I'll admit that he had a "couple" of stong games (buzzer beater vs. Wiz AT Wiz was impressive) but you gotta admit that he played over half the season in 2007 and 20-something games after being traded here. Thats a lot more than barely. The Knicks are unwatchable. Thank god the Rangers are usually in high def or I'd have nothing to watch between football and the NCAA Tourney.
i've kept up with stevie all his career pretty much and i think what knickstorm was referring to was that yes steve played in a lot of games but not much in those games. i kept up with my fantasy team and always checked francis' stat line and his minutes would max out around 20 tops ... most of the time that is. the last couple of games where he got about 35+ min or so, he got about 20+ pts with decent percentages. c'mon stevie! i'd go nuts just to see him dunk on someone again.
Well, the more interesting offense is still producing the same results while being more expensive. if you had kept steve, cat, yao and added the new guys with tmac the past four seasons and throw in a people's coach like Adelman--- there is no way we will still be getting stuck in the first round. And there is something no one is mentioning, Yao used to be more aggressive with Stevie. Not saying that steve francis is a better all around player than mcgrady, just answering the above nightmarish comment. I would rather have a entertaining team that sucks, than a dull heartless leaderless team that sucks.
Were the Steve, Cat, Cato, Taylor, Moochie Rockets much cheaper than today's version? I also think the current 50-plus win heartless team sucks a bit less than the previous entertaining team.
There's no way to prove Yao used to be more aggressive with Steve. The Yao that Barkley said wouldnt ever score double digits in a game is more aggressive than the 25 points per game current Yao?
Haha, i beg to differ, while Francis was here, there was some fears than umm Yao might turn ghetto maybe get some heart, but with TMac, he is willing to just chill. Watch Yao's game with Francis, he might have been as smooth as he is now with the jump shot but he definitely tried to hustle or get rebounds now. i'm still shocked that a 7'6 center can not constantly average double digits in rebounds and averages more jump shots than dunks or lay ups. There is nothing wrong with jump shots if its going in, but when the game is on the line, a dunk and a potential and 1 can be the difference, Here is a stat im sure its true, even with a ""true"" pg like Rafer and a passing wing man like Tmac, Yao got more alley oops throwdowns with Francis.
The word "aggressive" does not describe the current Yao in any way. Luther might even be more aggressive than Yao
Yao's been through THREE head coaches and several All Star teams. One coach was a fierce little bald bulldog of a competitor who spit out phrases about "knife fighters" and "mental toughness". You think if Francis was on the court besides McGrady in 2007 game 7 versus Utah, that Yao would have grabbed that last crucial missed shot he didnt get to? Cuz some of that ghetto-core tenacious hustle would rub off on him? Agreed. Think he's saying after the season they FINALLY made the playoffs, from that point on if you add any 1 or 2 of Ward, Lue, Sura, Wesley, Barry, Mike James, Rafer. Then Stromile Swift, Shane Battier, Bonzi and the draft picks to it they'd be the same exact 50 win team-1st round exit team but more entertaining. Which is fun to think of and quite possible.
I dunno, sometimes I feel the same way you do, but the fact is that Yao isn't an athletic guy..he's like some normal dude that happened to grow 7'6"...he's like us if we worked out every day..regardless of how hard we work out, we can never jump or be as strong as guys that compose the NBA bigs. They're just naturally athletic guys. When Yao was younger he could jump about 6 inches higher..he was weaker but still could get more lift, hence his alley count goes up. Now he's got more beef.
52% of Yao's shots were not jump-shots, 11% were dunks last year. In 2003-2004 50% of his shots were not jumpshots, 10% were dunks. Your perception is flawed. http://www.82games.com/index.htm
lol, you have a 7'6 center who plays center and only averages 11% dunks. Now tell me who's perception is flawed, you might be perceiving Yao as a small forward. And while you are pulling stats, you might also want to include that he averages only 3 points a game from dunks
You can LOL all you want, it becomes immaturity. I just proved to you that he does not take more jump-shots than inside shots. And does not get less dunks with TMac than with Francis and he didn't even play the whole season with TMac because of injury. And why would I focus on how many points he scores of dunks? I don't give a hoot how he scores ... I didn't with Olajuwon who took fade-away jump-shots, especially in the fourth quarter ... I sure as heck won't with Yao who is no where the level of Olajuwon but still pretty good.
How about a 7'1'' PF with huge wing span and tremendous leaping ability and only dunks 9% of the time? Sign of soft loser? http://www.82games.com/0708/07BOS11A.HTM
I have absolutely no idea how you contrived this revisionist nonsense except to dismiss it as narrative fallacy. The common trend among all die-hard Francis apologists is that they all seem to be uh...lacking a bit upstairs. Quite the commonality with their hero.
Lol the level of delusion that francis fans exhibit never ceases to amaze me. They need to wake up and realize the year is 2008 and stop living in the past dreaming about the dribble dribble dribble jump shot days.
Like you just said, if anything, I think Yao has progressively become much more agressive over the years, while regressing in some of the finer aspects of his game, but this is largely in part due to Van Gundy, and has no correlation to Francis/McGrady. To assert that because he is still relatively "unagressive" proves that he was once more agressive (with Francis), like this illmatic character is arguing, might be the most logically flawed claim I've ever seen.
Yes,but he was a weaker low post player which was quite natural considering his physique and inexperience.He needed to sacrifice his other skills to improve. He has become a good low post scorer and has improved on defense as well. His rebounding hasn't gotten much better and his passing/shooting has gone down. I believe he can regain some of his shooting touch. He is nevertheless a considerably better player than before which was/is to be expected with experience.
