Francis looks back, builds on early lessons in leadership I didn't see this posted.. so here goes... Stuart
You know, these people in Orlando are damn near obsessed with Francis shoving Amare. While I admire Stevie for sticking up for Yao and his other teammates, they need to let this one go. It's like Orlando is holding this one episode up as a beacon of light for the future of their entire franchise. I think Stevie is a great, but flawed, leader and will have the fans of Orlando in love with him for a season or two. Eventually, they will see the same things that most of the fans here saw: Stevie is an exciting player that can win and lose games for you, but never carry your team to an NBA title. I hope Cat, Steve, and Cato all do well as members of the Magic. I wouldn't mind beating them a few times in the finals! I hope Francis can return to his old form with the free reign he'll have in Disneyworld....but these people should just stop talking about how great it was that he shoved Stoudemire.
in alll fairness to Cat and Cat-o - I have said many times that the Magic ownership and management is terrible (remember the GM's behavior during the T-mac deal). THat franchise has lost Shaq and T-mac ... and should lose Francis in a couple of years (hopefully). I guarantee that when (not if) Cat leaves, the GM will leak to the press what a bad locker-room presence (or bad shooter) he was and how they are glad to get rid of him.
It amazes me that now Rocket fans want to label this the worst franchise in the league. They lost Shaq because he wanted to be in L.A. and he didn’t give them notice, he just left them high and dry. As much as I criticize McGrady for bailing on them, at least he told them a season early, and they made a trade so they wouldn’t get left holding nothing again. They probably made history for expansion teams and the time it took to reach the Finals. They thought they had Grant Hill coming off his best season but he got hurt. No one can predict that, and anyone would have wanted him at the time. And lastly, this is a different management team from all the so-called blunder years.
Just to be accurate on this point, Hill broke his ankle in the 2000 playoffs while still with the Pistons. He signed with Orlando the following offseason and was still on crutches at the time. Orlando knew perfectly well that Hill was injured, they just underestimated the extent of the injury.
Damn man, we have someone say this every time a Francis post gets made in here. The description for the section says that you can even talk about ex-Rocket Tracy Murray...you can talk about ex-Rockets too!
About defending teammates in situations, who do you think mostly likely will be our enforcer/tough guy? Maybe Howard or Deke's elbows, not sure.
I haven't watched that many Magic games in the past, but I think TMac is emotionally-reserved on the court. He's not a fiery figure like Steve is. The Magic lacked any fire on the court, and they didn't win. That's a bad combo for fans to watch.
Don't worry about it. Laimbeer has retired. And Cato is gone. So, it doesn't matter. We'll need someone to step-up. And it won be Marc Jackson.
I know the Orlando Magic are going to shock alot of people this season. They got the Rockets core minus Yao. Even before Yao got here we torched the east year in and year out. Ill be rooting for my Boy Francis in Orlando, man im gonna miss him. Thing is everytime I tell myself I got Tmac on my team it really heals the pain fast.
I gotta go back to this--while I loved it when it happened, I agree, Orlando has gone a little overboard on this "legendary" incident. If they'd watched the Olympics, they would know that if Amare would've been in Yao's face, Yao would've put him on his back!
