I question Jack Ramsey's credibility these days since he said Amare has won his ROY vote hands down way back in December of 2002. He has also recently made some other statements that make you stratch your head. Maybe his age is finally catching up with the Doc.
I don't get the infatuation with Bibby. Don't get me wrong, he's a nice PG... but he did nothing on Vancouver except put up merely decent #'s. At Sacramento... he's probably the 3rd or 4th most important player (below Webber and Peja, about on par with Divac). He's not that much better than Turkoglu. Yet he's suddenly on the Olympic team and mentioned in the same breath with superstars? I don't get it.
I think Bibby deserves to be near the top. When the Kings played the Nets, Bibby was on fire and they won both of those games pretty easily. He outdueled Kidd. He's a team player but when it's time to step it up, he'll do just that. Clutch! I think he's more underrated because fans think the only reason he's doing good is because he's on a good team. Well how bout Nash? Kidd? most good pg's have a couple good teammates to make them look good.
haven - Be serious. Do you think the Kings would trade Bibby even up for Francis? I don't. A S1P2 point guard would be a disaster on the Kings. Gawd, I hate to sound like I'm bashing Steve, but beyond his athleticism and his 1on1 moves...what has he proven? If you were building a team from scratch, wouldn't some of what Bibby does be appealing? Plus he was cool as can be in last years playoffs. If Steve gets the Rox to the playoffs and beyond, the PG ratings will improve but for now it's a matter of objectivity and Steve's track record is non-existent. Bibby on the other hand is a key component on one of the best teams in the NBA.
You can dislike Bibby but saying that he did nothing in Vancouver except putting up numbers is unfair because the same can be said about our very own Steve Francis. I think a pure pass 1st shoot 2nd PG needs "supporting cast" more than players on other positions and Bibby didn't have any on that Vancouver team.
Gater: For Sacramento? hell no. They'd be insane to take Francis with the fire power they have on that team. Starting a team from scratch... I dunno. I'd probably rather have Francis, since he's more useful BY HIMSELF. And I haven't seen any evidence of Bibby making anybody else better. He just runs an offense efficiently (which Steve has real problems with). That's the difference between guys like Bibby, and guys like Kidd, Stockton, or even Payton. The latter type will make roleplayers into stars (See Richard Jefferson, Bryon Russell). Bibby will avoid turnovers and make sure the offense goes smoothly. It's valuable... just not at the same level.
Yes, but Sacramento fell into his friggin' lap! I don't see how he's such a winner or a playmaker, the Grizz aren't any worse since he left. True, he's helped out the Kings more than JWill did, and he's undoubtably the better player, but the great success that team has had has little to do with Bibby! He's the single most overrated player in the league. I guess it's just another reason for me to hate the Kings. I used to like him until last year's playoffs.
man.....without Bibby the Kings would of lost to the Jazz and Mavs last years playoffs. He put the Kings in a great position to win against the Lakers also but Doug christie and "unclutch" peja miss those 3's to win the game.
bibby is MASSIVELY overrated. there is no question. his playoff performance was very nice, i loved it, it almost help beat the lakers. that being said, it followed a whopping 13 pt/5 apg regular season, and some people say he was more important to the kings than webber in the playoffs (especially the lakers series). laughable. the webber who scored more, shot better, rebounded better, and get this, assisted better (by 2 apg in the lakers series). which brings me to my next point. why does he get so much credit for this whole "pure pg" crap and at the same time get so much credit for the playoffs when his clutch playoff performance was achieved my more scoring and FEWER assists. fewer than even the 5 (1 less that steve right now) he avg'd for the season. steve is criticized for not being a pure pg and being S1P2 yet mike bibby puts up a whopping 4.3 apg against the lakers and he's the purest point guard ever. someone please explain. oh and he shot a scintillating 44.5% that series, somebody cool that man off.
I think Ramsey's right on the money. If you *watched* the playoff series last year, his teammates choked in the clutch and looked tentative in lots of close situations so Bibby was the only guy who actually had confidence to just shoot. Now if Francis and Mobley ever actually jack a shot in a playoff series we'll see how they perform... but I think at the current rate they'll have one good game, one bad game, never able to be consistent, sort of like the last four or five years they've had.
Webber basically got his avg, which isn't exactly taking it to another level. If you watched those games, you would have seen that when the team needed a big basket, it was Bibby , not webber. Explain how your franchise player in webber scores 16pts through 2 qts and wind up with 20. With an injured Peja and a non ft making Webber, Bibby was the most important player on that team late in the playoffs.
Correct. Francis needs to get into the playoffs and perform then the opinion of him would skyrocket. Great players are born in the playoffs not in the regular season this is fact. To be fair, out of all the players who never play in the playoffs, Francis easily gets most props and attention. We can't complain about that.
bibby's on the King's and that team passes better than any team in the league. therefore he doesn't get as many assists as he normally would. bibby gets his points within the flow of the game and made tons of clutch shots. the shots that legends are made of. bibby outplayed everyone in that series. it didn't matter who the lakers had on him. sometimes it's not about stats.
Bibby's team is leading assists and 2nd in scoring in the leauge. That means that Bibby as a PG is doing a good job running the offense. If our team gets more assists, better scoring, that means Francis runs our offense well, then who cares about his lack of assists. But we all know it's not the case now. And it's like when our whole team outrebound the other teams, who cares whether it's the frontcourt or backcourt get the rebounds.
dammit, i just found and calculated bibby and webber's stats for the lakers series a few days ago just for occasions like this and now my roommate wrote on it and took that piece of paper somewhere so i don't have them on hand. first off, i did watch the games, all 7 of them. so because webber didn't go above his average but bibby did, bibby now leaps webber even though he still scored less? and the fact webber shot 52% (i think, it may have been higher) and bibby 44.5% means nothing. and what was the 16 pts and ends up with 20 thing? is that a fact or a generalization? i know in game 5 webber scored 7 in the 4th quarter and got ripped by someone on here (not you) for not showing up late and almost singlehandedly costing the team a game when he also went for 29 and 13. webber i believe averaged 23 for the series and was 20+ every single game, that's consistency. webber also didn't get to run off his own picks and be handed the ball for easy jumpers the way bibby did. webber usually earned all of his points. i commend bibby for scoring, for gererally abusing his lakers defender, and hitting clutch shots, but he didn't run that offense the way webber did. the fact webber outscored and outassisted him (6.3 agp to 4.4 apg) attests to this and i don't think can just be discounted with "yeah but bibby hit the clutch shots". so bibby hit the shot in game 5 (off a pick from webber again), and then had some big shots down the stretch of 7 (though he fizzled late with everyone else, by late i mean last 2 minutes and OT), does that overtake everything webber did? oh and webber controlled the defensive boards for the kings and was the only consistent rebounder for them. does that not factor into the best player equation. i don't see how being the best rebounder and running the majority of the offense is trumped by clutch shots. bibby also had a large ft advantage. again i don't have them in front of me but IIRC, they were something like webber 23/10.7/6.3 on 52% bibby 21/2.8/4.4 on 44.5% seems to me webber won. and as for the original point of this thread, that still doesn't make him a great pg. he shot more and assisted less in his star role. that makes francis a SG and bibby a great PG apparently. and the argument he doesn't get to pass as much b/c of all the talent there should be negated by the lack of shooters and reliance on isolation we have for francis. and after all of that, bibby isn't in the kidd/gp/francis/marbury/nash (although he may be close to him) class no matter what. he has to do more than a playoff run to match their longer runs of excellence.
Forget the Kings. Is there ANYONE here who thinks Bibby is better than Francis? Just wait for the Franchise to show the warrior in him when the playoffs arrive.
Bibby's run in the playoffs, was a better stretch than any Francis has played in the REGULAR SEASON. Sounds about right to me. PGs aren't supposed to necessarily be the go-to guy. I would agree that Bibby isn't necessarily a go-to guy, however he is clutch, and he knows how to play his role to win. Francis is clueless when it comes to doing that. Until Francis has a nice playoff run, expect people to take Bibby or whoever over Francis. You guys seem to expect the utmost respect from the national media. How many .500 teams who haven't made the playoffs in nearly 4 years, really get respect? Sheesh. It's putup or shutup for Francis and the Rockets, and they've been shutup. Now deal with it.
Who says they've been shut up? I think the Francis/Yao tandem doubters are the ones who've been shutup. Picture the outcome of a Bibby-Francis playoff matchup, do you think Bibby can play with Francis like he did with DEREK FISHER?
By being a .500 team, the "haters" will be out there for Francis/Yao/whoever. Being a .500 team doesn't exactly silence critics. Until we do anything in the playoffs, the critics will exist. The Rockets are not the exception to the rule. I am sorry.
Yeah, but he ranked Bibby ahead of Payton as far as best PG's go. And Payton has had FAR more playoff experience and is even more clutch. Bibby is overrated. And Dr. Jack is senile.
