Yes, this is so true. If this season has done nothing else for me, it has proven that last season was merely an amazing job done by Rudy to exploit the one thing this team does pretty well at this point (isolation plays), and he got the team to overachieve because of this. He had the team playing in a manner so as not to rely too much on the deficiencies of the other players. I guess this team is just not as far along in the rebuilding effort as we thought. I am reminded of a Guns and Roses song. Patience, ohhhhhh. Just a little patience.
Agreed. Had Francis played the entire season, last years 45-37 would be well within reach. My personal (realistic) wish for this season was duplicate last year's record and grab the 7th or 8th seed. Interestingly enough, the current eighth seed (Seattle) is playing better than 0.550, so 45 wins might not be enough to make the playoffs this year.
Eh. You lost me at the guy who handles the ball 90% of the time. As for trusting his teammates, didn't it take Hakeem 12 years before he did that? Even with Francis in the lineup, this team is not talented enough to make the playoffs. Do a position by position breakdown of the Rockets vs the contenders and you'll see that.
Here is an interesting thought for the board: We won 45 games last year, with most everybody healthy (except Hakeem). During that span, the critics were out (cc.net, Chronicle, etc..) that Franics was not taking enough shots. Now that he & Cuttino, are taking the majority of the shots - are we better?
Tacoma: If Parker was scoring off of kick backs from Duncan it would be one thing. But he was simply beating Steve off the dribble and he made Steve look foolish (not that Steve doesn't do a great job of that himself, dribbling the ball back and forth and back and forth).
tod, He's a stupid defender. He either overplays or stays too far off of his man. In the case of Parker, average perimeter defense is magnified by the presence of a poor frontcourt. Getting by a defender is one thing, but Parker literally had the luxury of waltzing into the lane for layups. It signifies how decimated the frontcourt is more than anything.
TPL, very good response. Well thought out and explained clearly. However to DaDakota I say BANG ON. You hit the nail right on the head. And I give an assist to evilbeaver (great name by the way) for his playground remark. I read a Dallas article at realgm about Nash and Nowitski being the leaders in crunch time statistics. In the article Nash immediaetly blamed it on his teammates, saying they trusted each other. I paraphrase the rest but he said, since the category includes things like assists and passes, it was his teammates making him look good. Now, when was the last time we heard any Rocket talk like that?
If the Rockets wanted a Steve Nash at point guard, I'm sure they could have worked out a trade. I'm sorry, but Steve is a hybrid one and two guard. He will never be a pure point guard. His deficiencies are minor ones. Am I the only one who has noticed that Steve has been pushing the ball up much more lately? Where were you Steve-detractors when Steve had that monster game against the Raptors?
it also seems to me that he is constantly looking behind him to see if picks are coming, which hurts him because he loses his man. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that you have to look at your man and rely on your teammates to tell you that there is a pick.
giddyup: I agree with you to a degree. You have to remember that even the 2nd round draftees were the studs on their respective college teams. If they went to 4 years of college, that means they were probably the studs of their respective teams since middle school. Coaches in those situations knew that they had the best player on the floor 99% of the time so they didn't want to teach trust - they wanted to win. It's hard to get rid of that philosophy. It took Hakeem 10 years. It took Jordan about the same. It takes great players time to learn that their teammates are necessary to win and that they can't simply win on their own. It is rare for a player to understand that coming into the league. I don't think you can attribute this suckhole season to any one thing. Rudy has had some problems. There have been injuries. The players have been sporadic. It has been bad pretty much all the way around.
Steve is an all right pg but he is a better scorer.His decision making is questionable, i think because he tries to hard to do it all on the offense.Rudys system does not make it easy on him at all. You give him one pick and that's it?He doesn't trust his team mates enough.He may put on a show but he has yet to finish it like a superstar does.He's a keeper,but he needs some help to ever get the rockets into a contender role.I think if we get a big man who can do it inside, he will be better and will learn to trust more.If we get a big man who can score, and Steve acts selfish with the ball,we will all realize he may never get us to a contender role at all.He will be selfish and a cancer to the team concept.But I think he will get help, and will become even better.
DaDakota is absolutely right. Francis was almost made to look silly by Parker. Forget about the stats, EVERYTIME parker wanted to get to the basket he did so with great ease. Francis' defensively just maybe as much of a liability as Kenny Smith. He's a big reason the Rockets are last in FG% defense this year. He lets other PG's dictate the tempo of the game and basically do whatever they want and it compromises the Rockets defense, putting Francis' teammates in bad positions. Parker totally locked up Francis as well. Francis couldn't get by him at all. Francis just kept dribbling and dribbling. He needs to make much quicker decisions. If he can't get by his man, then pass the ball, don't wait till the shot clock reaches 3-4 seconds and then toss a bad pass for a low % shot. For a PG, Francis' ballhandling skills are pretty bad. As Dakota said, he fumbles the ball a lot when he tries his pointless back and forth between the legs dribbling exhibitions which creates TO's or kills the offensive flow. The guy has some great talent, but some really signficant weaknesses. Getting neutralized and basically outplayed by a 19 year old PG is pretty embarassing.
This thread talks about 2 things: 1) Poor decision making by the playmaker. 2) No D This is exactly why I think we can be a top 4 seed with this team: Cato Griffin Odom Cat Francis Tell me, when Griffin and Cato are both established shot-blockers at the end of the season, wouldn't Francis be able to take more risks? I tell you, it does wonders for D, and everybody knows this. Cato/Griffin is exactly the frontcourt this team needs: shotblocking,rebounding,toughness&soft touch. It has it all. Odom would take over the ball-handling responsibilities, taking some pressure off of Steve. Look at that line up. Imagine how much less pressure Odom would get when paired with the best backcourt in the league (i.e. increased FG%). Anything outside of that starting line-up to get Odom. I would willingly hand over both picks (we'll pick for them) and KT. They can get the depth they're looking for. We get our final piece.
I agree with all of the complaints about Steve. With the exception of Cato, he does not get other players involved. He'll pass for the assist, but he doesn't create an atmosphere where the others are part of the decision making process. I just got back from the Warriors game (it was worse in person) and I could not be more frustrated by our play (or lack of). To me, Steves game seems to have declined this year. Perhaps it is the headaches. That being said, Steve is a huge talent. At the very worst he will be a Glenn Robinson Jerry Stackhouse type. Good stats, just doesn't make a difference. His upside is huge. What he needs is maturity. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be a lot of local role models for him to learn from. More than anything else, what this team needs is to not be retooled. Give them four or five years together, and look out.
Francis will never reach his potential by being a PG. Francis seems to be afraid to take over games by scoring. I'm beginning to think that part of the reason why we get off to such bad starts in every game is because of Francis. Our offense does nothing for the 1st quarter, partly because they don't know what to do. Francis is the PG, and he must be able to force the action on offense. He has failed to do so, at least for a supposed Top 3 PG. Francis also has trouble against the quick PGs when he is on defense. Why not match him up against SGs? I know he will get posted up, but Francis is as strong of a PG as there is in the league. I would much rather press my luck with Francis guarding a taller, but less quick SG, than a quick PG. It couldn't hurt. I can't imagine Francis being a worse defender than he is now against PGs.
I expected them to make the play offs this year. Comming off a 45 win season and the only loss was an ancient Dream and out of place Shandon Anderson. Of course that was before all the injuries and Steve's migrains. Last year we won 45 games with Steve, Cat, Shandon and Mo starting in most of our wins. Most of us felt if Cato would contribute this year like he has most of the last couple of months then we would definitely be in. Even now we are still a 500 team with Francis on the floor. I agree with your second paragraph. When you include all of the injuries, missed games by our top three players (Steve, Cat and Mo), number of different line ups, the number of times we had two or more rookies on the court at the same time during crucial stretches of important games then there is now way this team was going to make the play offs.
jeff.. he sure should get some kind of break.. i've had migraines all my life.. and could barely attempt to play a pick up game with a bunch of kids when i had one. .. much less an nba game...
