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

It may not be that bad. Last time a Rockets player complained about playing time and we got Luis Scola from Spurs. Maybe this time we can get Manu?

 

Huge IF

 

Hey Francis:

 

if francis gets a chance to play he'll become sixth man of the year....according to my nba 2k8

 

he can't be the 6th man if he's the 10th guy off the bench

 

Wow, guess Rick Adelman has some Pat Riley in him. If Francis doesn't play and is indeed a step slower and out of shape, well shame on Stevie. With a team loaded to the top with guards like ours, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the competition is going to be fierce. You better show up to play and that means game shape.

Pat Riley benched Antoine Walker and James Posey last year for being fat. I mean..c'mon. Posey is like crazy athletic and Walker is a good player too. It's like when Bob Knight cut Charles Barkley off the USA Olympic basketball team. He said it was really tough be when you have all these great players competing for a spot on a select team, you have to have some kinda selection criteria. Barkley played well enough to be a player on that Olympic team but body fat percentagewise, not good enough with all the other players that Knight could draw from. So Big Fat Sir Charles was cut.

This whole situation sort of rings familiar with the Pat Riley and Bob Knight school of coaching. Francis shows up fat and not ready to compete with the other guards, he rides the pine. If Francis gets his ass in shape and starts to work hard, he can play his way into the rotation. At some point James is going to stink it up out there and Alston will go 1-9 shooting. Francis will get his time eventually. I just hope he's smart enough to stay because he can see the big picture. I am sure that Adelman will have SF3 in his office telling him why he's not playing. SF3 will figure it out and hit the weights hard and lay off the jelly donuts. When he gets it, he won't be riding the pine anymore

 

The crazy thing was that Posey and even Walker were only a small percentage off....but Riley takes a hard line. But his tough disciplinarian style repels some free agents. Mo Williams hinted that he didn't sign with Miami because of what was going on there.

I don't think beating out Rafeer (who is one of the worst shooters from 2 point range, also not very accurate from 3) and James (who's not exactly a pass first guard) is an insurmountable obstacle. It's not like he's behind Steve Nash and Jason Kidd. But, this is his wakeup call. If he doesn't answer the bell this time, it's going to seriously damage his career.

 

Dead on. He said something that was on his mind and people want to crucify him for it. He didn't come here to not play at all, but circumstances (primarily his own fault) have prevented it.

Adelman is right to bench his ass until he gets it together if he gets it together. Voicing that you want to play won't get it done, you have to prove that you can play and like I said earlier, he's going to have a chance if he wants it. He just has to be ready to take advantage of it. To quote T-Mac "It's on him"

 

You say that as if that should be a reason for him to play here...

Steve averaged alot of assists during the seasons that he played 40+ minutes AND dominated the ball for the majority of every possesion. Last year was the only year Rafer has played 40 minutes a game and he has never dominated the ball in his career. Most importantly it isn't assist totals, but assist to turn over ratios that you need to look at and Rafer's are better.

Funny you should mention that considering James shot ONE percent higher than Alston last year, but most of you consider James a huge upgrade on outside shooting. Rafer is unquestionably a worse scorer than James or Francis. It's just we don't need a ball dominating PG in the starting line up, and Francis's effectiveness goes WAY down when he isn't dominating the ball. If the offense is going to call for the PG to shoot 15+ times a game on a regular basis then Rafer is not the man for the job. If Rafer gets 6-10 shots on average with most of them being wide open 3 pointers then the shooting % difference between all 3 guys is not nearly as huge as some of you make it out to be.

Steve has a better career average because of 2 things; 1) he plays reaching defense gambling all the time, meaning he attempts more steals rather than staying in front of his man and 2) his career minutes per game are higher.

Van Gundy considered Rafer one of the best team defenders on the Rockets last year. This coming from a coach who values defense over every thing. If you listened to him last year he pointed out that it was our poor pick and roll defense by our big men that was the primary cause for most of the big scorig games by opposing PG's. It's not like they ran ISO's on Rafer on a regular basis. Otherwise when a 20+ PPG avg PG like Iverson scores 20+ points that is what they do against everyone.

If Rafer's job was as easy as you make it sound you would think Luther Head or SOME BODY else could have filled the role last year. Unfortunately when Rafer went out the offense went from bad to worse. Steve makes poor decisions on a regular basis. He draws charges on a regular basis. If we want a PG to dominate the ball for the majority of the shot clock then Francis IS a better option. Unfortunately when Steve is not dominating the ball he often looks lost and since he isn't an improvement defensively or at spot up 3 pointers he is relagated to out of the rotation.

They were our weakest positions partially because we had no depth at either spot, and now we do. There is no question that Rafer's minutes need to be cut back to 20-30 minutes a game and he should never be on the court with a line up that requires him to be higher than the 4th scoring option. In contrast either steve or james can be thrown out with the second unit as the 1st scoring option and do much better than Rafer ever would. It's just not something we particularly need from the starting PG as long as the starting line up is healthy. If you disagree then please explain why both the last coach and the current coach are starting Rafer if he is horrible defensively, horrible shooting and all he does is hand the ball to Tmac to keep his turnovers low?

 

lmao.

poor steve.

i predict he will get moved soon after dec 15. we won't even get much in return. at 30 years old he's not worth a future pick. he's not worth a good player since he can't earn any minutes.

i hope he nets us a 3rd string center to balance the roster.

 

I don't really understand this. Unless we end up being short on depth elsewhere which could happen if there is an injury to our frountcourt. Otherwise, we will have a solid NBA player(yes, he is probably the best out of rotation player in the NBA) on our team in case of injury or under performance by one of our guards. I think he will behave himself as much as possible and we will definitely need him at some point in the season.

 

I was at the Lakers vs Rockets game last night at the Staple Center. I am Rockets fan who moved to LA 12 years ago, and still continue to follow the Rockets.

I was kind of disappointed to see Steve Francis' reaction and body language last night. I was sitting right behind their bench and I noticed that during the game he was not sitting with his teammates, he was laying on the floor away from the rest of the team. During each time out, the whole team would come together and listen to what Adelman was saying or to what other team members were discussing. But Steve would stay away and just walk around looking around the Staple Center or talking to other people.

I feel he is a professional and should act like one. He should show Adelman and coaching staff he is willing to prove to them he belongs in the court by being the first one at the practices, the last one to leave, by being right in the middle of the group of players when talking between time outs, by paying attention to what Adelman is saying during time outs so he can better understand what Adelman wants and see how he can use his abilities to help the team. His body language is saying the opposite: he does not care and he is cryinig about it rather than show with his actions he belongs.

 

Love Steve, broke out his jersey the day he signed back with us.

That said, he's apparently come in expecting to be a de facto starter, probably being told that Rafer was going to be traded pre-training camp.

Either way, it doesn't look like he tried hard to win the job, adjust his game to the motion system, or even come in playing shape. Preseason told the tale - he looked poor, he looked lost, and he looked like the 3rd or 4th best PG on the roster.

Kudos to Adelman for having the stones to not play the (PR-wise) big prize of the offseason if he didn't warrant the PT. Kudos for Adelman making it clear that Steve could play his way into the rotation (nothing set in stone).

Thumbs down to Steve going public with a pissy attitude after a single DNP. He needed to say "That DNP hurt like a stabbing, and I'm going to bust my ass to make sure it never happens again." Instead, he whines like he somehow got done wrong.

Earn it

Evan

 

Sorry for the time frame and also from a post game difference. I don't think Van Gundy was necessarily a Rafer lover, but who is your options when you have V-ban and Jail Lukas's son playing behind you and your only real option is to make Luther and T-Mac your back-up. JVG actually wanted Mike James back last year, he even went to his house to get him to sign with Houston instead of Minnesota, they just wouldn't do the trade kicker which in hindsight would have saved them some money since they paid it to get him.


Back to the topic, coach A said that he had expected Steve to start but he didn't come to training camp in shape and ready to play, so he gets to sit his but on the bench and earn a spot in the rotation. I have no doubt that if he works his but off that he will be our starter by the time the season ends, but as some have repeatedly said that's a big IF. Don't get me wrong, I'm not that big on Steve or Mike James, but it's obvious that during games they play off of Rafer forcing him to create offensive that he doesn't have the ability to do. His low turnovers are a result of this, anyone can throw to Yao in the post when you have one-on-one coverage or to T-Mac who is 5 feet from you, his turnovers come when he tries to pass into stronger coverage, hence people like Koby Bryant make the steal. The one great strength that Rafer has above anyone else on the team is ball-handling, I don't recall Rafer being stripped very often, but that's it.

Defensively, Rafer is no better than Steve. I assure you if Van Gundy had Steve and Rafer, Steve would get the nod at point guard. Team defensive is a very subjective term. If you think that Rafer trying to make a defender go toward the baseline into double coverage is better than Steve making the defender do the same thing then by all means Rafer is your man. Mike James on the other hand has the lateral movement to stay in front of his man.

Three point percentage can't be argued in the context you want it to be. Steve is 1% worse than Rafer in career three point shooting, but he's also not a three point shooter, he's a penetrator. On the other hand Rafer is a three point shooter who only has a 1% better average against someone who doesn't look to shoot three's. Mike James is streaky, if he gets on a roll, he doesn't miss, if he isn't on a roll, he bricks, hence his 3% accuracy. To me this argument should be in overall FG% of which Rafer is the worst. If Rafer had Steve or Mike James FG%, I would shout for Rafer over everyone else in a heart beat, but he doesn't. He's a liability on offense on an offensive team.

Bottom line is that I don't like any of our point gaurds and I don't hate any of them. I just see Rafer's weaknesses as more hurtful to the team than I do Mike James and Steve.

Rafer - great ball-handler, good finisher on fast breaks, not great, a bad shooter. Teams will stay off of him and double team higher scoring threats causing him to take ill-advised shots. Not great off the ball movement, he's too used to dumping it and camping out at the three point line.

MJ- great finisher on fast breaks, good shooter, but streaky, ball-hog, decent ball-handler, not great penetration in flow of offensive. Teams can't stay off of him because he looks to shoot, leaving Yao and T-Mac in one to one coverage, but he might or might not pass to them. Does better with off the ball movement when he actually gives up the ball.

Steve- great penetrator, great finisher on fast breaks, average shooter, average ball-handler, ball-hog (but if you watch games of New York or Orlando not as bad as Mike James). Teams can't stay off of him because he can penetrate to the basket and draw defenders, which opens things up for T-Mac and Yao, but like Mike James he may or may not pass to them. A better initiator of the offense than playing off the ball, but that's all he's ever done or been asked to do.

None of our point guards have an all around game, so you pick your poison.

 

LOL if Adelman, a player's coach, wouldn't even go with Francis over Rafer, what makes you think Van Gundy, a strict system oriented coach, would put Francis over Rafer? I gaurantee you Van Gundy would have the same PG rotation as Adelman has now.

 

I don't think so, Van Gundy had no choice but to use Rafer. His options were JLIII, and V-Span for back up point guards. He wanted to trade for Mike James during the season and went to his house the summer before just to get him to sign with Houston. When there was talk of New York buying out Steve's contract, they wanted him here. I guarantee you Van Gundy would have played him over Rafer in a heart beat.

 

I believe Steve will eventually become a contributor to the team. He's still a great player, but the truth is that he's been on bad teams the last couple seasons. His conditioning is sub par compared to the rest of the team, but it is my belief that he is one of the most talented players on the team.

 

Wrong, in the JVG interview yesterday he said starting Rafer was a no-brainer, so unless you interpret that a different way, he would have done the same. You actually think JVG would play some who obviously didn't put in the same amount of work as his competition?

 

lol .....just LOL

 

Is it no-brainer or no-brain?