I agree 100%. Power hitters in baseball strike out more, aggressive paasers in football gets incompletions and interceptions more. As I've said in a different thread, a turnover while driving to the basket is no more damaging than a missed open threee pointer.
Let me ask this question: how many point guards have averaged 30 points a game for a season? Even if Francis falls back to say, 25 ppg, how many point guards have scored that many in a season? The point is, if what Francis does is unprecedented for a point guard, why try and compare him to the past? David.
it's not a matter of that... 1. he hasn't averaged 30ppg for a season either...he's averaged 30 ppg over the course of 6 games...let's see how many ppg he averages after he plays the remaining 75 before we crown him scoring champion 2. how many shots is he going to have to take to avg 30 ppg for a season? 3. how many higher percentage shots get passed up on when he does? 4. allen iverson averages around that total...i don't want the rockets turning into that kind of team...sure they were good enough to beat the east, which was as weak as any conference i've ever seen in any given season, that year...but that ain't gonna be enough to get past teams with dominant posts 5. basketball is a game of size...always has been...there are rare exceptions...but for the most part, even the dominant backcourts throughout history have been big in comparison to other backcourts...jordan and harper were huge and created incredible mismatches 6. i'm not saying francis is NOT going to win titles...i'm saying that history doesn't indicate that teams that are point-guard and even backcourt dominated do very well in the playoffs. the game slows down in the playoffs...and if there's one thing rocket fans should remember is that there is NOTHING like having a dominant big man when you need a big shot down the stretch.
Madmax, It really doesn't matter what Francis really scores as long has he keeps his FG% up. Stevie has even stated this. Iverson and Marbury used to average alot of points but they shoot in the low 40's. Stevie is shooting above 50% right now. He is taking what the defense gives him. If the opposing PG can't cover him, why shouldn't he light them up. I don't want Francis to jack up 40 shots to get 40 points like Kobe or AI does. But I don't mind him getting 40 points on 25-30 shots. One of the great things about the Portland game was that he was dishing more when his shot was off in the first half. When his shot starting coming around in the second half, he took over. Cat also did this to a certain extent except his shot never came. Instead, Cat clamped down on defense and dished the ball.
3. Not very many at all. The Rockets are just not a good shooting team. Some will blame francis for that, but is it really his fault that Eddie Griffin or Kenny Thomas can't hit a mid range jumper with any consistency? 4. Iverson did not, and has not ever, had a second scoring option to take the load off of him, which is one of the reasons why he shoots so much and wears down. Not an apt comparison as far as Cat is around. If it was Francis next to Moochie or Jamal Crawford, as some people have proposed, that would be a legitmate concern 5. Ron Harper was hardly a behemoth who used his size to dominate people with the Bulls and lakers. I don't think he posted the other team up once, he stood outside and took open threes. The point of the harper comparisons is to illustrate that the "point guard" label and the rigid mentality of many on this board that he must pass first and ask questions later is a distraction and not a prerequisite to success. 6. History has proven otherwise. The Bulls ran a guard-dominant offense (with pippen functioning as the convenional "pg" on many occasions) and were rather successful. The Sonics ran one when they got to the finals, as did Philly, NJ, etc, and the Pistons comparisons have previously discussed.
it's almost as if we're watching two entirely different leagues...i would say the bulls did use harper to post up smaller guards...and did the same with jordan...i would agree that the rockets aren't great shooters, and therein lies the rub...a team of "not good shooters" combined with very little post presence relying entirely on their backcourt to score does not win championships...that's what the rockets have been for a couple of years now...i would definitely not say the sonics were a guard oriented offense (the guards certainly didn't take a disproportionate share of shots) ..we'll agree to disagree, i guess...difficult to argue when it's like we're not talking about the same thing. rockbox -- i TOTALLY agree with you that if francis keeps shooting over 50%, he should keep it up...but i'm not sure how likely that is...i hope he does, though! couldn't happen to a nicer guy! and i'm totally with you on Cat the other night against Portland...when he clamped down on defense, it's like the team turned a corner. when they forced portland into a shot clock violation down the stretch, i was VERY impressed. it's been a long time since i've seen that in a big possession. i'm encouraged.
1. So what, who cares whether the guards are posting up vs. driving, two points is two points regardless. Similarly, I would rather have our guards able to shoot pass or drive rather than just pass or shoot in the post. That will create far more assists than Ron harper backing it in. Do you honestly ever recall steve purposely ignoring an open man under the basket? I don't. If anything he looks for Cato on the alley oop too much in my opinion. 2. Kemp was more of an inside presence for seattle than Eddie granted, but not that much more. Ok, he scored 18 a game, eddie only has 12, but the other sonics frontcourt guys were not inside offensivve forces by any means. Perkins was at his best on the outside, Cage was a nonentity on offense. Interestingly, look at payton's stat line (gary payton, exhibit 1-A of how francis allegedly SHOULD be) when they had their best teams: YR TM G GS MIN FG FG% 3P 3P% FT FT% STL BLK TO PF DQ OFF DEF TOT AST PTS 93-94 Sea 82 82 35.1 7.1-14.1 .504 0.2-0.7 .278 2.0-3.4 .595 2.3 0.2 2.1 2.8 0.0 1.3 2.0 3.3 6.0 16.5 94-95 Sea 82 82 36.8 8.4-16.4 .509 0.9-2.8 .302 3.0-4.2 .716 2.5 0.2 2.5 2.5 0.0 1.3 2.1 3.4 7.1 20.6 95-96 Sea 81 81 39.0 7.6-15.8 .484 1.2-3.7 .328 2.8-3.8 .748 2.9 0.2 3.2 2.7 0.0 1.3 2.9 4.2 7.5 19.3 96-97 Sea 82 82 39.2 8.6-18.1 .476 1.5-4.6 .313 3.1-4.3 .715 2.4 0.2 2.6 2.5 0.0 1.3 3.3 4.6 7.1 21.8 6-7 assists a game and 2-3 turnovers and we're crying about how steve only gets 6 assists a game and has 4 turnovers? The grass is always greener I guess.
There is a quote in one thread where Rudy T talks about the number of times Francis has handled the ball compared to the number of times he's taken shots and its something like 1 out of 4. Further, he's taking good shots, cause he's scoring a lot of points on a fairly small number of attempts... Francis has scored 182 points on 126 shot attempts and 55 free throws. If we use John Hollinger's version of points per scoring attempt, which goes like this: points scored / ( field goal attempts + 0.44*free throw attempts) we get 182 / (126 + 0.44*55) 182/150.2 1.21 Last year, in positions 6-10 in league PSA, You had guys like Dirk Nowitski with a PSA of 1.22. Francis actually taking shots that score well. For comparison, the league average PSA is about 1.02, Mobley averaged 1.08 last year, and Kenny T averaged 1.05. Other Rockets PSA numbers this year: C Mobley: 1.04 E Griffin: 0.90 K Thomas: 0.96 K Cato: 1.01 --------------------- J Hawkins: 0.89 M Norris: 0.80 Y Ming: 0.95 G Rice: 0.68 J Collier: 0.60 B Nachbar: 0.85 M Taylor: 0.33 Dave
1. i can't read those stats for payton..sorry...they hurt my eyes just looking at them.. 2. 2 more turnovers a game is significant, particularly given comparable minutes...having said that, i have NO problem with the way francis has played so far this year 3. kemp put up those kinds of numbers year in and year out...eddie has put up those numbers for 5 games so far. let's see how eddie does, but to say that eddie is already almost as good as kemp is a long shot...i think he'll ultimately be better than kemp, but kemp in his prime was an absolute presence on the court. i hated him, but he was damn good. 4. if posting up creates better shot opportunities, then posting up is better...and in the triangle, it did just that for ron harper...he wasn't a black hole posting up...he did pass out of it. so did jordan. 5. i can't even remember what the point of my argument was anymore
i'm totally with you...francis is playing awesome...and i'm excited about that! but this is an extremely limited sample size at this point. if he keep shooting over 50% it will be an amazing season!
Well, well, well. Only 1 turnover against the Lakers. In the last 4 games, he's only had 1 turnover in 3 of them. What should we move to next?
