Probably because they remember what Steve was capable of and expected that once he got there...but once he practiced and played it was obvious he wasn't anywhere close to the player he use to be. It was clear Steve wasn't taking the league seriously either. What really stands out to me is his lack of maturity with the finger waving and such...this was the guy that led our team in the early 2000's...imagine this guy, 10 years younger, trying to set a 'professional' example for the team to follow. Yikes.
Every single time in NBA history that a foreign player came to the NBA and the coach did not play him, if any foreign fan claimed the coach was acting wrong for not playing him then they were called homers, idiots, liars, delusional, etc. by American NBA fans...... Always in history have American NBA fans claimed that no foreign player ever got shafted by an NBA coach. The claim has always been in history from American NBA fans that if you were good enough you would play. So suddenly, if Steve Francis did not play enough in China, it was all the fault of the coach? Sounds like a serious double standard among American NBA fans to me. You can't have it both ways, that every single foreign player that didn't play in the NBA was because he "sucked", but as soon as Francis does not play in China it is "the fault of the coach".
Maybe he can sign on with the Greek league, A kar, don't you think? It's generally considered to be a rung or two below China's league by most knowledgeable basketball people.
I caught a glimpse of him against Guangdong and he looked ineffective: started a drive to the basket and fell down and lost the ball, wandered on the defensive end. When the game was over, he celebrated like it was the playoffs, took his shirt off, the only one who did so. It was then that we saw how horrifyingly skinny he had become. But I was like, "Why is he walking around with his shirt off?" I'm sure many Chinese were even more curious than I. He was just out of sync with every moment of the experience when I saw him. Surely some of it was from a cultural gap. Seems to me that he was just out to lunch though. Either he's mental or he's actually drunk during the games.
