Nash is better then S Fancy, or Cutturnover Mobley

I think that our record with Francis speaks for itself. With him, the Rockets are respectable. Without him, they're horrific.

Steve makes mistakes. I agree. In fact, I'll even agree that he hasn't shown much improvement with his floor management skills. But to dismiss the progression of his overall game is foolish.

Specifically, his mid-range game is much better than when he first came into the league. I remember his rookie year... his bread and butter seemed to be driving to the hoop... and 3 pointers. Now, he's makes lots of shots from about 15 feet... and he's become excellent in creating space. Mobley shoots too much with a hand in his face: Francis doesn't have to as often, because he can use his ball control to force the defender off.

If your post merely claimed "Steve Nash involves his teammates better than Francis," I might agree. But Francis is an invaluable member of the Rockets, and is the type of player that can single-handedly change the dynamic of a game. Nash is a nice player who's capable of getting the ball to his teammates. Replace Francis with Nash, and he'd be a fish out of water. A good pure point without a system and nobody to pass to.

Nash vs Mobley is more interesting. Mobley is certainly the better scorer... but you're definitely right in that Nash is the smarter player of the two. And I do think we need a floor manager to compiment Francis. I think it's a wash in terms of value, personally.

Incidentally, I wouldn't rank Nash as second best distributor in the game. Despite his occasional seflishness, I'd place Marbury above him. Maybe Andre Miller as well, though he's harder to judge because his team is putrid and consists almost entirely of jump shooters. Mike Bibby, Gary Payton, NVE, Terrell Brandon, and Sam Cassell are all equal, or better than Nash at creating for teammates, imo.


BTW, good point, TheFreak.

 

But what about TheFreak's point? Nash *was* pretty terrible at the same stage in his career. It wasn't really until last year that he became valuable.

 

I have to disagree with that. Francis, doesn't turn the ball over near as much, makes smarter decisions, and he does make the whole team better when he plays.

I'll agree he needs to play way more defense, and still needs to have the time to work with his teammates more consistantly to develop his passing game. But Steve has improved greatly over last year.

I also have to agree with the people who pointed out that Nash only recently emerged recently as a topnotch pg.

Maybe Rudy's system is wrong and doesn't encourage the passing it should, but there is another way to look at it. His plays seem to focus on Cat or Steve beating their man, or using them to score. They are the best players on the team, and that system could be seen as just playing to the teams strengths.

As Eddie develops, obviously that should change, and maybe it change anyway, but the logic of running those plays isn't as bad as some are making it out to be.

Also a note in general. I know it's frustrating to be losing all the time like this, and I'm frustrated too, but I think a lot of the fans seem to be letting their frustration get to them. Not everything is the fault of injuries, but there have been an insane amount of injuries which does play a part. I think so many people are overreacting by claiming Francis, Mobely, Rudy, KT, or whoever else sucks, and should be traded or gotten rid of. Those rash acts could come back to haunt us, if they were actually carried out.

 

Nash is better then Francis and Mobley? Right. People are officially losing their minds. Come on you act like Nash has been some major star for years. This is his first true break out year. Even last year he was good, but not nearly as explosive as he is now. And he has a pretty good supporting cast. You give Francis and Mobley, Dirk and Finley and they'll look like smart players who are better then everybody else. Instead they're stuck with only having Griffin as a consistent weapon. Not exactly the Dallas Mavericks supporting cast.

 

But its almost as if you werent even watching the game last night. During a large chunk of the 4th quarter the Mavs were in and out of zone defense. Why? Because Rudy went small (Moochie, Francis, Mobley) whereas the mavs went big. So the Mavs used a zone on defense, and posted up Nowitzki a lot on offense. We actually attacked that zone extremely well. Granted, at times it was to collegeish for me, moving the ball around the perimeter so much. But I can recall at least 3 times within a two minutes span that they were running the zone and somebody got by their area defender and Kelvin Cato was wide open. Cato never finished, but he was fouled at least two of the times. Eventually, the Mavs went out of the zone. Plus, passing out to an open man on the three point line once youve penetrated a zone can still be very hard, precisely because the perimeter defenders are guarding the area, not the man.

Seriously, this is a team that hasnt had a consistent starting lineup the whole season. Francis has missed 18 games, and lately its been of the on/off variety, which may be even more frustrating. When we won our championship, we had the exact same starting lineup for, I'm guessing here, 85% of the games. The biggest issue the first year was whether or not Sam Cassel should have gotten more minutes. It was like Utopia compared to the issues this current team has to deal with. And you expect them to have any kind of chemistry? You expect them to play with the consistency of a Mavs team which has more talent and fewer issues to deal with.

Do they do stupid things...yes. But, lost in Nash's 31 points, 10 assist game last night was the fact that he had 5 turnovers. GASP! That's one more than Steve had. Yet, Francis was the one driving the lane all night and throwing wild passes to the other team. I mean, c'mon. It is plain and simple: The Mavs have more talent than we do. The Mavs have more consistency than we do. They ARE a better team. The fact taht it was a 2 point game with 1 minute left, and that the last time we played them we had three different starters and beat them by 40 is amazing enough to me.

 

I agree with a lot of what you say, Jay. Let's not just throw in the towel on all of our personell, coaches, and system just yet.

Last year the team achieved more than most would've thought possible, and they started off this year very well. It's not just coincidence that when the injuries piled up so did the losses.

I find myself saying this over and over, but while the team does need to improve, Jay is right, you can't expect the team to develop trust, chemistry, floor spacing, and movement(all of which lead to less 'selfish play', and more passing) when the line-up is so inconsistent. Give the team to time to learn and grow together.

Could Rudy work more on ball movement? Should Cat pass the ball more? Should Moochie dribble less? Would it be better for the team as a whole if Steve was more of a floor general?

The answer to the above is probably yes, but I think those are just the symptoms, and at the root of it all is a young team, which is still learning, and, due to injuries, a lack of chemistry that keeps them from working TOGETHER in a way that they should.

Let's face it, Last year, and the start of this year, when all the pieces were there, the team was playing better, showed improvement, and things were developing nicely. With the losses I think people are micro-analyzing the whole problem, and passing blame at nearly everyone. But the simple fact remains that when the team was mostly healthy, they were winning, and when the injuries piled up they were losing.

 

I'd rather have the better player, I don't care who the better "point guard" is. Titles and positions don't win games, players do.

 

Didn't we have a discussion about this at Aussies??

 

I can agree with that. Moochie, while he tends to dribble around the extending defenses too much for my tastes, does a better job of passing the ball. I understand where you're coming from Dakota.

 

What really gets me and I think everyone has valid points is that when we get a switch little man on big man, our guards would rather waive Eddie or Morris out the post instead of passing them the ball. I don't car what anyone says, if we screen and roll, and nash is on eddie, pass the ball low. all he has to do is turn and go up. I've seen it a million times where they would just dribble and dribble and wind up shooting a 20ft jumper. Isn't a 10ft uncontested shot better than 20ft shooting over a larger man?

 

History has shown that if you not over 6'6 [or at least tall for
your position]
DaDakota really don't have much for ya

Nash is good . . . .
I think Steve is better.

How much does Dallas depend on Nash?

Rocket River

 

Exactly....excellent point, leebigez.

This has been one nightmare of a season, but the Rockets could have won probably 4 or 5 more games if they knew how to play fundamental basketball. Having a mismatch like Griffin on Nash and not utilizing it is not playing good, smart fundamental basketball.

I agree that Francis is the better player than Nash, physically...but mentally, it ain't even close...Nash runs circles over Francis and Mobley (although doesn't everyone run circles over Mobley)?

 

1st off its not fair to compare nash's assist total to steves-number one steve is his teams number one scorer thus he doesnt pass as much-nash is dallas's 3rd or 4th option thus he gets to be the distributor

here are steve nash's numbers last year so he had a 7.3/2.93 assist to to ratio

Steve Nash 70 70 34.1 .487 .406 .895 .70 2.50 3.20 7.3 1.03 .07 2.93 2.30 15.6

2.49 is his ratio,this yr its 2.83, 2 is avg for a pg even slightly below so this isnt that impressive, yes its better than steve but they're different players with diff roles like i mentioned above

also factor in nash has better help than steve as weve mentioned many times his teammates missed a lot of shots at assists for him so who would you take? Me, i take steve francis, just because this year has been horrible doesn't mean i lost sight of the brightness of our future if taylor is fully healthy next year and rashard may want to play for us. Da Dakota, you're familiar with baseball, remember the 2000 astros season where they had some of the worst luck with injuries and one run games i have ever seen-this rockets team is quite comparable. Weve missed about 19 steve game, mobley we believe is playing on two hurt ankles-but ill leave that out as im not positive, taylor went down with an achilles injury, kt has been out a few games, hell when oscar did well he got an ankle sprain

I think also in baseball you have depth to replace a biggio type, in basketball you dont so the effects are greater.

Overall, steve francis is awesome and one of the top 10-20 players in the nba and is a much better player than steve nash

 

Not last night. And players don't win games teams do. Very good players working together in unison will almost always beet a team full of great players not playing like a team.

 

Stevie is a better player and has more potential but...

Nash is a better PG and he makes his teammates better.

You can say Nash is on a better team, but guess what Nash is a major reason why they are a better team than us.

No I wouldn't trade Stevie for Nash outright, but Nash plays the game I wish Stevie did. He plays hard and he plays to win. He doesn't play for hi-lites.

 

Um, Vernon and Cassell (when he was with us) were not known for their ball movement. Kenny Smith wasn't a pass first, traditional playmaking--set up the team PG either.

Francis has not been Francis this year--I personally am throwing out this years stats as far as determining if Steve is progressing as a PG. With the front court injuries, and his own injuries, it just hasn't been the same him. I will admit if by late this season or early next season he hasn't started to dominate again I will be disturbed, but not until then.

As for Mobley, he has kept the Rockets competitive in more games than anyone else has. In the current situation where he has been the only regular scorerer, for me it is hard to judge where he is at as a total player. If he were jacking up shots and ignoring good consistent shooters that are wide open then I might think otherwise, but haven't seen much of that.

After considerable thought, I do agree with the poster that I would trade Moochie for Nash--the latter would make a better back-up point guard. But no way would I trade Francis for Nash (unless the former has migranes another 12 months plus picks up a couple DUIs and then I'll talk about it), and it is a much more difficult decision on whether I would trade Mobley for Nash (I probably would, but Dallas has a SG so they wouldn't consider it).

I still prefer to blame our current fate on the fact we have a collective greener and/or less talented front court relative to anyone we face on a given night more so than our overall guard play.