My Preview and Projection on the Rockets

As much as I really enjoy reading these great contributions, I find this analysis of Steve Francis just your standard "homey" analysis. In fact, I find it contradictory. It seems like LA put more effort into the rest of the team, and just gave us the standard line that Stevie does it all....like most college draft reports say.

I do not see how a point guard can have dribbling and passing as a "strength," then in the same analysis "turnovers" as his weakness. How does he turn the ball over so much to be called a "weakness" if dribbling and passing are "strength." Further, how does this point guard end up with the worst assist/turnover ratio in the league for point guards, if he doesn't work his way into assist positions better by attacking with his dribbling looking to make the for-sure-thing pass. Are we to blame it on the coach for not putting him into passing situations...I believe Stevie is free to run fastbreak anytime he wants. I believe Stevie is free to call for picks and to run any play he wants. I believe his primary objective is supposed to get into the middle of the court for passing/shooting opportunities.

Steve Francis has good dribbling and passing skills. I would not call them a weakness. But I by no means would call them a strength for a point guard. His loses the handle trying to ISO and do a cross-over nearly has much as he is successful at using it to get all way to the rim. His passing is suspect, because he doesn't use it properly once in the lane and makes poor decisions on fastbreaks.

Stevie is not the best dribbler on the team....Moochie is. Stevie is not even in the same league as Kidd, Payton, Stockton when it comes to dribbling. We cannot analyze a league's worst assist/turnover point guard and call his dribbling and passing a "Strength." Stevie is an adequate dribbler and passer for a point guard. Let's not keep repeating his College Draft Report accolades as if they have all transferred over at a superstar level. Steve's in the NBA running our team. He needs to protect the ball more, yet at the same time attack with it. That is going to be tough, as he is not a polished decision-maker, yet!

What I'd focus on is his shooting and athleticism as his great strengths. He is arguable the BEST point guard in the league at those two...shooting because he can both create the shot for himself and nail it when left open at any range. He has the potential to combine those with even just adequate passing skills to reach superstardom. imo, all he needs to do is make better decisions on when to drive versus shoot the small J, and then to pass in traffic better.

To LA #1 Rocket Fan,
I really enjoyed the rest of your analysis. I just cannot do the "homey" analysis of Francis. The team's "best player" and and "team leader" needs constructive criticism, because it is his improvement that will add more wins to this team. With the rest of the analysis, I'm pretty much in total agreement, although I'd give the Shooting Guard position an A for the fact that Stevie is Mobley's back-up, plus I'd like to see you analyze the 3-guard line-up (Moochie as PG, and SF and CM as duel wing players). When that is included, then the shooting guard position really becomes one of the best in the league. The shooting guard position will likely never be man'ed by anyone other than Cuttino or Stevie for the entire game. And that is a tribute to the power of Moochie to slide into the PG position and lead this team at Clutch time....or anytime during the game.

 

LA Rocket fan,

GREAT post. Appreciate your insights and the work that went into it. And your grammar, paragraphs etc. are SO much better than initial posts. You have a great way with words.

Dallas Rocket

 

First of all, great post L.A. You truly are a true-blue Rockets fan.

Now as for an analysis of the 3 guard offense,...

well, they missed the playoffs, didn't they?

I certainly hope that, considering that there are ONLY 4 SFs on the roster now, Mobley isn't looked to for play at the 3. The only time I want to see Mobley at SF is when/if the opposition goes with a SG at SF (no one except Dallas or NY will try that). If anything, I'd like to see him play some PG, with plays run for Steve from time to time (running off picks, cutting to the basket).

3 guard set:

Strengths:

The real beauty of this set is their versatility and effectiveness in the transition game. All three are capable of directing the break, and just try to find 3, nevermind 5, players capable of running with them. Either one can direct the break or run the wings, take it to the rim and finish, pull up for the quick 3, or break it off and set up the offense. In the half court, they are a handful, especially in the Rocket system that stresses spacing and ISOs, as all have 3pt range, can create their own shots and for others, and know how to get to the line.

Weaknesses:

The problem is, their best rebounder will be playing in Canada for the next 3 years, and their next best rebounder could very well be the PG. That translates into a lethal open court attack that may be grounded more often than not. And as the Clippers showed last year, taller but equally quick and athletic players are the perfect antidote for this lineup. Luckily for them, few teams have that luxury.

 

Good Job LaLaNumeroUno.

I don't necessarily agree with all your scores, but then you didn't write it so everyone would agree anyway. Overall I give you a B ..... okay stop the whining ....

..... you damn LaLa landers are always whining about something.....

"stop the madness, stop the madness .... everyone start dieting and eat this organic slop" .... "no smoking while breathing in any public place,please" .... "save the whales" .... "save all big fish" ... "oh hell, stop eating all together" ... "if they can put a man on the moon why can't they stop this totally messy earthquakes in California" .... "actually, like ya know, like narly man, this is better than ... like living somewhere else,man ... isn't it? ...... "it's too cold" .... "It's too hot" .... "it's too wet" .... It's too dry".... "It's too LA!" ...



So I'll give you a B+ overall with an A- for effort.

Good job!

 

test

 

Argh....why do these people with less than 600 posts have to spam the board with empty posts just to get their post count up... .

 

I agree with that, but I'll give LA the benefit of the doubt and say that having passing as a "strength" refers to his ability as a passer and having turnovers as a "weakness" refers to his decision-making. One hopes that his decision making will improve greatly in the next couple of years as his experience grows.

 

Whoever said that Rudy is a bad coach is really stupid. And whoever said that Rudy's success is credited to Hakeem is really dumb too! Last year Rudy coached a guard-oriented team instead of his normal big-man team. He changed his whole offense and still almost made it to the playoffs. With the talent we had we should of been worst than the Clippers. And this time, Hakeem was not there to play, just like the 3 past years. Rudy has rebuilt this team in such a short time, I don't think there are many coached like Rudy T. Rudy T is going to go down as one of the greatest coaches in my book.

 

I don't mean to be too critical, but if you add up the points for each player, we come up to 112 ppg, which is 15 more than last season and over 10 more than the leagues highest scoring team.

 

ricky812

While our team scoring average was indeed 97.2 ppg, the cummulative sum of our player averages was 107.4, last year.

This difference is due to players not playing every game (injuries), whereas the team scoring average is an exact average over 82 games. You'll see that if you add up player ppg across the league, that sum will always significantly exceed their team's scoring average.

 

H-town#1fan,

I never said that Rudy was a bad coach!!
Just shut up!!