AMEN, BROTHER!!!! Anyone who says Stevie should get some minutes automatically gets jumped on as if you're sayin 'he's allstar caliber and should start every game, regardless of anything to come.' I don't think Stevie is the mesiah or anything, but with Raefer Alston's lack of shooting ability, I think we gotta play with the pg rotation - and probably should continue to do so throughout the season. None of our PGs are Steve Nash level (but who is), but if we play to the hot hand on any given night, it may not be such a glaring deficiency. The first step toward establishing this flexibility is getting everyone (SF, LH, AB, and yes even RA - consistantly floor time within a rotation.
After watching 20+ minutes of Steve last night, the answer is clear to me. Assuming an 8-9 man rotation... Starting 5: Francis McGrady Battier Scola Yao Alston James Wells Hayes James and Wells are most useful as scoring punches off the bench. If Alston is struggling on any given night, Brooks should replace him. If James and/or Bonzi are stuggling on any given night, Snyder and/or Head should replace one or both of them. Mutombo sees the court when both Yao and Scola are in foul trouble. Finally, as much as I love Hayes' heart, hustle, determination, etc..., I think the Rockets need to move a player or two (Head, Snyder, Landry) for another true PF by the trade deadline. That is assuming that Scola continues to improve and becomes are starting PF. The bottom line is that we need more size out of our frontcourt reserves. End
LOL, you are basing it off of 1 game where he hasn't played the 10 other games??? Naive people like you makes analyzing basketball a travesty. Please, if you think Rafer can shoot better than Francis, you must not be watching rockets basketball. Rafer had 1 or 2 decent shooting nights out of 10 GAMES. Francis had 1 off shooting night for the first time playing... Check Francis' career average FG before you run your mouth.
If that is your basketball logic, then we might as well put Novak in over Head. Novak is an even better shooter and is 6'10". Both of them are bad defenders so if 3pt shooting is the only factor that determines playing time, Novak should take Head's minutes.
Head has shown the ability to penetrate, and I just cant see Novak running the rub hand offs with Yao or Scola as effectively as Head does.
Francis career avg FG means he is better at finishing around the rim than Rafer. Guessing that since the A:TO ratio isnt that big a difference between them that Rafer's ability to run the show > Steves ability to finish at the rim. At least up to this point in the season.
Francis looked ok.. but his need to make the fancy/big play was hurting us. He was playing the passing lanes too hard, he was pressing when he shouldn't have been on someone else's man, etc.. tried to make some big plays, but the gambles just turned into "Help! My man is open!" and then buckets for the Suns. His passing was ok--not great, not bad. Played controlled, but his inability to shoot it will just let teams sag like they do on rafer. The one time he took it hard to the rack, he made his decision really early and was VERy close to a charge. Def. still liked him being aggressive there though..
That wasn't my point. Read further up to get my point. I don't think Head or Novak should be in the rotation.
Francis is a fine passer. Obviously, not as good as Alston. Francis is a very good scorer. Obviously, far better than Alston. The point is that if you compare Francis' strengths and weaknesses to Alston's strengths and weaknesses, Francis comes out on top. This is especially true with the makeup of this team. Having Alston, Battier and Hayes in the starting lineup kills our overall offense. Those 3 guys can not create their own shots and do not demand much attention from the defense. Replacing Alston with Francis in the starting 5 changes everything. We now have 3 capable scorers. This will make life easier for Yao and McGrady, without a doubt. Alston is best suited on this team to play 15-20 minutes as a backup to Francis. Having Alston play most of his minutes along side James makes the most sense to me. James has a tendency to forget about the rest of the team when he is the primary ballhandler. Let James be the SG that he is and have Alston maintain the flow of the offense for the 2nd unit.
Fist of all it was his first game of the season.His shooting will be better than rafer becasue he knows how to make big shots and eventually with playing time he will be more effcient than rafer. The difference with steve is the respect that he get's from his opponents. Rick should know that his offense can be much better with steve in the lineup instead of rafer alston.
we were 6-1 and everybody said why fix if it ain't broke well look at where we are at now 6-7 omgosh we should've fixed before we break. It's time for somebody who will do anything to win bring this guy in.
I don't know how Rafer even comes close to Steve.... the myths of Steve being SO depleted are garbage! It's obvious Marbury was always made a starter because of ego reasons and Francis was never utilized on a heavy shooting first/pass (maybe 6th option) guard rotation with Crawford, Q-Rich and co. Francis put up his best numbers in Orlando infact.... so his game was only getting better. Maybe he turned upto camp out of shape... not really picking up RA's system... but come on... who HAS picked up this garbage system of his? I honestly think the technical in training had alot to do with RA hating Francis and keeping him on the bench. Why the tech... we don't know... I have had the feeling that T-Mac and Francis haven't hit it off well and RA has picked the obvious choice of T-Mac over Francis. Could this be the case!? Surely you don't let the team's record drop to 6-7 because u wanna stick with a guy shooting 30% or lower. What the problem is!?!?!?!
LMFAO, lots of people said the whole "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." theory. Now, I wonder what they are saying.
Another consistent performance from Rafer (1/6 FG and 3 points). When is it time ? ................TO BENCH RAFER. Game in November count the same as game play in April as far as the standing, home court advantage and seeding for the playoff. But again the way we are playing now seeding for the lottery might be more important. It's still early but we finished 1/6 of the season with 6 games losing streak, and the coach still stubborn with his rotation. We saw what Alston can do for over 2 seasons already. It's time to turn this around and it should start at the top- the coach. It's time to see what Brooks and Francis can do and if they fail , we need to find another PG before the season will go to waste.
