Francis in the same class as the Big O, Magic & Grant Hill

The same rule applies for forwards.

 

But the hype, and trying to make the guy the next Jordan does.

As far as seeing him play, I saw him play in every Final Four game he ever played in, not to mention countless of other Duke games, and I saw him play in probably about 5 games per season of his pro career. He was a great slasher, a pretty good ball handler, and he could run the offense when he had to. He was a really good mid range shooter also, and a good on the ball defender, and before the injuries he was really quick and had really good leaping ability. Not that explosive to the basket but a good first step and he could finish well.

He was a really good player, no doubt, he just was not a franchise player. he never really took over games with his scoring but he always made plays.

 

I think you undervalue his scoring and seriously undervalue his ballhandling/playmaking for a 3. He was a smooth type, as opposed to an explosive scorer; more McGrady than Carter...but he got it done. 3rd in the league in scoring one year.

And if you saw him in the final 4, how can you say not explosive? Remember that overthrown alley-oop? He wasn't consistent with it, but he could explode when he wanted to.

And the thing he had that Steve doesnt, more than anything else, is that feel for team play; basketball sense for lack of a better word. Steve has as good of a physical game, for his position, as Hill had. But he's less skilled, and way less aware.

 

Hill averaged 26 points a game in his 6th season. He had back to back 40 point games, and 29 career triple doubles. How is that not taking over a game.

 

To compare steve to big o, magic and g hill, its blasphemy. Its like saying pat ewing and hakeem olajuwon are =. Numbers are deceiving. I would take stockton's 10 ppg 10 apg 2 rpg but only 2 to's per game and a smart player at that than the ****ty 15, 5, and 5 of steve and more than 3 to's per game and a bunch of boneheaded plays. And besides, they are leaders, winners and consistent mvp contenders. Big O and the magic man won becoz they had kareem. Even without a big man with him, g hill has tmac but becoz of injuries he will never ever realized how good can they be. So much waste. Steve has yao but he's selfish and just cant afford to give the tag as the best player in the team to yao eventhough it is very obvious that yao IS THE MAN, he is the franchise.

 

So, I guess that means that Francis must average 25ppg and shoot 49%FG next year? Francis could never average 25ppg and shoot 49% even if he had the ball in his hands all the time (didn't we try that already).

I can just see it now...Francis averages 20/6/6 his whole career and some people will want to couple him with greats like the Big O, Magic, Kobe or Jordan...please...

 

No one has said that rebounds are not important. I, and many others, have said that we don't care how many rebounds our POINT GUARD gets, because that is not the first, second, third, or fourth most important part of his job. Rebounding, for a point guard, is about as important as blocking shots.

Jobs of a PG:
1. COTF (coach on the floor, he should be able to make sure everyone else is doing their job)
2. Passing (most easily measured in AST, TO, and AST/TO)
3. Defense (not easy to measure, generally just keeping the other point from penetrating)
4. Scoring (mostly set up off of the other players around you, see Stockton and Fisher for good examples)
5. Other (rebounding, diving for loose balls, blocking shots, getting deflections, pumping up the crowd, whatever)

Unfortunately, Francis is below average in the first three categories. That is why many don't give a crap about his 20-6-6, 15-5-5, whatever numbers that people want to bring up. He is consistently near the bottom of all PGs, even backups, in A/TO ratio. He is one of the poorer defensive PGs in the NBA, and he can barely figure out his own job, if that, let alone coach his teammates. For all of those reasons, he is not in the class of Grant Hill, who is certainly not in the class of the Big O and Magic.

 

I was trying to think who Hill reminded me of, strictly as a scorer. Then it hit me: Big Game James.

 

That's true...the "on court results" are important. At the moment we are comparing Hill vs Francis. What does that mean? How do you define, "compare?" You can list out stats all day with other players and come up with similarities. Does that mean that they are the same level of player? I think not.

If you want to "compare" play-off success...well, there are many players that got their asses kicked by Jordan, Kobe, Shaq, Duncan, Hakeem. But downgrading those players to make it seem like those players (Hill) are on the same plateau with Francis? Heh...the NBA is littered with the carcasses of players that were great individually but never won a championship. But even then, that doesn't mean that you can just lump them into one big group of players. Those players too can be "compared" even further. So, don't go comparing Hill to Francis on individual stats just so you can make them *seem* similar in an over-all sense. They were not. Hill was on the verge of being the top 5 player in 2000. Watching Hill produce 25ppg at 49FG% was a sight to see from this "air apparent" small forward! After his injury he was never the same...

 

Hill was THE offense his 6th year, didnt have to break it down and give it to Yao ming everytime down the floor. Move steve francis to Chicago/Clips and watch him put 28 ppg...

 

At what %?

 

Well, that's the big mystery...we'll never know... Personally, I liked Hill better than Carter. But in their first few years they both garnered the attention of their share of fans. The league really wanted HILL to come in and "take over." The league did not want Iverson to become the "next Jordan." As a "star?" Sure. But not as the "squeaky clean" league spokesman. The NBA is dreading "Kobe" as the league spokesman.

As far as Jordan vs Hill. Well, Hill was incredible in the post and on the break. He was the best in the league at that. When playing his game he made the game look easy. Was he a franchise player? The knock on Hill was that he was "too nice." But we've heard that before with Duncan and Yao...Duncan has proven this to be less an issue (the "nice" factor). He has squashed that stigma. Yao still has the rest of his career to get "meaner." Seems to be that "nice" players get meaner as time goes on.

Anyways...
It's just very difficult to know how good Hill would have become if he hadn't had so many injuries. We'll never know.

 

Getting the ball all the time doesn't mean that they score 28ppg for the WHOLE YEAR! It takes an incredible amount of scoring skill to average that amount (and even to get the shot attemps in the first place).

Francis misses enough shots getting single teamed. What makes you think that he'd score more with the Clips getting doubled? What evidence do we have in the last 5 years that he'd become a prolific scorer with more shots? What do you think that opposing teams would do against a Francis lead Clipper team? They'd let him go ISO and double when necessary. And it would be the doom of that team. Francis is NOT that prolific a scorer. I mean, both systems he struggles....

ISO system = Francis can get out of control. He has as many good shots as forced shots; and still not a better scorer than Kobe, Iverson, Pierce or McGrady.
Team system = Francis seems confused. Has less shots, but even those are questionable.

If I was coaching against the Francis lead Clippers, I do this:

1) Let him run ISO all game. If he was on fire one particular game, I double, forcing him to pass the ball. If he didn't want to give the ball up...well, then that would be the detriment of his team. Is Francis good at finding the open man? No. Is he good at scoring over a double-team? No. It would be a sure bet that he'd force up a lot of shots on the Clips trying to get the "home run." This would run into the opposing teams favor.

2) If he did give the ball up. Then the role players would have to help win the game. Is Francis good at this type of game? No. Now, over a 82 game season does that seem like a 28ppg scorer? No way...The reason that McGrady, Jordan and Iverson are able to average 28+ per game is because they can score EVEN when they are doubled. They are that good at scoring. That's their forte! Francis is not a prolific scorer. He makes scoring hard.

P.S. A few years ago Francis started the season averaging 29ppg (for the first 15 games or so)...there were all these "grand" comparisons to Jerry West. As the season went on that 29ppg average was whittled down to the customary 20ppg.

By the way, the Clips and Bulls aren't lack of talent. Maybe you should have used the Magic as your "bad team" example where Francis would score 28ppg. I guess that means that you think that McGrady and Francis are on the same level in terms of scoring ability.

 

Larry Bird's average for his first 5 seasons:

22.0 ppg / 10.4 rebs / 5.5 assists

Yup, Steve's clearly better than Larry Bird.

 

I would say that Garnett is the same player that Hill was with more talent and more athletic ability and the same weakness. Not willing to take over the game, physically impose himself on the other team. But Garnett's so much more talented than Hill was that even with this weakness, he earned MVP this season.

Steve Francis is no where near as efficient as Hill and Garnett are. But Hill and Garnett don't have Francis's flare for the dramatic, that it, to make plays at the end of the game. I have more hope of Francis developing efficiency, than I did for Hill developing the toughness he needed to take him to the next level. If Francis ever becomes a smarter more efficient basketball, you guys are going to see something truly special. I still have hope as you can tell.

I believe like adeelsiddiqui that Francis's bbIQ development was hampered by the migranes. I believe Francis was poised for a break out season, even better than the season he had before. But then the migranes came, and Eddie Griffin started looking like a bust. Then, enter new rules changes and Yao Ming, and Francis has to alter his game for both the rules and his new teamate. Then comes a new coach, who requires further alteration of game the next season. I believe this coming year, is the year we finally see what Steve can become. No more excuses, that is if he is still in Houston.

 

which are?

I remember dribble out the clock during SA game, throwing up an airball in La playoffs, dribbling out of bounce in la playoff, etc.

 

Francis was the one who had the Rockets in a position to win Game 1, and Francis closed the deal in the one game they did win. But you only look for the negatives so I don't know why I bother responding to you.

 

Quote by Panda
15,5,5 is not a sensible way to gauge the greatness of point guards. We need pgs to make assists, not to grab rebounds. There is plenty of pgs who does a lot more than 15 pts and 5 assists and grabs less boards. That doesn't mean they are worse than Francis. Give me a point guard that average 16 pts, 2 rebounds and 6 assists and I take that over 15,5,5 any day.

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So you are saying that you would take 16pts, 2 rebounds and 6 assists over 20 pts, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists (SF)? Where’s the logic there? Are you related to CD? Is your name really CD?

Dude, slowly back away from the crack pipe!

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Please people, SF being in the 15/5/5 club is pretty impressive, and SF deserves his props. Can’t you people for once just appreciate the incredible talent that we have? Every team in the league, save 4 or so would gladly take SF and his 20/6/6 over what they currently have, and all but 1 of those would at least consider it. However, I will not go so far as to say the SF is/was better than GHill, prior to injury, nor would I imply that SF is in the same class as the Big O, Larry Bird, Magic, et.al, but he is a hell of a talent/player.

GHill, pre injury, was a special player and that’s that. If you want to argue that his stats are inflated because he is in the east, that’s fine and I would agree with that to some extent, but it does not negate the fact that he was special. Offer me a trade of GHill (first 5) for SF (first 5), I would do it 7 days a week and twice on Saturday simply because GHill is that much better (That’s no knock on SF, just a fact). If I remember correctly, the Magic went after Hill and Duncan, and when Duncan declined, T-Mac was the consolation prize. If that doesn’t tell you how he was perceived, then deductive reasoning is not your strong point.