Who is the better player, Aaron Brooks or Steve Francis?

BTW, being an all star simply means you have the most fans, thats it. And im sorry but franchise records mean a whole lot cause were talking about proven numbers. So dont give me opinion about Steve, give me facts...Remember...Men lie, women lie, but numbers dont

 

better talent?

Francis.

Francis was a knucklehead, just like Marbury and many other talented players like him, theres a reason his career took that downward spiral.

I'd take AB for the team though. They avg close to the same amount of points and AB is a better shooter while Francis was harder to defend inside the 3.

 

Yao is SO talented and was close to his prime when stevie was here. He was never too focused on helping him develop just like McLazy. Francis/Mobley alley oops all day were nice but we never went anywhere. AB was a big reason for our playoff wins last year.

 

It's hard to say, right now I'd say Francis was the better player, but he dominated the ball so much (because he had to, we didn't have a lot of good players) which lead to better stats(and an all-star appearance), but Brooks hasn't finished developing.

That was my problem with Francis, he didn't work on any aspects of his game...he got slightly better in his first few years(probably because he got more comfortable with the league and the increased playing schedule) then just stopped improving and started to decline. Brooks came in and has shown great improvement and a drive to keep getting better.

Of course the comparision is a little iffy seening how Francis was a much better player than AB coming into the league. AB may end up a better player, he's at least as quick as Francis was, but Steve had strength and size with his speed which helped him around the basket and rebounding.

Still, you won't see AB losing the ball out of bounds on some bone headed pass or fancy(unnecessary)dribble move..that use to drive me crazy about Francis.

 

SF3 was an undersized, incredibly talented, exciting player who never learned how to play the game. He wasn't a knucklehead. Because of personal problems Francis didn't really even play High School ball. He never really learned now to play basketball in a structured environment he relied on his inordinate talent for everything.

It's actually pretty amazing that the dude had so much talent that he could still dominate in the NBA. But Rudy was the wrong coach for him and Francis never learned to do ****. He made ****ty decisions and couldn't close games because he didn't have the go-to technical tools to do so. Steve wasn't like Marbury who only cared about himself or Shawn Kemp who had mental problems. Francis wanted to win he just never learned the mental tools, discipline, b-ball tactics to do it

 

Martin played too few games and .437 is still below his career average. Scola was having lowest career FG% until that 44 point bust. His 2nd best is also his 2nd worst. Since the trade, Ariza still had lowest career average in FG% for 41% playing his normal role. Battier and Hayes are all having career low FG%.

What I'm seeing is AB isn't running the team all that well whil everyone claims Francis couldn't run the team well, whic is also true. And that was the biggest argument for AB being better than Francis. But Francis brought a lot other elements to the game which AB simply couldn't do. Thus, Francis was a much better all around player.

 

Francis had 3.9 Tos to AB's 2.8, but he also had 6.4 asts to AB's 5.1. So the ast/To ratio is way closer than what Tos indicated, and in fact they both suck at making good decisions.

AB doesn't dribble like Francis and that is the only advantage he really had on Francis. But Francis had enough other weapons like rebounds, drawing fouls, defending bigger guards etc. to make him a better player.

 

Yao wasn't nearly as developed when he played with Francis.

We didn't beat that loaded Lakers with 4 HOFers on it, but Francis averaged 19.2/8.4/7.6 on 41.2 3pt%, that is insane number.

What AB did last year in the playoffs (16.8/2.6/3.4 on 42.4 3pt% shouldn't really be used as an example of how AB outperformed Francis, it's just not comparable. Francis by a mile. Last year's team had way better players.

 

Newsflash, lack of size doesn't equate to foot speed and lateral quickness. It just so happens that small pgs have good speed, however to look at big players and assume they must be small footed just shows your ignorance. LBJ is 6'8 yet he can run faster than Kirk Heinrich, who's 7 inches smaller than him. To even say that someone like Kevin Durant (who performed well in draft combine with the exception of his benchpress) has SLOW feet and ZERO lateral quickness at age 22 is laugable and shows you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

AB had to play monster Lakers team with a team assembled around its injured C. Chuck wasn't playing nearly as good as he is this year in the starting lineup probably b.c it was new at the time but AB hadn't even started one NBA season, and what he did to the champs was formiddable.

Don't bother giving me francis's stats without any wins with the lakers. He had Yao and Mobley on that team and AB still accomplished more with SO MUCH less. Taking the champions to 7 games that shorhanded is a huge obstacle, even you know that.

 

ummmm no he wasnt.

Look I was a huge Francis fan back in the day. But now that I look back, he was only an above average to a good player, a border line all star. But still better than Brooks.

 

Francis had one win against Lakers, which had 4 HOFers on it, and Yao in his 2nd year was getting dunked on by everybody, nowhere near what he was last year.

What AB did was exploring the mismatch for his speed against Lakers since Fisher was too old and slow to keep up with him. That team changed style after Yao went down and won two games against Lakers by surprise. They also got blown out huge in losses,

And AB had 18asts/22Tos in that series, something had never been done by any starting PG in a 7 game series.

You are way to blind to ignore how much better Francis perfomed in the playoffs against Lakers compare to AB.

 

I may add that Francis' time was the dark ages of point guards in the NBA. His contemporaries included guys like Allen Iverson and Starbury, people who compiled a lot of stats but regularly headlined losing teams. So while saying he was legit all star or whatever sounds really good, the reality is that the standards of excellence for pgs were really down in the gutter during his time.

Of course its really hard reasoning with people like you who are lifelong fans of the guy. However I look at him and I see someone who only had world class athletecism and nothing else: he had low bball IQ, bad D and a broken shot. I'll tell you someone who is extremely similar to him: Gerald Green. Except Green actually had a jumpshot

 

You just proved that you watched the Houston Rockets via ESPN Highlights. Every time someone dunked on Yao they played it on ESPN which gave the perception that he was getting dunked on nightly by everyone in the league. That of course was perception and not reality. If you were actually watching the games you would have known that.

 

Man I watched almost every Yao's game. I'm being called a YOF.Y ao got dunked on quite often in his 1st two years, it started to getting better in his 3rd year. He wasn't nearly as strong as he is not to protect the basket that well, and he was relatively much easier to be pushed out of the paint as well.

If you couldn't remember that, that means you haven't watched enough Yao's game.

 

During that one playoff series against the Lakers, Francis averaged a near triple double and had one triple double game. I remember those times clearly, and am sure I can go find the numbers if I do some research.

 

Steve Francis was over rated by many Rockets fans. He monopolized the ball, and if you are a player that needs the ball in your hands 75% of the time, you better be a top 5-10 player in the league. Francis was close, but he was never in that select group of players (Kobe, Jordan, Wade, T-Mac).

Still, I personally believe that Brooks is in a great situation for his game and would not be putting up the numbers he is on many other teams.

Brooks is a better role player than Francis is a Franchise player... if that makes sense.

Still.... Francis in his prime is a level above Brooks.

 

pts/rbs/ast

game 1 :18/9/5
game 2: 18/10/12
game 3: 27/9/7
game 4: 17/5/9
game 5: 16/9/5

 

yes. very good points. if we had 3rd year francis in place of AB, then we would rarely get owned in the PG position. francis was a beast. ask this again in 2 more years. and it could very well be AB. but as of now, no.

and this was against arguably the most dominant team ever (Shaq/Kobe lakers). even lakers fans remember francis for this series.

 

We used Yao and Cato on Shaq, got killed by Karl Malone.