For some reason the fans on this baord need to b**** about someone. I wasn't on the forums when Francis first played for Houston, but I would bet a few dollars on the fact that the same fans praising him now, were b****ing about him like crazy. Let's get this myth about T-Mac quitting on the Magic. This wasa guy who got that team to a 3 game lead aginst the Piston's. How did that Franchise repay him? They for some reason continued to trade away mid-range talent for D-Grade talent. He then had enough of the Franchise and asked to be traded. Guess what guys? Francis wasn't willing to be third in-line for the Rockets. It was "trade me because I have 4-5 years left". What I am trying to say is this. You can twist anything that happens in the NBA or any sport when you do not have all of the facts. We do not everything that happened in Orlando and going on what people say is not good enough to establish what realy happened. It is also bull**** to judge someone's character from your living room. Look at what happened with T-Mac this week. He played three great games with on day rest, then after a bad game he apparently quit on the team. I do not care what you job is or how hard your life has been. the fact is we have not gone through a 82 game season in a league with 30 team league. The difficulty and the pay-rate is irrelevant. Maybe this team never gets past the first round and continues to get injuries because we do not deserve it. We don't deserve it for b****ing when ever the team doesn't play up to our standard. Discussing why we lsoe a game or how we can play better is different form the hate I sense from reasing most posts. Hate for Yao Ming or hate for T-mac. Heck, even hate for Battier becasue he was part of a trade involving Rudy Gay.
Wait let me get this right, you guys are telling me you like over achievers, people that never quit and people that play with heart and you give me Steve Francis? The guy who quit on his franchise before he ever played for them and acutally got drafted by them? I find it ridiculous that a guy who is meant to be a professional refused to play for the franchise that drafted them by the rules set by the league. Your telling me the guy never quits? He has heart? He quit on a team full of scrubs before he even played for them. Seriously Steve Franchise is alot of things but with heart and never quit on a team is not one of them.
mvp is way more important than a scoring title. it proves that made your team a winner and your teammates better. and you are making it dumb on purpose throwing scalabrini name out. we know that nash took his teams far in the playoffs and made all his teammates better. do u not remember the butt kicking nash gave us when he won those mvps? the fans now only care about scoring and dunking. its the truth. if the choice of getting tmac orlando champ vs tim duncan, anyone with a brain would choose duncan. has duncan won a scoring title? I don't think so. mvps and championships. I think tmac would tell u he would rather make it past the first round than being scoring champ.
some things to ponder while I head out to work. 1) Is Kobe post shaq and pre Gasol a winner? He demanded to be traded and was throwing tauntrums until the trade and exited the first round every year. 2)Are the Jim Kelly era Buffalo Bills winners? 3) Are the 15-0 Patriots winners that season? 4)If Tmac wins a playoff game is he then considered a winner? 5) Is Yao Ming a winner? 6) Is Barry Bonds a winner? How about Arod?
Francis was hated every bit as much as T-Mac, if not much more. In fact, if you want to go even farther back, fans even used to b**** about Hakeem, especially before the championships. I guess that's the lesson - to get fans to love you (mostly), you need to win *multiple* championships
How can anyone think Francis is an overachiever? He was drafted #2 overall. How does the second player taken in the draft become an overachiever when he has hardly done anything great. Tracy Mcgrady was taken #9 in the draft. Unlike Francis, his career started with little to no playing time and little to no on court production. Yet now, his numbers dominate Francis. As injury prone as he is considered here, He has played far more often then Francis since the trade occurred. He has had far more team and individual playoff success then Francis (by team I mean at least making the playoffs). Yet somehow someone here labeled him possibly the greatest failure in NBA history? Seriously, Francis refused to play for the team that drafted him. He has played in 202 games the last 5.5 seasons. He has one trip to the playoffs and no series wins in his career. That is overachieving? What did you expect of him, zero trips to the playoffs? Cuz that is the only way you can say he overachieved. You can dislike Tmac. You can love Francis. But anyone who thinks Francis in anyway has had a career remotely close to Tmac's level is crazy. Also, anyone who thinks Francis somehow is full of heart and puts team before himself has basically put on blinders to the Grizzlies situation, the superbowl incident, the Knicks disaster, the numerous injuries, last years conditioning problems, and even asking to not be played in mop up minutes this season. None of those scream team player.
One thing I think we need to put to rest is that Francis skipped a game to go to the Superbowl. Francis didn't skip the game but the team flight and had planned to take another flight on his own. It was JVG's decision to bench him for the game because he missed the team flight. Francis wanted to play and wasn't happy about the coach's decision. This argument that Francis quit on the team because he skipped a game isn't true. Yes, he quit on going to take the team flight but he had every intention to play. I think one of the reasons why so many people like Francis is that he plays with joy and love that shows on the court. T-Mac while much more talented doesn't seem to have that same joy and basketball to him often seems tedious. Even when Francis was injured and out of shape the impression was he still wanted to be out there where as with T-Mac even when healthy he sometimes gives the impression he doesn't want to be out there. As other posters have noted both have some major flaws to them. Francis' flaw is that he often doesn't play smart and his love of the game gets in the way of being a good team player. He feels he has to do it all himself and makes it harder than it needs to be. T-Mac has so much talent and ability yet there are times when he doesn't use that to its fullest extent, such as shying away from contact and settling for jumpers than taking it to the lane. Both players have dealt with injury and no doubt a lot of what seems skittishness on T-Mac's part is likely due to concern over further injury yet I think there is a difference of approach to both players that shows in fan reaction. This is best summed up in the Phoenix game last year where a not totally in shape or health Francis was still willing to throw himself around the court. I will admit that I like Francis, and also that back when he was a starter there were times I wanted to smash the screen over his boneheaded plays, but that T-Mac is the far better player even when they were both at their height. For the team T-Mac gives us the better chance for success. It would've been nice to have them both play for us but as a Rockets' fan if it comes down to T-Mac versus Francis I will take T-Mac flaws and all.
If you are going to talk about underachieving based on the draft would Dream be an underachiever since he won fewer titles, fewer MVP's than Jordan but was taken at #1 while Jordan at #3 It shouldn't be a surprise that McGrady was taken lower since he had only played in highschool. While Francis had played in college and McGrady was more of an unknown quantity.
I still think we stole TMac from the Magic....that trade was ridiculously one sided....Steve Francis cant even hold TMac's lunchpail.
your arguments get worse dude. ill take a mvp over a scoring champ unless they are the same person. if u want to argue tmac vs garnett than stick to it. you can argue that tmac with the rockets without yao played like a mvp. garnet didn't get any credit til he took his team to the wcf with the wolves. then he silenced his critics last year. tmac hasn't gotten his winner label cause he hasn't done that. he has to win more than a playoff series first. kobe proved to be mvp last year. not the year he was ball hogging. and people like steve for many reasons but the main one is that he started here.
I'm sure it's been pointed out, I just don't have time to read all the posts right now. Francis played hard all the time. You could tell he was excited to be in the game and on the court. He embraced the city of Houston and loved to be on the Rockets. I just don't get that vibe from TMac.
francis was 6'3, had ridiculous athletic ability for his height, strong ala jkidd, extremely quick with a great first step -> he had tremendous talent and potential too. there's a reason he nicknamed himself "the franchise" and no one laughed earlier on b/c he had that potential. he has underachieved, esp. how his career has played out. now nobody will remember francis 2-3 years from now around the L.
and if u think francis is an underachiever, well, you're jocking him way too much. tracy is a vast underachiever no doubt in terms of team success. it's a shame how little he has accomplished.
i have never, and will never understand fans' tendencies to create a rivalry between players that isn't even there. i loved steve when he was a rocket and i wanted him to succeed during both tenures here. why does that mean i have to hate t-mac too? i don't care who is on my team, i want any rocket to succeed. all this hate by so-called fans is disgusting.
Its true Francis coming into the league was a more known quantity and there was a sound reason why he was picked that high. That said there was sound reasons why Sam Bowie was picked ahead of Michael Jordon. Not as much was known about T-mac coming straight out of high school and even though there have been sucessful high school picks there have been also been busts. Every draft pick is a gamble but given that it would be years before T-mac physically matured to his athletic abilities and also that he had never played college ball I don't think you can compare his draft position with Francis' to say which one is a bigger underachiever.
