Yes, I rememeber those passes. This shows that he's trying. But all this is *new* to him. By the way, don't put too much importance on the missed shots. Some times they are missed because his teammate get the ball while being well covered. Other times, they just miss open shots. But, after they miss, Steve wont pass them the ball anymore. He'll try to "take over the game." That's not trust. He's has to keep at it. Don't give up on his teammates.
Ok, that's a bit different than what you said. To a point, I agree. Like someone said, Steve's practically been the team the last couple of years. He is new to this, like you said. I feel he will pick up on passing to his teammates, especially after we do get healthy and we do knock down the shots. As for taking over games, right now I'm leaning towards him doing just that. (by a little, btw.) Right now, he will probably get the best shot available. Last night, the zone by the Sonics really hurt the offense so we weren't getting the easy shots. I know Steve really distributed well in the 1st half. If he could just distrubute for 2-3 qtrs, while getting some shots to keep the defense honest, I would have no problem with him taking it over in the end. JMO's. (gosh, I use that a lot.) edit: I think I saw Glen and Hawkins miss a couple of shots while not being covered. I know Eddie was pretty much open but bobbled the ball. Of course, once he did that it was too late. Also, hesitating also is pretty bad. I think many players on the team do this. The best case scenario was in the TOR game. Steve drove a little in with Yao not very far from him. He got all the D towards him and he faked a shot and passed to Yao for an open shot. Yao was wide open, but he looked to pass, hesitated, but then tried to shoot. Too late, defensed recovered. From what I noticed, EG and Kenny do this. I think.
Yeah, I saw the bobbled ball by EG. When it happened I yelled, "That was an awesome play! We need more of that!!!" Even though EG bobbled the pass by Francis. But, then we just saw more ISOs. NO!!! Keep the ball motion going! Don't stop it just because of one bobbled pass. Keep it going! That's how your teammates will learn. Then, there will be less and less bobbled passes.
But Payton had 18. 9 assists is considered high, but you can't deny that he could have more if it weren't for all the pounding of the ball he does. Themocitydon, you made an interesting point about Moochie starting and Mobley coming off the bench. That's intriguing, but I can see Mobley complaining a lot. Look for a lot of expirementing again from Rudy if this season continues in a downward spiral.
isnt this the same problem people had with kobe a couple of years ago and him and shaq were not getting along, we'll francis is just getting to that point of his game were people are going to lable him as a ballhog, you people dont no good basketball when u see it.
david s makes me happy to have an ignore list.... we could be winning game7 of the finals, stevie could have 30, 7, & 9 and david s would still be talkin trash about franchise. i do agree wholeheartedly with the theme of this post, stevie is real young, and he is awsome, wait till he really understands the game, then he will have MANY payton/kidd/ai nights!! i love it!!
Heh heh...there will be NO game7 without defense. By the way, get used to that "ignore list." Because I'm far from the worst "basher." Basher = not homer
And that is the biggest problem with SF and CAT. Watching the SAC. game tonight I saw and heard Rick Adelman(sp) tell his players during a timeout to trust one another and be paitent. That is what we need game in and game out. It took sometime for Dream to trust the CBA guys that Rudy put around him but he eventally did and the rest is history. Do you think Dream trusted Maloney at first to pass to him from the double team? Dream didn't win much until he trusted in others. Trust, maybe the key to improve the offence.
Who gives a f*** how many assists Payton had. Steve doesn't have the luxury of playing against the Rockets defense, or having teammates who can shot.
Stevie Franchise is shooting over 50% from the field, leading our team by far. Would you rather Stevie pass the ball and have the shot have a 40% chance of falling or having the shot have a 50% chance of going in? Some players shoot better than others. It just so happens Stevie is in the point guard position. He is 14th in the league in assists, which is respectable. Like someone said he has a lot of turnovers because he touches the ball as much as anyone in the league. Also, please do not mention the Cat and Stevie in the same breath when talking about selfish play. At least Stevie tries to get something started and will use a screen to take an open jumper. He has not been forcing bad shots at all this year. The Cat plays Iso and shoots very tough fallaway jumpers without considering passing the ball.
So one day francis will talk a lot of trash, beat his wife, and terrorize people with a gun and take a bunch of bad shots? God I hope he doesn't have many payton/kiss/ai nights then.
In this latest example of why Steve is doing great you say it is better to let Steve take the shot since he is shooting 50%. With this type of thinking, Steve would have to shoot all of the FG attempts and we might win. The days of Wilt scoring 100pts. Is gone. I am not saying it is Steve's fault but he has taken on too much of the burden and trying to win it on his own, which can not be done. And I have nothing to say about the silly shots that CAT makes. I think CAT got his nickname from the notion that a Cat will do whatever it wants whenever it wants. I won't go into why Steve's is WINK
Some people seem to think that if we call Francis a shooting guard, his "passing" problem will somehow go away. As if, if you are a SG, you are exempt from passing. A team offense requires a team of players who are committed to team basketball, not just the PG. Look at Iverson. He is a SG, but he is still a ballhog. Ditto Kobe a couple of years ago. Hakeem was a center. At one point in the late 80s, he demanded the ball so much that his point guards panicked on the floor. It really doesn't matter what position you play. If you don't play team ball, you bog the team concept down, especially when you are the best player on the team. That said, I still am not convinced that the Rockets' lack of team coherence is only Francis problem. I hate to say it, I think Rudy should bare more of the responsibility than Francis in terms of getting the team to play like a team.
I think too much is being made about Francis' assist numbers. I don't see a correlation between a point guard with high assist numbers and NBA championships. Here's the assist leaders for the last 12 NBA champions: 2002 LA Kobe 5.5 ast/game 2001 LA Kobe 5.0 ast/game 2000 LA Kobe 4.9 ast/game 1999 SA A.Johnson 7.4 ast/game 1998 Chi Jordan 5.8 ast/game 1997 Chi Pippen 5.7 ast/game 1996 Chi Pippen 5.9 ast/game 1995 Hou Cassell 4.9 ast/game 1994 Hou Maxwell 5.1 ast/game 1993 Chi Pippen 6.3 ast/game 1992 Chi Pippen 7.0 ast/game 1991 Chi Pippen 6.2 ast/game Those numbers seem to be right about in line with Francis' career assist totals. Interestingly, only twice in the last 12 years, has the NBA Champion's assist leader been a point guard. We've got lots of places where we need to improve, but Francis is pretty far down the list. We'd have to be a heck of alot better in order to be in a position to complain about a guy that's averaging 30pts, 10 reb, 5.8 ast while shooting .506 from the floor and .440 from the 3pt line. If that's our biggest problem, then we've obviously become an NBA dynasty.
Of the above people, only Cassell andJohnson are PGs. All the others are either the best or second best player of the team but not a PG. I think Francis got bashed b/c he is a PG AND the best player on the team.
