Mac I can not speak for Nolen, but I get the sense that he was simply venting some of the same frustrations that I have also felt in regards to the Steve Francis bashing that seems to be running rampant on the board lately. The venting may be directed at the wrong poster however. I personally love and welcome educated (and sometimes even not so educated, but fun at the very least) dicussions about the Rockets and the individual players. Whether the opinions are like or opposed to mine, this is the best place to engage in or simply read Rockets related material. I would never want that to change. The only thing that does bother me is when my fellow posters blame a single player for the Rox downfall or attempt to justify why other players (Yao Ming) are having such a hard time adjusting by blaming Steve for not giving him the ball. That being said I don't think the clips you saw did Steve justice. This game was basically a tale of two halves. In the first half it appeared that the offense was geared around getting other players (specifically E. Griff) off to a good start. The offense (and defense for that matter) looked a lot more like the direction the Rox want to go: ball movement, establishing a low post presence (Griff absolutely abused Radman on the blocks early), rebounding with quick outlets for more breaks. The second half, well I'm still puzzled as to what the Rox were trying to accomplish. The Sonics seemed to make adjustments and the Rox appeared to make none, and the changes they did make were the wrong ones. Griffin was not as much a part of the offense in the second half. The Sonics zoned more effectively and the Rox answered this with more ISO's than in the first??? Can't explain it. They played Payton all wrong. The Rox should have (imho) attempted to deny him the ball more since it was obvious the hole offense was being run through him, and the Rox must have thought that actually contesting a jumpshot was a crime. Why Nachbar (our most reliable jump\set shooter outside of Steve and Mobes) does not get more minutes against a zone defense like the Sonics, simply baffles me. In any case our defense caused this loss more than our offense, and as far as whether or not the Rox would be better served with a prototypical Stockton\Kiddish type of player, well I can only sum that up by repeating (perhaps a little more clearly) that it is not a case of whether or not the player fits the position (pg, sg, doesn't matter), it is a case of does the player fit the offensive scheme your team uses. Rudy's offense is designed to get Steve and Cat open mid-range shots and penetration. Would Kidd excel in the current system, definitely not. Would Rudy change the system, and probably the personel as well, to fit Kidd better (see the Van Horn trade) probably so. Your best player need to have the ball to be affective, as Payton proved last night. Once our team gels and the offense is run consistently and effeciently, Steve's domination of the ball will not be an issue.
Good Lord, man. Calm down. Re-reading my post, I can see how it would look like I directed the whole thing at you, but that's not the case. Just that one paragraph with your name in it. The rest is for all the Steve bashers in general, plenty around these days. Your reply concerning pg duties was well written, cool. Suffice to say, team play would be better if Steve had better court vision/passing ability. We both hope he develops it. I don't recall your entire post history, I'm afraid, but I can say I didn't really have you in mind with my last comments about complaining all the time, etc.- I'll be sure to make that clear in the future (jeez.) Most of your reply wasn't necessary, particularly the part where you call me a "narrow-minded, judgemental condescending twit." As for the state of the BBS... I have a big problem with the way things are right now at my favorite internet community. Instead of sulking off and becoming a lurker as many generations of quality veteran posters have in the face of countless hate-spewing newbies, I've decided to put up a fight. I'm realizing something. This isn't about truth, like, debating what the real good or bad things about the Rockets are, which is what these pessimist/optimist debates always come down to. I've seen countless debates like this over the past years as we keep getting these influxes of haters/negativists in here. What this is about is the BBS community we have here, and how people behave themselves here. I'm building a theory that people that wouldn't otherwise be so b****y, come to this BBS specifically to b****. Like this is their opportunity to vent, and only that. As a person, I absolutely can't relate to this behavior. If we were live people meeting in a large room speaking with each other, and the hate spewers in here actually behaved in real life the way they do here, they would be the worst possible 'fans' to be around. They are fans, I believe, and want the team to do well, thus all the complaints- but when that's all you have to talk about- man. If that's how someone would talk to me at a game, how someone would talk to me at the bar after the game- screw that. Nothing would be worse than talking with a fan like that. (I'm not singling you out, Mac- so stay calm. You can talk real game. Retract the claws please.) And the state of things in here is just getting sucky. It brings me, it brings a lot of us in here, down. It's not about what the real state of the rockets is, it's about being brought down by the horrible mood put into my favorite website. I'm sick of it. Debate is perfectly possible without constantly being negative, and then only defending your negative stance, which many posters now are doing. I know it's possible because that's what we used to have in the past! "...would rather be surrounded by fans who only see what is good and great in their teams, irrespective of merit..." Here, Mac, I am singling you out. I'm tired of this reply. It's lame. I don't want constant positivity. I don't want people who only agree with me. Ugh. I'm sick of the constant negativity. There are posters here who will only post the negative! It just sucks! People have the right to say what they want, but when can we have some balance? This isn't some goddamned customer service website where that's only for posting complaints about the team! Of course there will be complaints and debates, that's a part of what the forum is about. But we are really lacking balance here!
