Yes or no: Has Francis improved on defense this year or not? As I said before, read the entire thread. If you had done so, you would realize that your contention was addressed by means of using efg%, in addition, the fact that the rockets are facing fewer possessions (which is actually not a proven fact, just an assumption that is being made) is, in and of itself, a sign of collectively better defense, and logic would dictate that the player who plays the most would have played some small part of this Has Francis improved on defense this year or not? Yes or no? Take a position, don't waste time tilting at windmills. It seems like your only position thus far is to be against me personally. If that's the case then I don't think I'm going to bother anymore.
My contention was never addressed in the efg% topic of discussion. In fact, it has no bearing whatsoever on the basis of my deposition. Furthermore, you are making either one of two assertions: Either you comply with the statistical analysis of efg% as the means to disprove your basis of information or you disagree with efg% statistic provided as the means to prove your statistical information you provided was more accurate. We know that the latter is the truth based on your comment, "You're not looking at the right stats.", in which case you used your own theory to disprove your own basis of information. Now, please explain to me how fewer possessions in a game is a result of the Rockets playing collectively better defense. Again, fewer possessions works both ways.
I would be happy to take your deposition... But anyway, here is the misunderstanding. By "you're not looking at the right stats" I meant that the original poster had linked to the page where it showed the pure Rockets PG comparison; that is unfair to link to that and claim that it is reflective of Francis as he only plays 70% of the Rox minutes at PG. The other 30% has been played by Mooch, Wilks, and MJackson, who drag down the Rox overall PG stats significantly (example, Mooch gave up something like 56% efg to opposing players when he was in) Plus, it doesn't include the 10% of his own PT that Steve is at the 2. While that doesn't seem like a lot in comparison, that is a significant amount of minutes (assuming that SF has played around 50 * 40 min this year = 2,000, 10% of which is 200, not insignificant) Sure it does. But if the Rox play better D and cause the other team to use more time on the shot clock, both in halfcourt and transition, then they get fewer possessions, no? Again, this is a bit of a can of worms I wish I hadn't opened, because if you really wanted to see if fewer possessions was making a difference, we should go back and see how much fewer possesssions the other team is getting when comparing 02-03 to 03-04. I don't know where to find that stat.
Here are some Defensive stats to help analyze fewer possessions: ------------------------2002-03-----2003-04 Opp. FGA per game:___81.4______78.23 Opp. FGM per game:___35.25_____31.09 Opp. FG percentage:__.433_______.397 Opp. Pts per game:____92.3_______85.1 Make your own conclusions. Heres mine.. I think our opponents are getting slightly fewer possessions, but more importantly are taking lower percentage shots. I dont see a drastic drop in Field Goal Attempts, but the shooting percentage is significantly lower. Thats a good sign in my eyes because it means we are playing better defense rather than running down the clock in our own possessions.
