Kobe Bryant All-Defensive Team 2001-2002 2nd team 2000-2001 2nd team 1999-2000 1st team I still don't see why people think Stevie's ever going to be a great passer or average a lot of assists. I think he's a scorer and he just has that mentality. Nothing wrong with that, but it might be better to move him to the 2.
Juan, what "clicked" was Payton started getting more minutes. Even Payton's 3rd yr had better assist number than Francis's 3rd if they played equal minutes to Francis. You can't compare a 31 minute stat line to a 41 minute stat line. And when you have Nate McMillan backing you and Pierce up at 5 apg, you don't need assists coming from just one player...like Bibby's numbers going down don't mean he all of a sudden doesn't "get it."
He can't run a simple 3 on 2 or 3 on 1 break *when* he passes. If he's forced to pass, most of the time it's no good for the Rockets. Most of the guards on the average high school team could do it better than SF. Moving him to the 2 negates the only positive thing about him - he forces the other team to match up their pg against our scorer, unless they want a mismatch with our 2 versus their 1. In the playoffs versus a scorer on the other team, forget about it.
HeyP, we finally agree on something. Payton like alot of pg's back in the day was a backup first. Payton had McMillan in front of him, Stocton had ricky green,Baron Davis had David Wesley. Even Miller played behind Coles. Francis was thrown into the fire and made mistake after mistake.We as Rockets fans figured that he'll get them out of his system and learn, but he we are a few yrs later and seems like his decision making is just as bad as it was then. I think Francis can becaome a very good player, but not a great player. Great players seperate themselves by mental edges, something I don't think Francis will ever have. Talking about another scoring pg, look at Marbury's numbers: 96-97 Min 67 64 34.7 5.3-13.0 .408 1.5-4.3 .354 3.7-5.0 .727 1.0 0.3 3.1 2.4 0.0 0.8 1.9 2.7 7.8 15.8 97-98 Min 82 81 38.0 6.3-15.1 .415 1.2-3.7 .313 4.0-5.5 .731 1.3 0.1 3.1 2.7 0.0 0.7 2.1 2.8 8.6 17.7 98-99 Min 18 18 36.7 6.9-16.9 .408 0.4-2.2 .205 3.5-4.8 .724 1.6 0.3 3.1 2.4 0.0 0.9 2.5 3.4 9.3 17.7 … Njn 31 31 39.8 8.2-18.7 .439 1.9-5.1 .367 5.1-6.2 .832 1.0 0.1 3.5 2.6 0.0 0.6 1.9 2.5 8.7 23.4 99-00 Njn 74 74 38.9 7.7-17.8 .432 0.9-3.1 .283 5.9-7.2 .813 1.5 0.2 3.6 2.6 0.1 0.8 2.4 3.2 8.4 22.2 00-01 Njn 67 67 38.2 8.4-19.1 .441 1.6-5.0 .328 5.4-6.8 .790 1.2 0.1 2.9 2.2 0.0 0.8 2.3 3.1 7.6 23.9 01-02 Pho 82 80 38.9 7.6-17.2 .442 0.9-3.0 .286 4.3-5.5 .781 0.9 0.2 3.5 2.3 0.0 0.9 2.3 3.2 8.1 20.4 02-03 Pho 53 53 40.1 8.6-19.7 .436 1.1-3.8 .281 4.8-6.0 .791 1.4 0.3 3.5 2.4 0.0 0.7 2.4 3.1 8.2 23.0 G GS MIN FG FG% 3P 3P% FT FT% STL BLK TO PF DQ OFF DEF TOT AST PTS Totals 474 468 38.1 7.3-17.0 .430 1.2-3.8 .314 4.6-6.0 .777 1.2 0.2 3.3 2.5 0.0 0.8 2.2 3.0 8.2 20.4 His career avg is 8.2 asst. No matter how much you hate him and his arrogant NY attitude,but he's been very very consistent. Here is another shoot first pg: Cassell: 97-98 Njn 75 72 34.7 6.8-15.4 .441 0.2-1.1 .188 5.8-6.8 .860 1.6 0.3 3.6 3.5 0.1 1.0 2.1 3.1 8.0 19.6 98-99 Mil 4 0 24.8 4.5-11.0 .409 0.3-0.8 .333 4.5-4.8 .947 1.5 0.0 2.0 2.3 0.0 1.0 1.3 2.3 4.3 13.8 … Njn 4 3 25.0 5.3-12.3 .429 0.3-1.8 .143 7.3-7.8 .935 0.8 0.0 3.0 3.3 0.3 0.3 1.3 1.6 4.8 18.0 99-00 Mil 81 81 35.8 6.7-14.4 .466 0.3-1.1 .289 4.8-5.5 .876 1.3 0.1 3.3 3.1 0.1 0.9 2.9 3.8 9.0 18.6 00-01 Mil 76 75 35.6 7.1-14.9 .474 0.4-1.3 .306 3.6-4.3 .858 1.2 0.1 2.9 2.8 0.1 0.6 3.2 3.8 7.6 18.2 01-02 Mil 74 73 35.2 7.5-16.2 .463 1.0-2.8 .348 3.8-4.4 .860 1.2 0.2 2.4 2.8 0.0 0.7 3.5 4.2 6.7 19.7 02-03 Mil 50 49 33.8 6.8-14.9 .457 0.7-2.1 .320 5.2-6.1 .856 1.0 0.1 2.4 2.7 0.0 0.5 3.7 4.2 5.8 19.5
leebigez, Payton actually replaced Nate as the starter from day one. Payton always started. My point was that Seattle had a previously starting, very capable backup PG in Nate McMillan, who they could actually play with Payton. Nate was getting 5apg right with Payton's assists.
And I believe Kobe entered the league in 97/98 if I am correct. If you watched his first 2 years he was a horrible defender, I can remember Drexler being able to blow by him and Drexler was in his late 30's. About the passing, I just wanted to throw out these comparisons so people can understand that not all great PG's "get it" from day 1.
I don't understand this comparison. There is a reason no one compares Francis to Payton. Miggity, in your opening post you said there wasn't much hoopla about Payton. I remember a bunch of talk about him, with huge hype as a big scorer/assist man/and legendary defender. He was Player of the Year as a senior, and posted the 6th highest assists totals in NCAA history. He was selected #2 overall, and Seattle benched a very good Nate McMillan to start him. The slow start people talk about was his scoring, as I recall, not his PG skills. He was supposed to be a scorer. imo, Payton was a PG from day one. Your stats show nothing except that Payton went to a solid team who didn't need scorers and only got 27, 31, 31 mpg his first three years. I mean, by comparison, Tony Parker had 30 mpg and 4.3 apg last year and 35mpg and 5.4. None of that, nor Francis's stats compare to Payton if you look at mpg, and Payton had Nate as the reason he didn't get huge minutes. But, forget the stats...that Seattle team was good, and became a great passing team once they got rid of Xavier, and the Payton/Nate combo drove it. If anything, your stats show the platooning status of the PG position at Seattle, where Payton eventually took over. Plus, Payton was a fantastic fastbreaker from day one, something Francis might never "get."
A good way of shooting down my optimisim! I was only 8 when Payton came into the league so from all I recalled from my Nba knowledge from back then is that Payton was a project, my bad.
heyp- You seem to be a big Payton fan...do you know why the Oak-town boy chose OSU over CAL or Stanford?? As a Bay area native myself (but only 9 when Gary made his choice), I've always been puzzled why he didn't choose my alma mater (CAL) and a bit ashamed of CAL.
oops, didn't mean to do that. I just happen to not really feel there to be a need to shy away from just comparing Francis to Davis and Marbury, which makes much more sense. plus, derrock, is right, I eventually jumped in to this thread to defend Gary Payton from description of not "getting it" based purely on apg stats. Didn't mean to knock down Francis. derrock, My guess would be because he wanted to play for Ralph Miller, who was known for pressure defense and fastbreaking. imo he was the best coach in the Pac 10 at the time, by far, and perfect for Payton. That said, I don't really know. Payton caught me by surprise in his junior year. I was a Rice Owls loser and Midwest (Big Ten) snob back then and didn't follow the Pac-10 much (time zones somewhat limited it). btw: Does no one remember the Loyola Marymount vs OSU game when Kimble and Payton dueled for 100 points between them. He had a lot of very big scoring games, with his career high being 58 against USC. From my days watching the NCAA, I don't recall any PG getting deserving hype like Payton coming out aside from Magic, Isiah, Iverson and Kidd.
Why only stop at assist? Gary Payton was much more that. What about assist to turnover ratio? What about his defense. Payton HAS ALWAYS been good defensive, STEVE HAS NEVER (infact he is piss poor). This is one example where stats are misused. I don't if Steve's stats are comaparable to the Paytons or Kidds of this world. All I want is a consistently smart and good decision making point guard. I hope it comes sometime down the road (sooner rather than later). Steve does not need any slack from us so long as he is not depressing Rockets fans with his overall play. His stats without a doubt are very good but it NEVER tells the whole story. The Rockets to a large extent (for the near future) go as far Steve game can take them because he is their "leader". Steve is a very good athlete but I will have to hold out a little longer to see if could become the VERY GOOD PLAYER we all want him to be. I doubt if he will be a great one like Zik, Payton, Kidd etc.
Doesn't matter to me whether Steve averages 10 assists or 5. Just as long as he keeps the turnovers down and refrains from dominating the ball so much with his dribbling. I personally think team assists are a better measure of how well a point guard is distributing the ball. With an exception of a few, all of the best teams in the league are at ranked high in assists. The Rockets are next to last. If Steve only averaged 5 assists, but the team as a whole was ranked high in assists I doubt there would be nearly as much complaining about him.
I guess playing for Lou Campanelli wouldn't have appealed to me either (even though I remember him being as highly regarded in the Bay Area). I wonder if KJ's presence at CAL made GP think that he wouldn't get the playing time. And I think KJ left his second year (GP's first) but, most likely, Gary didn't know he was going to leave. So I think it was a matter of coaching styles in combination with playing time. Of course, I'm totally speculating. Being a pre-teen back then, I'd be just as interested in half-time stunts than scoring duels between Kimble and GP. As a CAL fan, would have been nice to have the top Cali PGs in succession: KJ, GP, and Kidd.
