Well I did a little research on my question. Here are the NBA Champion team leader's APG in the regular season going back to 1980: 01-02: Kobe 5.5 00-01: Kobe 5.0 99-00: Kobe 4.9 98-99: Johnson 7.4 97-98: Pippen 5.8 96-97: Pippen 5.7 95-96: Pippen 5.9 94-95: Cassell 4.9 93-94: Maxwell 5.0 92-93: Pippen 6.3 91-92: Pippen 7.0 90-91: Pippen 6.2 89-90: Isiah 9.4 88-89: Isiah 8.3 87-88: Magic 11.9 86-87: Magic 12.2 85-86: Bird 6.8 84-85: Magic 12.6 83-84: Bird 6.6 82-83: Cheeks 6.9 81-82: Magic 9.5 80-81: Archibald 7.7 79-80: Archibal 8.4
Being about team assists is fine. I have no problem with the assists being spread out. Heres the problem, the rest of the team has to get the ball more to be able to do that. When they do get it, its hard for them to pass it because a good majority of the time, they are already up against the shot clock. I would like to see us get our shots of quicker than we have been. That will also alot more time for passes from the whole team as well as Steve.
Great post Crash. Maybe that will shut up some of the haters saying Francis is not a true point guard, just because he doesn't lead the league in assist.
Crash, here's some more stats, for the last few years here are top two team assists total per game and also the lowest two team assists per game 00-01 Utah 25.7 and Twolves 25.4 Knicks 18.5 and Hawks 19 99-00 Twolves 26.9 and Suns 25.6 Clips 18 and Hawks 18.9 98-99 Suns 25 and Twolves 24.4 Hawks 15.6 and Clips 16.4 97-98 Suns 25.9 and Jazz 25.2 Clips 18.6 and Mavs 18.7 96-97 Jazz 26.8 and Bulls 26.1 Pistons 19 and Hawks 19 95-96 Jazz 26.1 and Magic 25.4 Hawks 19.6 and Pistons 19.6 So far this season Top 2 Seattle 24.7 and Kings 24.5 Bottom 2 Raptors 15.5 and Rockets 16.2
Instead of the "true" point guard, we should be wetting our pants that we have a player that can play both guard spots. The reason that the Jazz never won anything is because Stockton always deferred to Malone down the stretch. Opposing teams knew that Stockton wasn't going to drive to the bucket, so they focused their defense on Malone. Stockton always needed picks and screens to get his shots off. The reason Magic and Isiah were successful was that, even though they were masters at distributing the ball, both of them had the ability to take it to the rack and score. They just didn't choose to. With Steve, you really don't know what he's going to do in crunch time. He can distribute the ball, but he also has the athletic ability to take it to the rack and score on the opposition. His main setback is that sometimes he doesn't know WHAT he wants to do with the ball when he gets it. Take last night's game against the Lakers. He couldn't decide late what he wanted to do with the ball. Once he learns how to pick his spots and decides the right time to take over a game, he'll be almost unstoppable...
Exactly codell. As it stands, there are few opportunities for the other guys to get assists. Some people are using the share-the-assists model as a justification for Steve to get his 5 dimes, leave things at that, maybe wait for the team to gel, and have the hating stop. But as long as guys hold the ball for extended periods, no amount of waiting for the team to gel will make things better. The Sacramento analogy is nice, but it's a bit of a reach. As is the comparison to the championship Rockets. Yes, they offer a model that makes more sense to emulate, given the skills of our PG. But there isn't a framework or mentality in place to follow this model. On those teams the initial ballhandler doesn't necessarily make a shot quicker, but does make a decision about what to do more quickly -- whether that's shooting or passing. And if it's passing, there are well-defined options, created by movement and/or spacing, with well-defined criteria for guys to use to make the decision. And the other players expect -- and know when to expect -- to get the ball fairly often. As the final option, they can resort to a high-percentage post shot, rather than a perimeter jumper. I know it takes time, but I ask again: how much of what we've seen are failed efforts to run new plays, or execute a new team offense, vs. settling back in to the same routine? Last night, we saw only 14 team assists, with Francis getting nearly half (and Francis himself admitting that some of those few were bad passes that were just luckily converted by Ming). We see Steve dribbling away the 7 seconds left on the shot clock on a key possession -- with the benefit of coming out of a time out. That doesn't look like we've "started the journey" to making assists a team function. Yes we won, and had a great 4Q too. But that was more our post players bailing us out, than a consequence of team basketball. I know it's easy to second-guess from the living room, and I've generally given Rudy the benefit of the doubt. But I'm really starting to question if Rudy is capable of "envisioning" anything for the Rockets. I think the players on this team are pretty much on their own, left to their own devices to manufacture points. That's acceptable some of the time, but not -- well, you get the picture. So far, I think the only thing we can conclude from all this is that Steve doesn't deserve bashing for not racking up assists. We'll see offensive success given time, but that will be once again due to the talents of individual players such as Mo and Ming -- not from any vision or plan from Rudy. But hopefully, he'll prove me wrong.
Stats don't mean anything. Intangibles are what make a superstar. Francis is playing extremely well, i dont have a problem with him at all. There's another guy i have a problem with.
Last night the passes were coming very early in the shot clock. I think the first four plays of the game, the pass was made before seven seconds had gone down, on three of the them. On the other play Francis scored in the flow. This went on most of the night.
I think that as much as our guards dribble and handle the ball, their assist should be higher and the team should score more points. Part of the problem is over dribbling and another problem is not running getting easy baskets as someone said earlier. If after the 5 or so francis defensive rebounds, if he were to push the ball up the middle while having people running , he could get more asst and the team would get secondary transition buckets. A good rebounding guard is the catalyst to a great running game especially if he just gets ft line extended rebounds. Francis nor any other rocket guard has the mentality to push the ball and make good open court decision. You would wonder with the supposedly explosion that the Rockets have they woul;d be uptempo, but it goes beyond that. All the yr Utah would be one of the top scoring team ,but being short on atheletes proves that notion wrong. I still think this team has a long way to go far as offensively.
I like the team idea. Distribution of assists is very nice for the championship run. However, it doesn't really have many correlation with covering up the point guards's weakness. The bigger focus is, doesn't letting one play his natural position leading to better performance of himself and therefore also the team? Let's see the other alternatives to the current situation. Maybe a more mature SF can do better at the point, maybe distribution of the assists can cover up for the lack of play making abilities of the guards. But those are just maybes as 1. we don't know if SF can really mature into a good assist guy. 2. To distribute the assists require the right system or the right players. Even if the Rockets achieves an even distribution of assists, it's still irrelavant of the point guard assists issue. Covering up the problem doesn't equal to curing the root of problem. On the other side, playing one's natural position is always better for the player and the team. Allen Iverson didn't go to the Finals playing his unnatural position. A scoring machine who's forced to play the point position gets his weakness covered up by distribution of assists. Versus. A scoring machine doing its natural job and cause havoc to the other teams . Meanwhile the total assists of the team goes up as someone more capable is manning the point. Which is the better route? It should be clear to see.
Mo Taylor scored nine straight points the other night and I dont think one of his buckets was recorded as an assisted score. Yet Mobley and Francis fed Taylor timely passes in the post. To me thats just as good as an assist. So Im not looking for assists on the stat sheet to tell me if the offense is functioning smoothly. But I am watchful for timely passes in the post to Taylor and Ming...timely passes that take advantage of the favorable matchups they[Ming, Taylor] give us because of their high shooting percentages.
True. But I think this just further emphasizes the fact that individual post play -- rather than some plan that Rudy has envisioned for sharing the assists -- will determine the success of this offense on a consistent basis.
IMHO, the "Steve Francis is a Brand New Prototype Never Before Seen in the NBA Point Guard Who Doesn't Need Assists Because His Teammates Will Pass the Ball to get the Required Assists" Theory has several major & fatal flaws. 1) That SF will stop eating up the shot clock with a parade of crossover moves trying to setup his defender while secondary and tertiary defenders are standing still near the paint waiting for him him where he'll need a near highlight reel move to score. 2) The assists/game level of a good passing team is going to be accomplished by Mobley (2.9), Glen Rice (0.6), Kenny Thomas (2.8), Eddie Griffin (0.6) and Mo Taylor (0.7). Forget about a good passing team, these 5 don't even add up to Divac + Webber (9.4 a/g). 3) The Rockets are going to abandon their style of play which is to find and exploit a mismatch and let that player go 1on1. I will keep posting it - the Rockets can not beat playoff caliber teams as long as they have the lowest assist per FGM ratio in the NBA. They will need something better than drive and kick and high PnR. They will need to be in the Top 10 in 3PT% AND commit to getting the ball into the post early in the clock so there can be a re-post or passing back to the weak side (if doubled).
