come here not to play at all."

francis is not officially out of rotation. we're all assuming. AND. like many posters said, rafer did very well in last year preaseason. that's all i'm going to say.

 

Dude. No you dont.

Supposedly you predicted Yao will flop in the playoffs. He averaged 25-10.

YOU = THE FAILED on that one.

In your mini prediction thread, you made three predictions. You failed miserably at the Yao prediction, and guessing the Rox would lose against the Jazz considering their 10 year run and having RAFER ALSTON at the point is saying much.

The Jazz whopped our asses last year, were we to think the Playoffs would be any different then the first game of the year when Alston was getting killed by Deron?

You dont know ****. Your claiming victory over the SF issue, but Alston will such his way into the bench. It wont take long. Then, you'll be wrong on most of your "predictions".


You don't know crap man.


Oh btw. Tell me, how Rafer has looked going against mostly regulars his last two outings? LOL. Pretty crappy again.

 

I think the team is a lot closer to them, just by adding James and Scola, and once Francis gets comfy they will be even closer.

Remove the rebounding label in there, which we don't need from our PG and you have tons of options that can do the same thing. James & Brooks to name 2.

A. Rafer runs the offense better than Steve that is why he is playing early this year, he is also more familiar with the players, give Steve some time.

B. Who cares about rebounding from the PG position, I would rather the PG release and get ready for the outlet pass.

C. Agreed

D. Agreed

E. Not that much difference here, especially if you inlcude James.

F. Steve is the worst of all the guards and defense, always has been, he peaks FAR too often..

Not sure what you mean here, Steve is a turnover machine, always has been. His Asst/Turnover ratio has been mediocre at best.

I don't disagree with you here, hopefully they are showcasing him for a trade, but when he is benched, I think Mike James starts.

Glad that JVG is gone now so that we can beat them...



DD

 

What are you talking about, the "best case scenario" would be that Francis got in the rotation and played well.

 

The best way to tell if Stevie has really matured is to see how he continually reacts to this situation. If he is truly about winning now, then he'll use his current lack of playing time as motivation, because there is no better contender out there for him right now that would have a place for him.

He'll get his time though..it just seems inevitable that Rafer will come back down to earth. And once his liability on offense starts to become apparent, I'd imagine RA will move him down on the depth chart and Stevie and James up it.

 

Yao shot 44%, got stuffed by okur on numerous occasions, and couldnt carry us past the first round. that's failing for a supposedly "dominant" center that noone can compare with.

I don't think you get it. It doesnt matter if Rafer shoots 0-10 for 3 straight games, he'll still be our starting PG because his passing and decision making far outweigh that of James and Francis. However, if Adelman does decide to sit Rafer, then James will replace him just like that. James does everything Francis does except ten times better. Having Francis while we have a better version of him in James is redundant.

 

we all know rafer's shortcomings

basically what I see from this board is a whole lot of nothing. WHO CARES what we think about rafer or steve or mike james. Adelman is the coach, and so far, he has not liked what HE has seen from Steve.

The comments that rafer will just be rafer is redundant and obvious.

so far what has been coming out of camp is that steve is out of shape, and he is having a hard time fitting in with the offense. whether or not anyone agrees with that or not is really just an opinion based on a whole lot of nothing since practices aren't open to the public, and even if they were, people wouldn't know much about what they see, except for the obvious facts as shoot the ball, play some defense. what steve has done in the past has zero to do with this season.

so to even bring in rafer's name in comparison to steve is pointless. steve playing bad has absolutely no bearing on what kind of a player rafer is.

 

who said rafer ever left earth?

 

Really? Tmac has single handedly taken his team to the playoffs many times. Sheed? Wasn't he on a Portland team that went to the playoffs some 15 straight seasons? If both of them are losers, what does that make SF?

 

all these people who says rafer played his way in, what game has rafer played well in. rafer plays well in the system, but he's still shooting poorly and not much assists.

this video isn't really all that contreversial, he came here to play, of course.

 

Just that of the guards the team has, he's, thus far, proven to be the most effective in running the 1st team....but as his shortcomings start reveal themselves more and more, he's probably gonna sink back into the rotation and James and Francis will get more time.

You can't deny that a lot of people were praising him in the first few games of the preseason when his shots were falling.

 

If you're comparing one on one, Francis is probably the much superior talent to Rafer.

If you think putting Francis at the helm on this team will win more games then putting Rafer at the helm, you need to revise your arguement, get over your man-crush for Francis and drop your bias for Rafer.

Rafer and Mike James will share the PG minutes with each one having their superior strengths and weaknesses, Rafer (shooting), James (Lacks Rafer's pace control and court vision). However, both are better options then Francis who is an inferior defender to both (Rafer's defense is so underrated by so many its unbelievable), cannot run the fast break, who cannot run a team with 1/10 of the ability Rafer can, and is an inferior option for an instant offensive spart when you have James. The only reason I would see him being used is for penetration and getting other teams into foul trouble. On a offensive system like Adelman's which provides so many scoring opportunities for so many diffferent players, I don't know if Francis would be used for any substantial minutes. Yes it's gonna be a blow to his pride and to us old fans that really missed the Stevie from before, but we must understand the Rockets have upgraded, moved on, and no longer need Stevie's one-on-one skills to bail us out of trouble.

And seriously, showcasing our best PG option to be traded? That's hilarious. I think some if you has such a strong bias against Rafer that your actually hoping he ****s up and gets demoted, well okay if you want the Rockets to win less games just to see your little bias pay off, keep hoping. As a Rocket fan you should support him, it's a definate that his going to have atrocious shooting nights, and we will see impatient and disgruntled fans diss him and blame him once again. If the only stats/feature your ever gonna pay attention to is Rafer's short comings on the FG% which was substantially urged lower by many factors last year, you might aswell dump your cute and caring girlfriend just because she has certain short comings, say big ears, whatever.

Goodluck for Francis (I am a Stevie fan aswell, but I also see things scientifically and logically), I hope he will be of some use to the Rockets in the future, as if I wished he cracks the major rotation it means Im praying for the one of the mainstream rotational players to have an injury or to play super bad, which I will never want to, I want the Rockets to have the best team this year, not a team full of your man-crushes.

_ Aelyia

 

Steve basically is still the same me firts TEAM second guy. He prematurely questiones his lack of playing time and it's only the regular season and then he goes off on some vague well we may have to work something out because I took less money mess.



What does less money have to do with TEAM first and winning. Less money sounds personal as well as him questioning his lack of playing time when he hasn't realisticlly played well and it it's up to the coach to decide who is performing well and earning the minutes to play.



Steve is all on I and ME and the rockets haven't even played 1 real game that counts in the books.Steve should have soem common sense and realise that his time will come because rafer can't play up to the level of the big time competition and rick will most defintely use the next player availbale who can meet the level of the competition. Steve needs to grow up and really start being mature about his craft,he will get the playing time if he just stays with it and accepts the criticism that he isn't playing well and maybe out of shape and just works at getting better and when his time comes he will contribute.



But if he keeps with the negative attitude and doesn't see that he has room for improvement mentally and physically he will write himself off again and be miserable playing for another team.

 

Preseason isn't the only place the coach sees how the players do. There is alot of practice during the preseason, and if SF cant even make the rotation he must be pulling a VSPAN type of training camp and preseason. Like everyone says he can't beat out Rafer or Head, two guards everyone thinks Francis is vastly superior then. If both of them come into camp in shape and knowing the offense well, what does that say about Francis? Everyone here keeps saying that he has matured and has become more Professional, but he came into camp out of shape and not knowing the offense at all, despite being on a team that is supposedly to contend for a ring. Hows that for professional and mature? SF was signed in July so he has had quite a bit of time to try to learn the offense, so for a PG to not know how to run his teams offense is quite pathetic.

It would be nice if Francis could work his way into the rotation and be our 6th man of the year, but he hasn't shown me anything in the last 4 or 5 years. Everyone says this is going to motivate SF to work harder and work his way into the rotation, but when he was in NY being out of the rotation motivated him to exaggerate a knee injury, hoping that NY would buy him out. He could have matured since being traded for the 3rd time, or being bought out without a team even having a look at him, but he hasn't shown that he has matured at any point in his career.

 

if Adelman doesn't plan on using francis, than they should buy him out so he can play ball. I enjoy watching francis play and it sucks to hear this. I would rather see francis goto boston and play for them, at least he will get decent minutes there.

 

Who cares what you think about? It's about the benefit of the team, not Francis. As long as we win, I don't care how many minutes Francis gets, even zero minute.

 

the fact that james and francis was signed this offseason by the rockets ensured that none of us would see him play the same role as he did last year.

you think that rafer shouldn't deserve a spot on this team. the coaches beg to differ. whatever any of us thinks about rafer and his game, the coaches feel at this moment he deserves playing time. and unless there is something that drastically happens, he will continue to stay in his role.

 

neither is reed or novak or landry. i haven't heard a word about them not being in the rotation from the rockets.

so is it a mental delusion that adelman is seriously considering rafer to play? if so, FIRE ADELMAN!

 

Exactly, I dont expect rafer to play as poorly as he did last season. In affect he was our 3rd scoring option last year which made him take a lot more shots then he should have had. Hopefully rafer can hover around 40% FG, just to keep defenses honest. He wont be shooting us out of games like he did last year, If he has a bad night, which is bound to happen, in comes Mike James, and if he does poorly, then comes in Luther. Not to mention we have both Bonzi and Scola to score points. The only thing francis brings in is scoring ability that makes the offense stagnant. It seems RA rather have points scored within the system, rather then give SF free reign to dominate the ball.

 

You are definitely entitled to your opinion on Francis, but just know that the reasons you stated aren't coming from anything that anyone has witnessed and are in fact to what Francis, Adleman, T-Mac, and others on the team have said about him.

Steve hasn't complained or done anything to hurt the team chemistry, or disrupt the team according to Tracy Mac's own interview. Steve himself has said that he is willing to take a backseat and play fewer minutes, and even hoped that by him showing that he's willing to do that, other players on the team will willingly do the same because winning is what is important.

So it isn't true by anything that I've seen about Francis that he has a me first attitude this year. In fact everything seems to be to the contrary.

However reporters asked him if he wanted to play and he said said yes he did. That isn't a bad thing.