Lets put it this way. Who would you rather have as your <B>number 1 option</B>? Steve Francis or Yao Ming? At some point next year, the Rockets will need to answer this question and decided who their offense should go through most of the time. Currently it is Steve Francis. In my humble opinion, this is a simple question to answer. It should be Yao Ming. Why you ask? Here are a list of reasons: <B>1)</B> Yao Ming possesses the <B>biggest match up problem</B> for almost any team. Maybe even all teams. This is how you win championships. <I>Examples: biggest match up problems: SHAQ now, Jordan in his prime, Wilt Chamberland</I> <B>2)</B> Yao Ming takes <B>higher percentage shots</B>. Yao's shot selection have been excellent and much higher then Steve Francis'. <B>3)</B> Championships are won with <B>half court sets</B>. There isn't as many fast breaks because defense is tighten up. Dumping the ball into Yao is the best choice. <B>4) </B>Lakers organization have already drawn up a <B>blue print</B> to how to win in the playoffs. <I>Blue Print: SHAQ first, Kobe second. </I> <I>I think they could give us an idea or two on how to best utilize Yao Ming's skills. </I> <B>Conclusion:</B> Yao Ming should be number one option this year or next year. However, I am not convinced that Steve Francis is willing to take second fiddle to Yao Ming. The Rocket organization needs to decided how they want to handle this situation. It needs to be made clear who is <B>"the MAN"</B>. Ask SHAQ who he thinks the <B>"the Man"</B> will be.
everytime yao touched the ball, he was double teamed. so, if yao had scored more, that would mean that he would be shooting over a double team, in which case he would be called a center that can't pass. yao's doing just fine. he's taking what the defense gives. him. obviously the people bashing yao don't know basketball
If Yao Ming didn't have Steve Francis,he'd be much worse off. Francis and Ming will feed off each other. Almost no one can take Francis one on one and almost no one can take Ming (next year) one on one. More? One on one, only Cuttino Mobley can stop Cuttino Mobley. No typo. Only he can stop himself. His first step is impeccable, and when his J is falling, he demands a double team. But next year, teams can only double either Yao or Francis. In essence, there will NEVER be double teaming on Mobley, which will make his FG% shoot up. No need to debate who the offense runs through. Francis will be even better next year once teams start defending Ming seriously. Even now, you can see how much better he plays with Ming in the game.
Steve has gone around the league, asking the likes of Michael Jordan and many, many others, just how can he become a better leader. Their conclusion was, for him to concentrate on making his team mates better. He has stated, before almost every game that is his goal. The selfish lable applied to Steves play is just that, only a label. He is young, he is going to improve and he is going to be a team leader. Due to Yao Mings good attitude and Steves dedication to leadership..there will be no Shaq / Kobe debacle. Both Steve and Yao have more class than Shaq and Kobe.
Definitely Yao and Francis can make each other better. Greatness means nothing if couldn't win the game. Imaging if no shaq, and Kobe is in a 20-60 team, what will he be.
This is in reply to <B>zzhiggins</B> zzhiggns, first let me state that I think Steve Francis is great basketball player. He has amazing athletic talent and is obviously improved as a player in the NBA. Having said that, I do not believe championships are won with the <B>point guard being the first option</B>. Allen Iverson tried to test that theory two years ago. However he ran into the Lakers. It is <B>disputable</B> that Iverson is one of the top 5 players in the NBA. Therefore if any <B>point guard</B> can lead a team to an NBA championship as <B>first scoring option</B> it is Allen Iverson. Now I want to make a comparison between Iverson and Francis. In my opinion Iverson has a similar game to Francis. They both can <B>create</B> their own shot, <B>slash</B> to the basket, and are the <B>number one option</B> on their teams. Let’s look at the statistics between Allen Iverson and Steve Francis. <B><U>Here are the raw numbers from NBA website</U></B> <B>Allen Iverson:</B> 29.6 points, 4.10 rebounds, 4.9 assists, .409 field goal %, 3.8 turnovers <B>Steve Francis:</B> 24.4 points, 6.90 rebounds, 6.1 assists, .444 field goal %, 3.53 turnovers Based on the raw statistics, Iverson and Francis are very similar. Allen scores a little more and Francis has a higher field goal percentage and rebounds a little more. My point is this; Iverson wasn’t able to lead a team to a championship as first option so that leads me to believe that Francis won’t be able to either. It is a possibility that Francis could win a championship as number one option. Only because he has the “X” factor, Yao Ming. Ming would have to dominate the defense and pull enough attention on the offense that would allow Francis easy shots. It would be difficult to win a championship with Francis as number one option. <B>Conclusion:</B> This is why the offense should run through Yao Ming eventually. I believe a vanilla offense (simple offense) is the best offense. Give Yao Ming the ball in the paint and let him create or dish the ball out to an open jump shooter. I have stated in other posts that Lakers have the <B>”Blue Print”</B> for winning championships. Lakers always have a higher margin for error because Shaq is the <B>number one option</B> who takes <B>higher percentage shots</B>. <B><I>Blue Print: Shaq first, Kobe second</I></B>
ok, x _trepidation_x. i'm a Yao Ming fan too. let's not put more pressure on him. the guy is just a rookie. I don't think he's done enough to convince people he should be the No. 1 option in this team. I think even Yao himself is not confident to take this role right now. from what i've read, Yao is happy about the fact this is still Francis's team.
Firstly, I think you mean indisputable. Secondly, AI does not play the point for the 76ers, that's Eric Snow. Iverson is the shooting guard (and he ain't shy about shooting either ) Thirdly, Those numbers don't look that similar to me. Iverson is scoring a lot more than Steve (bear in mind that Stevie's scoring average was skewed by several high scoring games early, and is falling) 44% from the field isn't great, but acceptable for a guard. 41% is at the very bottom end of reasonable. And the rebounding isn't close. Iverson is doing great pulling down about 4 boards a game, with the size he is, but SF is at about 7, which is phenomenal for a guy at 6'3". You are certainly right that a dominant big man is a better option for a championship team, than a dominant guard. Heck, I'll even bring up the fact that Jordan and the Bulls always struggled against Houston, because they had no answer to Dream. Is Yao ready to be dominant now? No. Will he be in the future? Probably, but it's not a certainty. Until such time as Yao can dominate regularly and consistently, whether or not SF can cope with being second fiddle is a moot point.
Hey x, I dont think anyone is like Iverson, and I dont think Steve is like Kobe, except all three are talented. Yao is nothing like Shaq. In fact the Lakers are Champs because of Shaqs ability to dominate. Shaq and Kobe almost destroyed the Lakers with their childish behavior. Phil Jackson saved their hineys. Before Phil came along, Shaq led teams were swept in the finals with the Magic and in the play-offs with the Lakers. The blueprint the Rockets will use is still being crafted by RudyT and the Rocket team. At this time Yao is a rookie..still learning plays and assignments. As he matures as a player and leader his role will expand. However the Rockets evolve, no matter who takes the most shots or who is the go-to guy, floor leadership on this team will probably remain as it is now..with Steve Francis. That said, I dont think RudyT will take that into consideration while he develops an effective inside game for the Rockets and Yao Ming. I dont see any conflict, Rudys job is to mesh their talents into the best possible combination, and hes the right guy for the job.
rocketguy3, i just want to point out your use of the term oriental. unless you want me to call you a hindu motherf*cker, i suggest you stay away from using that term. noun (plural O·ri·en·tals) (plural o·ri·en·tals) taboo term: a highly offensive term for somebody from eastern Asia ( dated ) Encarta® World English Dictionary [North American Edition] © & (P) 2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. also not all asians are the same. chinese, korean, and vietnamese aren't the same first of all. most koreans don't give a damn about yao, there's even a article in the korean times that disses yao and wang zhi zhi. so don't group them up as one ethnic group. Indians wear turbans and look like taliban. but do i call them terrorists or taliban? no, so i suggest you stop with all this hating and labeling of people you don't even know anything about. if you wear a turban, does that mean you're a terrorist?
y por favor, para los rocketas. Cuando tu tienes tiempo, yo quiero mas championships. Bien gracias can you say backpack d d d d dd dora
Ok, you are an ass... I don't even know where to start with this one, you are just a big, huge, gigantic ass. You must have been wishing that I would have said something more blatantly offensive to Chinese people or something because I was as careful as possible when I wrote that. You made it a point to exacerbate every little thing I wrote in there that might have not been absolutely politically correct. First off, how the F*!KING-CRACKWHORE did you get the idea that I was saying that Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, etc. were all the same??? If I thought they were the same, why would I have just listed them off separately? They're all orientals... or East Asian, but I know that they're from different countries, have different cultures, etc. You seem to think I'm some sorta f*!king sourthern hick who just called that whole population "a buncha damn yellows". That would be offensive, what I said shouldn't have been. And believe me, I know the problems with grouping all of one race into the identity of one country. I don't like it when people say we're the same as Pakistanis, Arabs, Nepalis, etc. Second off, I had no idea anyone would find the term "oriental" so offensive. In fact, I even have some Chinese and Korean friends (yes, Chinese AND Korean) who use that term themselves on occasion and don't mind when I say it. I knew most... East Asians prefer the term "Asian", but I told you the reason why I, and many other South Asians don't like using that term. At least specifying "East Asian" instead of Asian would be better. Had I thought of that then, I would have written it then. And finally, your post was about 1000 times more stereotypical and offensive than mine. The fact that you mentioned some of the stuff that you did, the fact that you were so embittered by that post says to me that you really think some of the stuff you said. I'm not even Hindu, you b!tch. Kiss my brown ass.
i think the quote speaks for itself of how dumb you are. and second, where the hell did i say anything offensive about indian people dumba$$. i used a what if scenario to illustrate what using the term oriental meant. do you understand any of this? i personally don't care about any of this and i'm not as bitter as you think i am. but i just thought you might want to know that word is offensive. and since not many people know what this word means or its underlying connotations, i'm not surprised not everybody's offended by it. i just said to watch what you say. and second, the glorifying their race comment that you made definitely implies that you are grouping them together. cause yao is only chinese. and i don't see any koreans glorifying him at all or any vietnamese for that matter. so get your facts straight and stop stereotyping people you have no idea about. you act like most asians use yao's performance to glorify their race. is this a fact or a figment of your own bias imagination. obviously, its your own bias. there's no point in what you said. all it does is misinform people and form stereotypes. also indian people are southeast asians if i'm correct. that's the correct term for them. also i don't get why you're so obsessed with these so called "orientals" that you talk about? you need to calm down and relax. rocketguy3, there's more to life than b!tching. quote by vishnu ^_^
Could you tell me what the "underlying connotations" of oriental are? It doesn't say much for you if you just decided one day that you should be offended by this word after you looked it up in the dictionary and it told you to be... so please expand o' wise one, cuz I don't think i'm seeing the "scenario" you were talking about. And for the love of ****! Learn English grammar! The sentence: "I don't like it when Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, or any orientals ... try to use Yao's performance to glorify their race" does NOT group all of them into one race necessarily. It is saying glorify each of their respective races. Classic SAT II writing type of question. AND on that note, I may have grouped them together racewise, but in the same way, I grouped South Asians together in a group, and you grouped East Asian people in a group YOURSELF BY CALLING THEM ASIAN, YOU ****. That's not offensive, I'm not saying they all have the same ethnic background. People do this kind of thing all the time. How many times when you see a black person do you try to decide whether his family down the line came from Nigeria or Egypt, or anything? You don't, you just call him "black", and leave it at that. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. Now please, crawl back in your hole.
Damn, how the hell did a thread about Yao turn into an exchange of diatribes between south asians and east asians? lol. Can't we all just get along? Yes, Yao is a hero for alot of east asians...its ok to be proud. Korea went wild over getting into the semi finals for soccer and Senegal closed all their schools when they beat Germany in the world cup. So its ok to be proud, it brings people togather. Let me tell you a story, Jesse Owens, a very prominent black american who competed in the olympics in Germany with HILTER WATCHING HIM. Hilter was out to prove that the Aryan race was superior. All the german officials and fans berated the poor fellow. Yet, he breaks through all the harsh criticism and wins 4 gold medals! In the victory ceremony, Hilter shook hands with the winners except for the african americans including Jesse Owens or whoever wasn't white. So its ok to be proud, it brought the entire african american community togather and it fueled the way for desegragation. You have to remember, there aren't alot of asians in sports. There are people like Junior Seau, Ichiro and Yao, but they are very very sparse.
"Damn, how the hell did a thread about Yao turn into an exchange of diatribes between south asians and east asians? " that's cause rocketguy3 is on his period and he's getting pissed about everything.
