Hmmm....Don Grah.....a rookie coming on here and starting a name calling party. I will refrain from doing the same. Francis is an amazing athletically talented player. Where he falls seriously short is in the mental aspects of the game. I would love to have a PASS first PG on the Rockets team, as passing is infectious as is ball hogging. Since we have proven that you can not win hogging the ball, why not try passing it? DaDakota
How can you honestly say that Stevie doesn't pass? Most of the Rockets offence is consisted of Mobley, Francis, Moochie and KT iso's. If the offence was run differently then I will bet any money that Stevie would be averaging close to a triple-double. However, I think we expect alittle too much from Steve. Yes he is as old as Kobe, but no, he hasn't had the NBA experiece that Kobe has had. Comparing him to Baron Davis, Andre Miller, Mike Bibby may not be a bad idea. However, the role Steve has is greatly different from either of these players. All the hype lately about Bibby has me confused. Sure he helped Sac-Town, but the guy is very streaky. And he can tend to be more of a ball hog then Stevie himself (if you say he is). Most of his games that he makes 20+ points, he comes away with 2-3 assists and the guy isn't half the athlete Steve is. He was also being guarded by Derek Fisher for heaven's sake, if it were Steve, he'd have a field day on him (unless he does his flopping act). This upcoming season will be evidence against your statements DD, I asure you of that! No headaches, no shoulder pain, no injuries = headaches for 28 teams.
Miggidy, I somewhat agree with you, but remember, Menieres disease has NO CURE !!! NEVER !!! Steve will have Migraines the rest of his career, of course they are subsiding, but one of the causes of them is stress and activity, well Steve has neither of those in the off season. I think Steve can be a great player, but my only point is that you have to look at all the options, and given his UNCURABLE condition, he is a huge risk. Why do you think he is saying he would sign for the max? Because, he knows that most teams would love to have him, but are afraid of the Menieres issue. I think the Rocks need to be very careful with him, he needs to prove that he is willing to do whatever the Doctors tell him to do, and to be a good soldier. Last year, Francis knew he had Minieres for weeks, but refused to believe it, and kept eating with salt and drinking alcohol, well, it cost him games because of it. His maturity and professionalism HAVE to be questioned. Now, all that being said, if you could GUARANTEE the headaches would be gone, then he is far less of a risk. However, that is not the case, now is it? DaDakota
Ming and Griffin are the frontcourt, Taylor is untradeable, hopefully serviceable. Good swing passer. Cato is our untradeable backup. Good for fouls, can now play his agressive game. Need 3. Hope for good passer that can cut, d up. Shooting a plus, but not first priority, with Griff, Ming and Taylor all good shooters. Glen Rice available as passing, shooting backup. Backcourt needs : 1 outside shooter. 1 smart playmaker. 1 strong backcourt defender. Experience with UCLA cut, pick and roll and plus. Pushes the ball, a plus. Given the above, I may want to trade Francis or Mobley plus for an Andre Miller, Mike Bibby - type player. As I see it, we need either Francis or Mobley as our dynamic backcourt scorer, but not both. Having both clogs up the ball movement and misdirects the attack from frontcourt to backcourt. I think Francis has more trade value than Mobley so I'd assume he's the trade, but it depends on what you get. Right now we have two of the same kind of player. Who's going to guard Kobe? Who's going to guard Bibby? Right now, neither one of our guys. Wouldn't you like to see some differentiation in the backcourt - at least a defensive specialist on team's bench, assuming we do keep both? Can we make their respective roles a little clearer, or does it stay free-form?
