I am going to officially hold you rafer lovers feet to the fire come 30 games in. Statistically we lost in the first round again, with TMac playing lights out, and Yao playing slightly underpar, and you want to roll with the same crew? Amazing. OH and btw, use real stats not made up ones. The Mavs, Suns, Spurs, and Chicago all had better point differentials than the Rox, and made it further in the playoffs. Which no one on any of those teams had a starter shoot under 38 percent, or a PF who only made one shot for the season not a gimmie under the bucket. Bonzi will be a difference maker for the Rox off the Bench, and so will James and Francis. Without those guys, and only adding scola, the Rox would be first round meat again.
I'm not a Rafer lover, but more of a guy who thinks Francis is grossly overrated and gets annoyed by all the "francis should start" post he gets, due to the old days when he had good stats even though his team went nowhere. I would rather have rafer, mike james or luther ahead of francis on the depth chart. OK maybe I am a Francis Hater.
Just for the Record Look at the Francis Play off team . . Tmac's 1st play off team and last year Playoff Teams Which is more Talents? Which lost to the more Talented Team? Francis's team lost to the BEST team of the 3 Lakers [with 3 HOFers] Then Dallas Then Utah is the worse team we lost to in the play offs [The Dallas team and the Laker team would have scrubbed that Utah team in 5 games] So anyone saying keeping the team the same as last year is insane I don't think SF's playoff team was more talented than T-Mac's 1st team .. but it was this last team . . IMO . .but I could be wrong .. it has been a minute Rocket River
SF3 will prove to be a solid player for this team as the season goes along. In the end he will be a big contributor off the bench.
Different system now. Believe what you want. As of now Head will play more than Francis. That is a fact
I am not talking about only distributing. You may think I am crazy, but playing Rafer is like having a coach on the floor. He knows the offense almost as well as adelman and also knows how to position people on offense and defense. We do not need a scoring point guard to start. We do need either francis or james to be a scorer off the bench to go with bonzi and head. But we don't need both francis and james.
Scola will eventually start and close games and he is not a liability. Also I think battier will be more of a threat this year. As for rafer, he needs to start the games but probably not close.
IC2000, Any wind on whether the management would be trying to move Francis or James at the moment? James seems to be "fitting in" the offense better, but Francis has his strenths, too. He also has the cheaper contract and the fan popularity from the early days.
Rafer was having to take more shots and be a player he was not last year. Not to mention he was being overplayed. He has said that he hated his role last year (3rd scorer) and is much more comfortable this year. He also said that he played too many minutes last year. So he is going to be a different type a player. I still say head or james should close the games.
I am curious about what you think the minutes distribution will go among the four small guards-- James, Francis, Alston, and Head.
i donno what yall are talkin abt but steve is probably a more agressive player who is not afraid to take it to the rim more then rafer mike and of course luther. so steve defintiely deserves some playing time.
Agree with you completely. Anyone think that last year team can lead us to glory is out his/her mind. Rockfan94
Has Adelman ever started off the season giving a guy limited minutes and then upping it considerably? I'm genuinely surprised that Francis has gotten so little time and almost no time with the first team. I would like to at least see how Francis and James look with the starting unit. Rafer may have looked pretty solid in the first few games, but I was hoping we would have a different starting unit than last year. I just remember that when the teams locked down on us, only two guys had the superior talents to score. Also, Adelman was on board with the signing of Francis so he must have at least had something in mind for him. Maybe Francis will take a time to adjust, but start coming on strong after a few months.... It would only make us more dangerous if we can get him rolling. Having to stop Yao, Tmac, Bonzi and a Franics and James would be a nightmare for opposing coaches. Francis has talent. He was averaging around 20 points 6-7 rebounds and 6-7 assists for 4 years and only two different teams. We can still use his abilty to take it to the hole strong and/or get fouled. Adelman's supposed to be the offensive guru....I hope he figures out how use Francis strengths. As far as Head, I think he serves a completely different function and already has his niche carved out for him. Yeah, he can't create his own shot, but we desperately need 3 point shooting and he's our best one. Francis will really be competing for the point guard and combo scorer role.
Totally agree. Van Gondy put Alston as our 3d scorer last year when it clearly should have been Battier. That's on Gundy. Now, with more offensive firepower and a new system that utilizes cuts and screen, Rafer can excel at distributing the ball and not worrying about becoming a primary scoring option. He is similar to Jason Kidd in that he has a terrrrrrrrrrrible shot, but elite in all other categories. To all the Rafer haters, the only reason he was bad last year was because of Van Gundy's schemes which required him to shoot an inordinate amount of shots. James should be used only to spell Rafer for short stretches since he isn't a great fit. Francis should be used as a victory cigar.
Francis stays and he gets minutes. At least 10-15 min per game. Francis brings people in to watch the game. He's a fan favorite or a fan villian, either way people want to pay good money to see him either soar or fall flat on his face. In this way it's like the WWF.
Stevie can still get to the rim as he's shown even last night.....but, he does need to get in the film room and start studying and learn the offense just like Bonzi has (who seems like he's one of the two guys on the team that knows the offense the most). Some guys might have adapted quicker to Adelman's offense because they played a similar system or their skills easily adapt to this style....while it might take others to get it down to playing instinctively. I thought the unit with Francis, James, Bonzi, Scola... got a lot of penetration. We're already getting to the free throw line a lot more than last year.
Once one player out of the group of Francis, James, Alston, Head, Wells, McGrady, Battier is injured, the problem will sort of solve itself and we will be thankful for having more talented players rather than less. So we can "worry" all we want right now about having a logjam, there will be plenty of times that we will be happy about the depth we have. Francis is a bargain and we should be happy to have him. Key will be to keep everyone happy even during the times when everyone will be healthy and therefore some people will get a lot less minutes than they would expect. The most important part will be just winning games - nobody can/should really b**** about not getting enough minutes as long as the team is winning.
Yeah, that depth can be excellent for us for the long haul of the season and the injuries that happen over an NBA season. It's really the egos that we have to worry about. In the long run, it's actually better for guys like Tmac and Francis who won't have their bodies be taxed by heavy minutes.
