He's 30, so of course he's not the same. But he was an athletic freak in his younger days, so expect he should still have above average athleticism for us.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/players/3325/gamelog;_ylt=Aj5t2Y5_gqSRPvz.TiBryGykvLYF Check out his game log for the last 4 games of last season (when he was getting similar PT to what he had when he last played here). Pretty impressive. Especially of note is the number of times he got to the line and his FT%.
Don't discount what Steve can do with the foul line. The new coach will be much better at using this. Give SF3 a path to the basket, even with some trouble, and he can at least get foul shots. Rafer would get a teardrop and no respect from the refs. SF3 will get his shots.
With francis here it poses interesting question is this team deeper then the 04-05. that 04-05 team was the best team we had since the 98-99 season where we had The dream, Pippen, barkley, Cuttino, Willis, Sam mack, mario ellie and randy livingston and so on. lets see 07-08 team 04-05 Team Alston/James < Sura/James Tracy/Francis > Wesely/Barry Battier/Wells < Tracy/Bowen Scola/Hayes > Howard/Padgett Yao/Deke > Yao/Deke Three things take into account, Deke back then was far better then the deke we have now and the yao we have now is far superior to the yao in the 05 season. also i believe offensively tracy will be better then the 05 tracy under adelman. This team on paper is far superior then the 05 team.
I really believe that Francis will be one of the key players on this roster this coming season. I do respect his decision to be with the Rockets and hopefully we pull a championship this coming season. Good to have Francis back! I really mean it!!
Actually, I think it's a landslide at every position as Francis will play point guard and Bonzi play shooting guard: Francis/James/Brooks > Sura/James Tmac/Bonzi/Head > Wesley/Barry Battier/Tmac/Bonzi/Novak >Tmac/Bowen Scola/Hayes > Howard/Padgett 2007 Yao/Mutombo > 2004 Yao/Deke
Whoa. Look at his rebounding numbers. 8 rebounds a couple of times from a 6'3 point guard. He rebounds like a power forward. Points Assists Rebounds 22 7 2 28 3 8 26 3 4 24 3 8
It's good to see him happy again AND with a chip on his shoulder due to the way he has been written off by most fans and the media. If he can stay healthy he most certainly can be 90% of what he was 5 years ago. Now if we can only get Tmac to care this much.
I'm putting only the rotation player forward. guys like brooks , novak arent gonna see any minutes this year. novak maybe, but i doubt brooks will see any minutes with Alston(who might be kept) francis and james.
Stevie has allways been renouned for he's rebounding. infact with bonzi and francis on the court at the same time, were gonna have a heck of a rebounding backcourt.
yeah, and i look at the turnovers and i saw that over that last 4 games he got 16 assist and 13 turnovers........ But i still cant wait for that alley hoop jam via a pass from yao ming. Go stevie, get back in shape and we all will love you for it.
Well looking at the games where he got around 40 mins his stats are impressive. Look at the games where he gets less than 30 though and his stats drop disproportionately. I don't think he is going to get 40 mins here so I hope he can find his role with only 25-30 mins. Come on Stevie you are the man!!
