For those who really think Steve is a hindrance to this team's progress. 1. How many wins do you think the collective talent on this team should have yielded this year. Not the team make-up, just the overall talent level. 2.Whose game is held back because of the precense of Francis, and what do you think said players stats would look like with a better "fit". 3. Sort of redundant. How good do you think Yao is right now, not what he will be in the future, and given his current ability, how well do you think a team built to cater to Yao's stregnths would have done this season.
Originally posted by pgabriel For those who really think Steve is a hindrance to this team's progress. 1. How many wins do you think the collective talent on this team should have yielded this year. Not the team make-up, just the overall talent level. Depends what your definition of 'talent' is. Thats pretty ambiguous. Steve has talent but his fundamentals are horrible...If Steve has shown us anything over the past 5 years its that you need more than talent to win. 2.Whose game is held back because of the precense of Francis, and what do you think said players stats would look like with a better "fit". I think the entire team is held back. For every bad pass, or ball dribbled out of bounds,or lost seconds on the shot clock because of a lazy stroll up the court with the ball, or the ol' dribble for 20 secs and throw up a despiration heave(although steve has cut down on these) costs the whole team, not just Yao, although he's obviously hindered too. Just think of all the lost momentum and lost shot opportunities because Steve tries to get fancy or doesn't have the court awareness to break a press or pass out of a trap. Hell, Steve is suppose to be really 'talented' right? Why does he screw up so much when he tries to dribble out of all those things? 3. Sort of redundant. How good do you think Yao is right now, not what he will be in the future, and given his current ability, how well do you think a team built to cater to Yao's stregnths would have done this season. If you had guys around Yao that shot at least 45% this team would have a lot more wins, not just because of made shots but the threat of those shots wouldn't allow the opposing D to collapse on Yao. If you had shooters that wouldn't allow opposing players to cheat off their man, Yao would've had maybe 4-5(maybe more) shots per game...seeing how he shoots 52%, you could prorate all the other players who shot the ball instead of Yao on that position. Of course you'd have to take into account the double and Yao's pass to the open man on those plays also, or perhaps turning over the ball as well, so I guess it'd be impossible to get an accurate stat. But I guess we should see it in action next year...you'll have to wait.
Answers to 1) We did a much better job this year to take care of the eastern team than last year. However we didnt do well against western teams. We could've at least get one game from the Spurs and King's series, splitting with Seattle and Phoenix, and swept Warriors. This team should've gotten 50 Wins. 2) You cant really say SF is holding back a particular player. He is just not type of the point guard this need in the system. Too many turn overs, poor outside jump shooting percentage, poor decision making, hot headed. I think Ray Allen could be a better fit. 3) I think Yao is pretty much at full strength at current level. However, I thought our inside-out game could be more effective if everybody stuck to the same play every game. I thought last game against Seattle was a good example how inside-out game could be played to our strength. Good spacing, determined outside shooting, and quick switching once the inside seal off the player. My two cents.
Exactley, It takes more than Talent to win and talent is all that Yao has. He has shown nothing else, not leadership, not heart, and not intellegence so why does think they can win more with Yao and with out Steve?
Yao has great fundamentals and talent...all he needs is experience. Steve has talent AND experience and he's a worse basketball player than he's been in the past 4 years. What I really like about Yao is that he contantly improves his game. He's shown this in china and now in the nba...he gets better and better. Thats what makes a great player, thats what Yaos got.
I wish we could get all the seattle guards, Barry, Allen, Daniels, hell even Flip, they'd be perfect here.
But then again JVG would want Allen to only feed the ball to Yao and then Allen would get blamed when Yao misses the open 3 foot shot because it was a bad pass.
1. Not to sound like van gundy, but it is what it is. we won as many games as our talent merited. I don't fault the coaching. JVG instilled some discipline into this squad. You might nit pick here and there, but he did not make any seriously questionable moves or decisions that cost us games. we won as much as we should have because our players played the way they are capable of playing. Over the course of a long season, peaks and valleys flatten out and you get what you're supposed to get. We are a pretty good team. No more, no less. 2. Yao and Mobley's games are held back the most. Francis is redundant of Mobley, yet Mobley is more efficient in getting results. Francis hurts Yao on both sides of the ball. He cannot deliver a timely pass when Yao is open, and his sub par defense unnecessarily exposes Yao to fouls. Impossible to project stats, but Mobley's offense would benefit more than Yao's. Mobley had a great year and would have scored close to 20 ppg, i think. 3. Yao improved this year. I'm not sure how much better his stats would have been. Yao is not good enough to have taken us beyond dallas or memphis. I think if you plug in a eric snow or even brent barry, we are still behind dallas and memphis. Maybe we push into the upper 40's in wins, but no more than that.
I dont see Yao missing that many 3 foot shots.. anyways back to the questions. 1. you didnt take SF3 out of the equation so with the current talent level on this team we should have had a 50 win season in my opinion. If you told me at the beginning of the year that SF3 would have the worst year of his career I would have estimated 35 or so... but luckily we didnt falter that badly. 2. I dont know if any one player is directly affected by SF3's play but I would have to say the front court hurts the most. The guards all get a chance to put their hands on the ball but its the front court players (Yao, MoT especially) who dont receive the ball enough in position. Its also our front court that takes the least amount of shots but have the highest FG%. 3. I think a team catered around Yao would not have been as good but I cant see our record being that much different. remember in the beginning of the season how JVG forced Yao to play down low and in the post and how he struggled .. but he learned to adapt and is pretty proficient in the low post right now. I think the team is going through the same thing in that it is struggling to adapt to Yao being the focus of the offense but the players are adapting and learning. Hopefully next season will be quite exciting for us.. J
1. 50 2. a) Yao--He would have 20 ppg, and about the same amount of boards with a pg with Mark Jackson's passing skills playing 40 mpg b) Mobley--He would average about 18-19 ppg with a different pg that distributed and could lead the fast break 3. Yao is a few points per game better right now than his current stats show. He still needs serious work on rebounding positioning and how to hold on to the ball (Dude must have artificially small hands). He needs to learn to grapefruit the ball like other big post players do such as Vlade, Shaq. If there had been a pg with better post passing skills, and the ability to hit the catch and shoot jumper and run the break effectively, this team would have won 50, maybe a few more. The one thing I have to always say in any criticism of Steve is that he does have one quality that few players possess. He has the nads to step up in the big games and play his ... off. I admire him for it. There aren't too many players in the NBA that can do that. That being said, if he would get consistent and proficient in the areas that we need him to be good in, ie leading the break, dropping the turnovers, getting the ball to Yao, and hitting the no dribble catch n shoot jumper, then this team could easily jump to the 55+ win level. It will be interesting to see how Steve responds in the playoffs after being able to watch Mark Jackson masterfully direct a couple games. Old man is playing with bench fodder out there and he still leads us down the stretch right to the final buzzer. Even though MJ couldn't stop Flip or RA, he came right back, got the ball, and closed out the ballgame. They could not stop him from getting the ball, getting it up the floor, and running the offense. I hope Steve learns that it is not the highlight reel plays that win games. It is implementing the game plan and moving the ball that makes everything work so well. And at the end of games, he will find that if he fits his game into Van Gundy's game, he will be getting 20 + ppg, plus a bunch of assists, steals, and boards. When Steve gets backed into a must win situation, he puts up those awesome numbers, because he knows he has got to win, at all costs. He dishes, he defends, he boards, he scores. JVG needs to convince him that every game is single elimination. I'd be willing to bet at this point that the Rox come out playing poorly in the first game or two against their playoff opponent. And then they will come roaring to life about the 2nd half of game 3 and play like world beaters for another game. Then they will have a small letdown in the 5th game, followed by the 2nd half desparation surge and will either eek out a win to go on and be eliminated in 6 or they will go down in flames in game 5. Can't see a whole lot else happening with the maturity level of this bunch at this point in time.
1. 42 wins. The Rox overachieved, as good as some of our starters are, we are pathetic on the bench. Cat and SF practically led the NBA in MPG becuase of our lack of a decent G to give them some rest. Our defense was great in the beginning but now it is missing. Why? Well our frontline defense is tired. The Guards have played so many minutes focusing on shutting down the offense, that towards the 4th quarter they begin to tire out and overall are tiring out at the end of the season. 2. Noone's game is being held back. SF isnt the root of all evil. Yao has improved all facets of his game. Cat will always be Cat, JJ had a great year and Cato finaly started playing like his contract worth. With a true PG and SF shifted to SG, I see Yao with averages of 19/9 for this year, SF at 22/6/5, JJ and Cato about the same with only Cat as having a lower PPG because of his coming off the bench. 3. Yao will be a dominant center provided he makes a full committment to the NBA and stops killing himself with his Chinese National Team committments. A full offseason or two of rest and strength training plus tutoring at Pete Newell's School for big men is what he needs. Maybe dial up Mark Eaton and ask him how to more effectively use his 7'6" body on defense probbaly wouldn't hurt either. His offense is light years ahead of his defense at this point in his career
Even though Steve's TOs and bad FG% has been terrible this year. There is no doubt that he is the one that keeps this team together. He is the one that sets the tempo, he is the one that pushes the team, he is probably the most important player on the team. This however, may or may not be a good thing.
Mobley is held back by Francis because Francis takes shots that normally SG's take. When Francis was out 2 year ago, Cat averaged over 20 points at a pretty decent percentage. Granted we sucked 2 years ago, but Cat was the only option besides Moochie and KT.
Thats casue he would be waiting for the 7'6 snail that play center for the Rockets. JVG always wants Franchise to wait for the soft snail to get into position and then have to see the posession wate away by dumping it down low.
