Luther seemed like a potentially clutch player, and I would have said the same exact thing BEFORE the most recent playoff choke. Watching Luther never come out of his Utah series slump was extremely dissappointing. I kept thinking any quarter now he would go off for 20 points, but it never happened. Anyway, if you can't be productive against the best competition, then the rest of the games don't mean much. On a strategic note, next year's Rockets won't shoot as many 3's and we won't need spot up shooters as much. Ballhandling, passing, and mid range game will all become more important. For spot up 3's, we have James, Battier, maybe Brooks, and Novak if he plays. McGrady and Francis aren't the best, but they can also sink'em when needed.
ARE YOU PEOPLE CRAZY OR SOMETHING? WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU BE PUTTING FRANCIS AGAINST TMAC WHAT IS THE PURPOSE? BE HAPPY ABOUT THE FRANCHISE OR GO HANG YOURSELF, OR BETTER YET GO ROOT FOR THE BORING CHEATING BRUCE BOWEN INFESTED SPURS, OR STILL BETTER YET GO ROOT FOR IRK NOWITSKI BECAUSE HE HAS NO D (stole that line from someone in another forum) Francis T-MAC Battier Scola Yao Wells James Hayes Head Brooks Butler Novak Deke Forward accuired from alston, lucas, synder deal (possibly wayne smien from miami) Carl Landry And we have the rockets team that will beat the spurs in six in the second round of the 2007-2008 playoffs JUST REMEMBER YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!!!
See Tony Parker's efficiency during the Spurs 1st and 2nd championship. He was terrible from behind the arc, Rafer-ish inside of it and pitiful from the charity stripe. He improved remarkably in all these areas over the last 2 seasons. Every championship team throughout NBA history has been unique. By no means has every one of those teams had a complete PG or a capable and efficient scoring PG (see a number of the Bulls lineups during their dynasty). I still see Rafer as a keeper for next season.
There's so much good mojo around this thing ... Even I was iffy about the whole deal when talk about Francis started to come up, but once I heard the news this afternoon I just couldn't help it ... I felt so elated. This is the most feel-good thing to happen to the Rockets in a long, long time. There's something so special about this offseason ... Lord help me when November comes around, I'm going to be so hopelessly addicted to Rockets basketball, I wonder how I'm going to keep up with work and school. Call me the eternal optimist, but man, I feel so good.
This is an example of a person without any basketball IQ at all. The reason Francis dribbled the ball is that Rudy-T told him to Iso and then score however he could. True Rudy-Ball was Iso for Barkley, Iso for Clyde, Iso for Mobley. How many times you watch Barkley iso on his man and use his big fat butt while he dribbled backwards? By conventional means, a big man like Barkley should not handle the rock so much. Fast forward. 2007 New day, New system. Francis is going to be required to move without the ball. He's going to be coming off screens and he'll be passing the ball off. Lots of ball movement and lots of player movement. How in the world is Francis going to dribble the cover off the ball in this scheme? Rudy-Ball yes....RA ball no. He'll do whatever it takes to win.
Cool pic. Thanks to the old jerseys and font, it's like looking at the cover of an old rap album or something.
wow a runaway train-thread....... Welcome back SF, I just thought how cool it would be if this happened.........and omg........lets get going......is it oct./nov. yet
Wouldn't he be sooo pissed if we traded Francis a day after he signed to Toronto for a forward? I don't have a forward in mind, but he would be pissssed.
He's not blaming Rudy. He's correct, that was basically our offense. Rudy favored the ISO/freelance style of ball. There were reports that said he was known to "let the prisoners run the asylum". Give the ball to our guard and let him break down the defense. It wasn't just Francis, but Mobley and Moochie also.
Should we pencil in Gay to come back to us in a few years... traded Stevie Franchise....get him back... traded James away....get him back... traded Gay away....??????? Stevie was a former 3 time all-star and could cross over his defender like no one else and get to the rim at will. Stevie >>>>>Rafer any day.
I think Brooks is very special, as do many others, after his summer league performance. If the coaching staff was sure that Brooks could replace Alston's strengths from day one (low turnovers and the ability to create for others), or that we dont need a true PG in the Coach A system, then Rafer's value would be greatly diminished and we could look to trade him, immediatley. It is too early to draw these conclusions. Although Sacramento was succesful with a less-than-phenomenal passing PG in Mike Bibby, there were bonafide passers surrounding him in Divac, Webber and later, Brad Miller. I hear Scola is a good passer and we have seen, at times, over the last few years that Yao is a capable enough passer with pretty good vision for his position. We know that McGrady is a great facilitator but, ideally, we don't actually want him to be that great since he is ultimately a greater scorer and a better asset to us as such. Bibby was a good fit in Sacramento but he was just one of many pieces on a totally different team. The Rockets are not the Kings and, therefore, we can not yet assume that they are best served to rely solely upon a score-first PG. We need evidence of this, in my mind, before we deal Alston. We need to see more of Brooks and how he develops under real pressure as well as how the current set of players fit within the Adelman system. Maybe we don't need a true PG. On the other hand, maybe we do and since this question won't be answered any time soon, I think it would be wise to keep Rafer as a sure-fire ball-handler/distributor. If we approach midseason and a couple of the other guys (Brooks/James/Francis) prove to be our best 1st and 2nd options at handling point guard duties, then we could look to trade Alston. Plus, there would be the added advantage that after a few months of playing together, Morey and the coaching staff would have a more clear view of team weaknesses. They could, potentially, use an Alson trade much more effectively to return an asset that will add value to a playoff run. Morey has acknowledged that his goal, going forward, is to make smaller changes/upgrades that will help us in the postseason. Waiting to trade Alston will serve this purpose moreso down the line than right now. We have already made significant changes to the roster without even having all of these guys together in the same room. We have, obviously, upgraded at PF and at both guard spots on paper but now we need to check out the chemistry. In addition to his ball-handling and play-making abilities, Alston provides us with some real continuity from last season while we see how all these off-season changes come together. Having the most talented set of individuals doesn't always mean you have the best team. You need glue players and lesser egos to complement the bigger-egoed superstars. Alston is one of those types and we have plenty of the others now. So, I still say Alston is a keeper, for now, unless we are able to trade him for another true, veteran PG. This is becoming increasingly unlikely to happen since guys like Fisher and Atkins have already signed elsewhere leaving the remaining pool of veteran PGs pretty dry.
Thank you Rafer, Head, Snyder, Deke, and Chuck. We've enjoyed your contributions and appreciated your hard work. Feel free to keep a home in Houston.
Mike James is imploding as I write. He was looking to get minutes at the 2 guard behind Tmac. That's gone now.
BrooksBall good points again. i think that's a fair assessment of rafer and what the rockets may do. i'm not anti-rafer but i'm not anti-trading him either. i'm just not familiar enough with adelman to determine if he's expendable, when rafer has shown at least the ability to run an offense and take care of the ball. if we do trade him in the next couple months i think that would be a clear statement about brooks role on this team.
Look at our roster, all of our players are likely to win the game rather than their personal stats. They all hunger for rings.. Do hope the efficientcy of shooting is increasing so the personal poins will not drop drastically. There is only good thing will happen with stevie coming home.. Our bench even already a contender to the easter conference
