I don't really care about the number of assists. If Francis can dish out six assists while scoring 22 points a game that is impressive to me. With this team, Steve's assists numbers are never going to be that high, and I don't think that's a problem. The problem arises when he takes stupid shots or turns over the ball rather than passing to a teammate. And in fairness, Steve doesn't take that many stupid shots, but they could get even better looks if they passed the ball around.
Why is that pathetic? Kobe is the best player in the league and at that time was probably dominating the ball about twice as much as Francis. On the Lakers, if the ball wasn't in Kobe's hands, it was in the hands of someone who was shooting. What's pathetic are the 4.19 turnovers per game...not the assist numbers. I don't really think that having good shooters has that much of an effect on assists. I think it has more to do with the number of players on a team who can create shots on their own and/or the number of playmakers on the team. But still, I have to refute your point. 1.) Williams and Bullard were role players who barely played 20 minutes a game. 2.) Rice, Williams, and Bullard had injuries and missed a lot of games. 3.) Rice sucks now.
I am sorry to tell you this Mr Wizkid but the fact that you take All Star Game numbers serious makes your point pointless - mute. Common men did you even watch the game?
Mr. Fengwu, what impressed me was the game instead of the stats. Though it was only an all-star game what I noticed was that he was more trusting of his teamates, not forcing anything, playing within the flow of offense.
With regards to Kidd: if you ever see Jefferson or Martin dribble the ball around the three point line for 12 seconds let me know. Those guys cut to the basket and actually get open. Payton has a few jump shooters on his team and guys that go to the basket without the ball.
Its knowing when and where to deliver the ball. Its knowing who likes the ball where. When to get this guy a good shot.Classic example. 4 on 1 fast break and instead of giving it to Posey for the dunk, he shot a high arcing difficult fingeroll. This was a play that the worst pg would have made. Another example is when he and ming ran the pnr, Ming was open for an easy dunk, instead Francis dribble the ball 2 extra times and tried to throw the ball over his shoulder resulting in a to. Those are instincts that are basic and any pg should make. but for some reason, mostly on the road, Francis doesn't make them. His low asst high to ratio is because he doesn't have good instincts.
