Is this a championship caliber team with Rudy as coach and Francis at the 1?

i'm not gonna click on any of them. I love the rockets, but i don't think they are championship calibre until they either trade for better players or wait a couple years for Griff and Yao Ming to develop. They have the players...but they aren't developed yet...so they definately won't be a championship calibre team this year.

 

I don't think there are enough choices but I have to say we have the makings of a championship team the way we are. I think there was a lot of experimentation with Cat and Steve interchanging the last two games, i.e. Cat played a lot more "point" when Steve was in the game than is usual. Hey, it's preseason, and Rudy loves to try to find a way to get mismatches.

Last night Steve was playing a lot of 2: Why did they do this last night?

1) Allen Iverson. Steve wanted badly to show he could out "Iverson" him. I think it went to his head and he overdid it. But I also think Rudy was allowing this, i.e. he was running Cat on the point sometimes and letting Steve play 2 with AI. I don't think this would have occurred to the extent it did in the regular season.

2) Cat was going against his hometown team. Of course that means gunning and showboating. Again, in the regular season, I don't think Rudy lets Steve and Cat loose like that.

3) Who else was available for offense last night? Really only Rice, and to an extent EG, were known "go to" offensive commodities in the rotation. Not to say Yao Ming, Boki, Cato, Hawkins, Tito, Collier can't score, but it would have been nice to have MT, KT, Mooch and TMo in the mix too. They certainly would have helped on the boards too. playing Collier at PF with Ming was a sight I don't think we'll see again soon...

4) Yao is a known scorer but he's fresh off the boat, and still getting his land legs. The players need to get used to where he wants the ball and Yao Ming needs to learn and mesh into the flow of the offense.

With the above in mind, among other things, I think we need to allow that Rudy and Steve do have the potential to take this team to higher ground. But it will take more than those two...

 

what they need is twofold:

1) time
2) the offense to be taken out of francis' hands. i don't care if he stays at the "1" (i won't call it the pg, because he isn't one). in fact, he needs to stay at the 1 and let cat stay at the 2. the answer begins inside (as in inside the paint).

 

steve is a triple double waiting to happen, and rudy has two rings already.

if you want to talk about steve not being able to contend at PG while being the teams main option, fine. but dont question rudy's ability to win because he has proven tat he can.

 

This season, we aren't a championship caliber team regardless of who is coaching or who is playing point guard, so it's pretty much a moot point.