Kato is really important to this team. His defensive presence boosts the Rockets. EG can be a good shot blocker when he's not dreaming. Deny the other team at least 6 points. He needs to show more energy. He's in a slump lately. A passing franchise means everyone is happy 'cause everyone gets good look and good chance to get points. When you have fun you're more than likely to win. Franchise still need to improve on passing and be a better general on the floor. Other guys has to be able to hit those shots, even if Franchise makes good pass, his teammate can't hit them, Rox still lose. One thing is for sure, Rox will play better when Franchise is making plays and involve his teammates. That not only means Yao blocks 3 shots, in the game, he's also alter lots of shot attempts in close. When the opponent can't get easy shot (closer shot), it's that much tougher to try to get a win over the Rox Yao usually only shoots when his teammate is not moving, when he can't setup a teammate, he's forced to take some bad shots. Some of those 15 fg attempt also counts the time when Yao's teammate miss a outside shot, he gets the rebound and try to put it back in in traffic. We're not using him to his full capability most of the time. Francis's TO kills the team for sure. If he has 6 or more TOs team goes 9-6 really doesn't mean anything. It only mean that when SF is having a terrible game with 6 or more TOs, his teammates step up and manage to squeeze out some wins. He really should not be leading the league in TOs.
These Stats truly ARE interesting. While I caution reading too much into these numbers, some observations are worth making. <LI> The Rockets are 9-5 when Kelvin Cato plays 20 minutes or more (he's averaging 8.7 boards and 1.86 blocks on 24.9 minutes in those games). Translation:When Cato plays more, odds are RudyT feels the game is still w/in good control. RudyT has a certain pattern to his substitutions and while Yao gets the 1st quarter, the opening of the 3rd and the end of the 4th, the 2nd quarter and end of 3rd/beginning of 4th is Cato time. If the game seems like it's slipping away, RudyT will bring Yao in earlier in the 4th, and sit him later in the 3rd. Point being? If its a tough and close game, Rudy's confidence and call goes to Yao. <LI> The Rockets are 10-3 when Eddie Griffin has 3 blocks or more (the last time he did this though was on January 11th). Translation:See Below <LI> The Rockets are 11-4 when Steve Francis has 8 or more assists. The team shoots 47.6% in those games. Translation:See Below <LI> The Rockets are 14-22 when Francis has 6 assists (his average) or less. The team shoots 41.5% in those games. Take it to 5 or less and the team is 8-18 (41.2% shooting). 4 or less puts the Rockets at 2-10 (40.3% shooting). I'll let you debate which is a result of which. Translation:My feeling is that Francis' assist count is less a function of his teammates making the shot off the pass but rather, Francis NOT being able to get easy buckets for his teammates. Even if the team, as a whole were shooting better, I don't think SF's assist totals would be demonstrably higher (perhaps this would account for the above stat, but overall, I don't think that its statistically significant). I think, SF will have his fair share of assist-attempts (call them AAs) for every game and that number is fairly constant. i.e. Steve's "passing" isn't as variable as people may think it to be. <LI> The Rockets are 16-4 when Yao Ming has 3 blocks or more (whoa). Translation:This stat I find telling... and I wonder if there is correlation here with the above EG block stat. Although there is no formal stat for "altered shots", I do believe that with more blocks, comes more "active" paint defenders. And with more active paint defenders, you have more "altered shots." Point being? When Yao is actively blocking people, odds are the Rox are having another good defensive showing. <LI> The Rockets are 2-5 when Yao shoots the ball 15 times or more - including 0-4 this month. In the losses, Yao is hitting just over 45% of his shots - the two wins have him over 60%. Translation:FGAs for the entire team is like a finite pie. Yes, this total FGA number varies from game to game, but obviously if one guy is shooting, another can't. When Yao shoots more, it usually means his teammates are shooting as much... which is usually a function of his teammates being COLD. Given the FGA's, though his FG% is down, Yao is STILL delivering. The problem however is that all too often, his teammates look to him only when they themselves are cold. <LI> If Francis has exactly 5 turnovers, the Rockets are 0-8. Strangely, if Francis commits 6 <i>or more</i> turnovers, the Rockets are 9-6. Translation:Addition would say that the Rox are 9-14 when Francis has 5 OR 6 turnovers. Bottom line: the turnovers are hurting us big time, Steve. And not all turnovers "are created the same." I've seen Steve get picked off his move, in traffic, or in the backcourt. 9 out of 10 times, these picks lead to easy buckets for the opposing team b/c their guards are already running down the other end for easy scores. Thanks Clutch for the Research. theSAGE
It's interesting you pointed out the assists in which when we have 23 or more a game, then we're perfect. Our record is slighly better with 12 to 17 assists (10-11) than with 18 to 23 assists (7-11). We're winless with less than 11 assists in a game. Some of the times though Francis does pass the ball to open shooters, they just can't knock down the shot sometimes. Does anybody have the record in when Steve has LESS than 4 turnovers a game?? Tomorrow's a big game against the Spurs. Let's hope they come out firing.
SageHare6, great post. Exactly what I wanted to say but your wordings were way better. I like to read your posts.
Thx carayip. I like reading your posts too. If my writing is making you "post-shy", don't let it. By all means, write, write, write... and run with it, that's what makes this board so great. theSAGE
So when Steve handles the ball we lose, but when he turns the ball over like a mad man we're .600 ball club and a legit title contender. And the stats show it. I don't know what to say about that.
Itys very difficult to judge Francis on his assists, or to blame the other Players for not making their shots. Francis is a poor passer most of the time, as most of his passes are after thaughts not passes to set up a play!
actually it's really easy to blame other players for missing their shots. you're in the nba, being paid millions of dollars, you get an open shot, make it, end of story. this their off balance stuff is a huge cop out. moochie, posey, hawkins, griffin, cato, tmo (except sorta this year), rice (him especially, he has wide open 3's at the top of the court all the time) are not good shooters. maybe once, twice a game a guy gets a pass where he was open and then put off balance. for the most part, the pass gets to the guy and he's open. if you miss it, that's all on you. i'm not expecting steve to get an assist for throwing it to a covered guy with 3 on the clock and no option but to force it. i do expect him to get one for wide open 3 pointers and jump shots. i don't care if he does a cartwheel with a pirouette before passing. if you're open and it gets to you in a reasonable manner, you have to make it, end of story. everything on this team isn't the guards' faults.
More Random Stats <LI> The Rockets are 8-5 when they play off two days rest. <LI> The Rockets are 8-8 when they play off one days rest. <LI> The Rockets are 4-8 when they play off zero days rest. <LI> The Rox are 13-5 when Rudy stands for over 23 minutes, not including time outs. <LI> The Rox are 10-4 when 'Clutch' the Bear vibrates for over 30 seconds in one appearance. <LI> The Rox are 0-2 when Steve Francis sports the full "leg" sleeve. <LI> The Rockets are 4-2 when Mooch lets his fro blossom for all the world to see. <LI> The Rox are 4-0 when the Rocket Power Dancers dance off-center, toward the VISITING team's bench. <LI> The Rox are 30-0 when they leave the court HAPPY instead of DEMURE. <LI> The Rox are 12-0 when Yao breaks out the XO at halftime. The numbers speak for themselves, folks. Can't refute the stats. mischievousSAGE
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here. It seems to me like you're contradicting yourself. If Francis' "AA"s are relatively constant, then how would his assist total not be a directly proportional to how well his teammates are shooting? ...Which is pretty much the consensus most of us were coming to I think. Why would he just some nights feel like or be able to set up teammates better, and not on other nights, on the same number of dishes? This doesn't make sense to me. Personally, I'd like to agree with you that Francis' assist numbers aren't completely dependent on how the team's shooting. I want it to be true, though, because the only way I could imagine it being true is with Francis on certain nights just passing more and looking for good opportunities to set-up teammates more than usual. In other words, I want to believe (and do believe) that he has the ability to score and involve teammates at the same time, but the way you're saying this would be possible doesn't add up to me. OK, I'm not sure if any of this made sense, but it's really late and I'm half asleep. So I'll read this tomorrow and see if I said at all what I meant to say, or if I just completely made an ass of myself. Too lazy to check right now.
Hahahahaha.... I was half asleep too when I wrote that last post, no doubt a little mentally incoherent. Anyways, to clarify on the matter (now that it's noontime ), what I tried to get at was that the "variance" on that assist statistic isn't as significant as we'd like to believe it to be. Assists are a function of two things: 1) good passes leading to easy scores 2) a score Attempted Assists are a function of one thing: 1) good passes for easy potential buckets The regular assist stat suffers from its requirement that your "pass to guy" actually scores. Obviously if the Rox, as a team isn't scoring much, the "assist" stat is a bit skewed on the downside -- on the account of the recipient of the pass not making the dunk, easy J, or layup. The (AA) or attempted assists, to me, are a better indicator, b/c it actually controls for the "effect" of these cause and effect routine. Who cares if the recipient scores of not... that's not something we can predict But passing IS something, as a team, we can do better and is w/in the team's abilities to always do better. Anecdotally, I find that Steve Francis is a better passer when he's having a better SHOOTING nite. Anyone who plays basketball might be able to attest to that theory. The logic is pretty simple. If you shoot well, you command quicker rotations and possibly double teams. If you command quick rotations and doubles, then you have someone open for an easy bucket. Make the pass, and you got yourself an easy assist. However, Francis seems to relish picking a "mode" per quarter and per game. He either is in super offensive point scoring mode, or passive, passing mode. Given the alley-oops, cutting angles, Yao dunks, and transition opportunities, I think anywhere from 2 to 3 assists is a GIVEN for a guard who plays over 30 minutes a game. Therefore, the truly meaningful stat is how many assists he has over and above this number. My belief is that, statistically, there is little variance to Steve Francis' AA numbers. I'll even hypothesisize that Steve's FGA's show a wider variance than his AA numbers. Unfortunately, I have no such AA numbers to offer you, but suffice it to say, I'm working off anecdotal evidence from what I've seen. theSAGE
This is so true! How many games have we seen where Francis gets 5 assists in the first quarter but finishes the game with seven or eight assists? I've noticed a huge difference in the way he and Cat have played in the first vs. second half of games. No matter how well passing the rock was working in the firsthalf, you could bet those two would go into rapid scoring mode in the second half.
On assists: I think looking at the number of assists per game is flawed. In games we win, there will most likely be more assists, because there will be more made baskets. I looked at the percentage of assisted field goals instead. It gives a slightly different picture. In victories, the Rockets assisted on 55.14% of baskets made. In losses, they assisted on 49.93% of field goals. I was surprised that this difference wasn't greater. If nothing else, it seems that passing isn't hugely significant in the difference between wins and losses (if you accept the premise that an assist count is a good measure of the amount of passing. Which is probably flawed).
it only tells us how important the Rox asts are on fg made. It's about 50% fgs that are created by asts. The other half is created by individual effort. That means if we make a lot of buskets, we will have high ast stat because half of points come from asts. Each ast will get at most 4 points (hitting 3 plus 1). Wins or losses are actually based on FG%. I checked the stats. When we have a higher FG% than the opponet, we won the game, only a couple of exceptions. On the other hand, we shoot poorly so we lose. Of couse, better defence makes the opponent's fg% low. As long as we win the battle of fg%, we win the game even we shoot ugly.
Assists and Fg% are correlated and both of them are correlated to how rockets move the ball.!!! How to pass the ball is the most basic problem.
