OK, I've seen that clip a few times, but what was the 'background' to the whole Chris thing? Why he bad blood to begin with? some context would be nice...
This is a problem, not only might he stagnate the offense by dribbling too much, but one of the main factors in Yao's progress is that his teammates fully believe in him, feed him the ball on a regular basis, and treat him like a superstar. When I first started regularly watching Rockets games in '04-05 (as in watching almost every game, as opposed to just the nationally televised ones), I was shocked how many times Yao got position, had someone in position to get him the ball, but didn't get it. I also noticed that if Yao played poorly, his teammates would start ignoring him and he wouldn't get the ball at all. My conclusion then was that his teammates did not have full trust in him to deliver; perhaps that lack of trust was justified then. That doesn't happen anymore, though. As poorly as Yao played in the Utah series at times, he kept getting post touches and thus was able to still impact the game. Two years ago the rest of the guys would have frozen him out of the offense. If SF applies the old attitude towards Yao, it will hurt Yao's play, because SF will be the point guard and probably the primary ballhandler. Hopefully SF will learn to respect Yao as a superstar. They are good friends, so I see no reason why not, except for possibly Steve's ego. I hope that Steve's desire to win will trump his ego, and he'll be content to play third fiddle to Yao and McGrady.
francis won't be able to apply the old attitude to yao because yao won't let him. and even if francis were to try to do that to yao then t-mac and adelman wouldn't stand for it. francis' fake reality is going to get beat down really quickly if he believes what he is saying.
I don't care what Steve Francis calls himself, he's shown the ability to adapt for the team's good when he played for Van Gundy, and I'm confident he can do it again for Adelman.
do you really believe that yao is the same person on the court as he was in his first few years? he sure looks a lot different to me with how he acts.
IMO, you can't have swagger if you have never won anything. Until you produce and win the big games you're just a knucklehead trying to fake confidence.
I wish i was wrong but we will see! Yao maybe improving and dominating but i just dont think his personality has changed a bit. The last few years, after francis left, T-mac encourage yao to dominate and defer to yao from day one. With Francis' ego and yao treats him like big borther, i m worried yao will defer francis. If that's the case, i can see serious chemistry issues. As T-mac wants yao to lead and dominate but yao willing to defer to francis, Mac wont be happy and i wont be happy too!
Chris Everett was a women's pro tennis player. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Rome "Rome gained notoriety for an incident in his ESPN2 show Talk2 in 1994 when he repeatedly called NFL quarterback Jim Everett "Chris" (after Chris Evert, the female tennis player), from the argument that Everett shied away from getting hit. Appearing as a guest on the show, Everett warned Rome about repeating the insult and then challenged Rome to do so. When Rome did, Everett physically attacked Rome while still on the air, overturning a table and knocking Rome to the floor. Eventually a camera man had to break up the scuffle. Since then, Rome has admitted that "The Incident"[5] nearly cost him his career.[6]"
People will allways come up with conclusions that suits them. francis haters will say he is still a jackass and he comes off as a arrogant SOB after that interview. Francis supporters will say otherwise.personaly as a nuteral observer, i find it hard to believe francis dosent realiaze this is tracy& yao's team and he must pick and choose he's shots now.
i distinctly heard '33'. i also was not aware that he had led the league in scoring. i pooped in my mouth when i heard him say that.
I understand and share your concern but allow me to point out that SF's floor time will be cut if he doesn't play within the system. JVG doesn't coach here any longer, with his supertight 8 man rotation no matter what. Adelman won't hesitate to pull SF out of the game if he can't learn to score off catching the ball. Also consider Mike James, who will gladly take every minute he can away from Francis. In 04/05, SF was definitely a part of Yao's problems, but a lot of it was Yao himself, who wasn't a dominant player at the time. Yao DEMANDS the ball now and gets upset if the pass isn't there. He didn't do that 3 years ago. Now that Francis is a Rocket, I'm hopeful he'll play great basketball and punish doubleteams by attacking the rim. He and MJ can convert those bunnies that Rafer missed.
I applauded the move when he was brought back to Houston. I thought for sure he would do what it took to be a great role player. After hearing that interview, I am worried. He didn't sound humble at all. He sounded like he believes he is an equal to Yao and Tmac. And again, he didn't give Yao the proper respect IMO. On the other subject, he did say 33 and then corrected himself while Jim was already talking about something else.
BINGO Houston needs some SWAGGER T-Mac and Yao are so laid back . . we need someone to Be a bit Bolder Rocket River
