Lack of on-the-court leadership (discussion purposes)

With all of the talk lately about moving Francis (in part because of his Super Bowl shenanigans), I came to a realization why this team plays so inconsistently. My conclusions, we have no on-the-court leadership.

Not Francis, not Yao, not Jackson (neither of them), not Mobley, et cetra has the ability (at this point in time) to lead this team in to a successful playoff birth. Do we have the talent? Sure we have the talent but we are missing the key ingredient all the other just-as-talented, playoff-bound teams have: on-the-court leadership.

I define on-the-court leadership not as a player who is the most talented but as a player who knows when to make the open pass, knows when to defer to his teammates, knows how to manage the shock clock, can hit the open jumper when one is vitally necessary (not every time of course but more often than not), knows how to play the game mentally and gets under the skin of the opposition. Essentially, a leader knows how to play basketball as if it were a chess match. Yup, a basic and simple chess game.

And what does chess have to do with basketball? Chess is raw intelligence and intelligence is something the current on-the-court leaders do not show in their play. An all-star chess player plays the game with vision, can anticipate moves but the opposition, can counter move and stays calm under pressure. This intelligence is what is missing from the current set of Rockets on-the-court leaders.

My solution, get these guys playing chess and help them understand the correlations to the game, or at least when looking for possible trade alternatives, consider the fact our priority should be more on-the-court leadership./intelligence. At this point, I would much prefer intelligence over talent for this team; we have enough talent, we just need a leader.

***By the way, as much as I am a fan of building teams around big men, the 5 position leaders are typically moral leaders like Hakeem, Shaq, Duncan etc. On-court-leadership/intelligence is most important for the players who handle the ball the most (i.e., the 1 or 2 positions).

What do you guys think?

 

IROC it,

Thanks for pointing out that typo. I meant morale leaders, specifically, guys who command repsect from their teammates.


topfive,

Thanks for the compliment.


To all,

I guess you don't really understand my point. Thanks for trying, though. Maybe next time you guys might understand my chess analogy. But then again this is the Clutchfans BBS which seems to have few posters who add value to most discussions. Gone are the productive 1997-98 days.