oh the hotzones...how could i forget... 36+% from 3, thats not too shabby. If he can hit his spot up shots, which he does a fairly good job at, then he is doing fine. Combined with his vision, passing and overall good/smart ball movement, he does more to help than hurt.
I thought it was pretty clear from last night's game that Francis doesn't fit in our new offensive scheme. He was not able to knock down open shots, he could not create for teammates (but did have a nice backdoor pass to Hayes), and he dribbles way too much, resulting in 4 other guys standing around. A few claimed that he would play differently and better with the starters. But I have noticed on several occassions that Francis have no idea what he needs to do when he doesn't have the ball (no picks, no cutting), and instead just camp near the 3 point line. However, he's one of the best one-on-one players we have, taking players off dribble and make off-balanced shots, and that can come handy at times. It just bothers me that 10 seconds of dribble is a prereq for Francis to make a shot.
it is very clear that Francis and James need to be brought on board. Coach 'A' needs to pay special attention to the fact that it is difficult for them to think like a playmaker point guard. Pass first is not in their vocab. Coach needs to go back to basics with these guys if we are going to get a serious team contribution out of them. We need them both, but as players within the system.
The problem with Steve is that he makes the offense stagnant. There is no flow. He needs the ball in his hands at all times to be effective and that's NOT what this new offense is all about. I don't think Steve is efective when T-Mac and Yao are out there. He disrupts the flow of the game and prevents his teamates of getting in any kind of rythm. Steve would be most effecient when he's playing in a half court / give me the ball and I will create type of set.
steve NEEDS THE BALL. tmac is not a standstill player. he's not a novak. what we want from players around tmac and yao are guys who can finish/make shots/and move around so the offense is not stagnant and the defense can focus on our 2 stars as easily. francis so far is not that guy. u want the ball in tmac's and yao's hands but they just don't have to expend much energy to create. the offensive movement creates for everything. that's the purpose of having adelman. u want tmac to become novak?
Hell no J. Will is a chucker if i've ever seen one... people think mike james is bad... hell J Will. makes Jamal Crawford look like Chauncey the amount of ridiculous shots he throws up!
but if u give steve the rein that he can handle the ball a lot, he'll NEVER adjust to being an off the ball player. it's fine for steve to do that if he's with our 2nd tier players b/c he can def. still create. but he's what i call a "ball-stopper". when the ball comes to him, it stops moving a lot of times.
Steve is talented enough to do wha tever coach ask him to do. Some of you still have your panties in bunches over him and I understand. He like many others on this team need time to ADJUST. You heard of that word before? This was once a player that averaged 22 6 and 6....you know how hard that is to do? Sure he has his faults....tell me one player on this team that is without fault. I'll wait.............................................................................................................. None. He can be that play making guard with the first unit that we all long for because he can control his urge to not look for his own shot. Mike James needs to come off the bench because that's what he's about (his own shot) and that's fine with me because that's what he is.....fire off the bench. Steve is still learning this new system and teammates which will take time. It's not fair to hang him out to dry yet. What worries me is that he still needs the ball to be at his best, but time will open things up. I'm a hopefull fan.
first of all if you watched the game last night, there were no times the rockets even got close to running out the shot clock, unless it was by design. secondly, as dismal a game as Yao had, one his shots, his first points came on a francis assist right under the basket, off a standard entry level post pass so this myth that he needs to dribble dribble dribble to create is just that. lastly, he's operating in the offense taking the same shots rafer and james take when he is playing with the starters. I find it amazing and beneificial that the guy actually changed his game during the game from playing with the starters to playing with the bench. rafer shoots 33% in the offense, and he's great, francis doesn't shoot well and he's the devil lastly
All these guys are just 'fillers' for now. At the end of the day it won't matter much, because AB is better than all of them combined...it's just a matter of time. Book - err - Brooks it... P.S.: and yes, Stevie is better than Rafer...how the f*k is there any doubt about that being the case? The only difference is Rafer has been here for a while and has good chemistry with the guys, while Stevie needs time to make things work. But if nothing else, Stevie is a strong guard that can bully his way in AND finish, and shoots the ball a little better than Rafer does on average.
i'm not talking about assists. steve got his assists. steve can create. i'm not talking about that. i'm talking he's only effective when he has the ball in his hands primarily on the perimeter. he has not shown he can cut. he has not shoot he can move in this offense. he has not shown he can catch and shoot (things that mike james can do). i have no doubt steve can still play and play w/ the best PGs. ZERO doubt. but again, u have to see how this offense is created for tmac and yao. it's FOR tmac and yao. i have ZERO doubt francis would destroy alston in a game of 1-on-1. it's not about that. if u want francis to do what he did last night, then it's FOR francis. u saw how james got 2 wide open layups last night from tmac b/c he simply cut. or how he simply got 2 open 3s from tmac b/c he is a great spot up shooter. if francis can do those 2 things, he's a PERFECT fit. again, francis needs the ball in his hands at the start of a possession to be effective for THAT possession. tmac is a much smarter player than francis. if we have tmac, we want the ball in his hands. the only thing we don't want is to run the pick and roll all the damn time to tire him out. as we've seen w/ adelman, tmac can still make great passes from standing at one spot b/c of all the movement. u really think francis is gonna see over the defense and make that perfect pass to james when he cut right to the basket last night? no.
As long as Steve still has his talents, I won't worry. Some posters are claiming that Steve doesn't fit in the system. Then, What is this 'sytem'? Something that born for only 20 days? Something that only got practiced in 4 preseason games? 'Deosn't fit in the system'. Well excuse me, are the rockets still in JVG's era? Steve is a talented player that the Rockets need. To get Steve involved is not only a problem for Steve himself, but also a problem for his coach and his teammates. All the team should try their best to solve it. And I believe they can solve it as the season goes on. At that time, the so called system may look different. BTW, some posters are worrying about Yao or some other players won't fit in the new system. The same thing here. We have a system only if most players can do better jobs in this system. And the rockets are still looking for that. So don't worry too much now.
Lets just put it this way, if steve only committed less than 10% of the team's freakin turn over, you are in for a blessing.
Its a good thing the NBA plays 82 games so these issues remaining can, hopefully, have time to resolve itself. It just seems like that we haven't really found a stable point guard rotation, and plus also the thing with the extra players. But as long as you have Tmac and Yao as the cornerstones, then things tend to work out from there. Its just Francis that I'm worried about. He'll probably be the third string point guard/ some backup SG , but I just feel that he hasn't really found his niche in our team scheme yet.
yes who wants that from their pg the only thing francis didn't do was hit his shots, if you saw yao here his first two seasons with rudy and francis, francis got a lot of points off cuts. cutting to the basket doesn't take a rocket scientist why wouldn't you want your best pg on the floor when the supposed better option can't knock down shots consistently (alston) francis only took over the game when he was playing with players with limited abilities, he did give novak an open shot to end the game I also saw james start, and therefore get more time with to make plays with TMAC again, all he needs to do is hit open shots again, even tmac has talked about how nice it is to have someone set up plays for him none issue
as proven last night, francis can only succeed when he's the man. do you think he'll have the ball for 20 seconds when tmac and yao are in? No. francis has a role now though, garbage time MVP
Steve Francis was terrible last night. His stat line looks just fine, but he didn't do anything until garbage time when he shared the floor with an all-star lineup of Hayes, Novak, Landry and Head. Aside from Lowry, the Grizzlies had their scrubs in and even then Francis was only playing okay - it was by no means fantastic. I'm just sayin', if Steve can't manage to look like his former All-Star self playing with scrubs and against scrubs, I'm not sure if I should be optimistic. I want to be. I want Steve to succeed and thrive here for both his good and the good of the Rockets, but damn, so far I'm disappointed.
