HoopsTV Article Very Interesting

http://www.hoopstv.com/HTVPro2837.html

There is the link.

There is also a poll on who will win the slam-dunk contest if Carter isn't there?


Rocket Science

By Pat Cassidy

Steve Francis’ days as the Rockets’ point guard are numbered. The dude’s nice, but he’s gotta go.

Now before any Houston fans start looking for the nearest bridge to jump from, know this: Stevie isn’t changing uniforms, just positions. Playing the point is handcuffing Steve and suffocating his crazy scoring ability - and the result is losses for his team.

Steve’s situation is a lot like what Allen Iverson went through during his first few years in Philly. Caught between being a scorer and running a team, AI and his putrid Sixers floundered. Near the end of Allen’s rookie year, he scored 40 points or more in four straight games, but it was 1-on-5 basketball and his Sixers got clocked all four times. Now Houston’s caught in the same spot, with Stevie Francis walking that same tightrope.

The Rockets are struggling, and a lot of those struggles seem to stem from Stevie looking more and more like he’s playing out of position. In losses against the NBA’s big dawgs – the Lakers and the Blazers – Franchise only averaged 8 shot attempts per game and at times looked confused and frustrated. He seemed more preoccupied with being the consummate point guard – looking to set up teammates, trying to make the perfect pass – than grabbing the game by the stones and making things happen. Steve needs to take a page from Kobe’s book and, as bad as it sounds, be more selfish.

The Rockets’ last loss to the Lakers was a perfect example of what is and what could be for Francis and the Rockets. In the midst of a fourth quarter disaster that saw the wheels fall off the Rockets bus, Kobe Bryant went bananas, taking over the game when his team needed him to. Shaq was struggling and was exiled on Phil Jax’s bench for long stretches, while Kobe went to work, the triangle offense becoming a one-man show. He demanded the ball and repeatedly held it down in the clutch, abusing Cuttino Mobley with a steady dose of fadeaways, jumpers and glides to the hoop en route to 37 points and 10 boards. Meanwhile, Stevie attempted only 2 shots in the fourth, instead working to make sure Shandon Anderson, Mobley and even Moochie Norris got their shots. The Rockets fell apart and Kobe & Co. pulled away.

Steve Francis is a scoring machine; that’s what he’s built to do. He didn’t play the point in college and no one in the country could stop him, and that’s the reason the Grizzlies made him the #2 pick in the draft 2 years ago. Sure, the Grizz probably toyed with the notion of running Francis at the point and bumping Bibby to the 2 for stretches, but when it comes down to it, they drafted Steve to put the ball in the hoop.

It often seems like Francis is so caught up in being the point guard Rudy T wants him to be that he loses focus. He’s so intent on being Houston’s quarterback, in being a "team player," that he takes himself out of games with his unselfishness, looking downright frustrated and indecisive trying to walk the tightrope between point guard and scorer. After that Lakers game, some reporters caught Steve checking the box score, marveling at Kobe’s line – especially the fact that #8 jacked up 31 shots on his way to his 37 points. Francis just shook his head and said he wouldn’t dare think of pulling the trigger that many times in one outing. "The guys in here (the locker room) would be all over me," he told a reporter from the Houston Chronicle.

Walt Williams, whose stats happen to get fat from Stevie’s unselfishness, agreed: "He’s right, unless he’s hitting them. I can shoot that many, because that would mean he’s giving me the ball and I must be hitting."



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