Sorry man, this isn't gonna happen. Francis is plain awful and washed up. He is what everyone thought he'd be when he got too old- worthless.
It wasn't great, except in comparison to the last two games where he didn't play. Steve showed some early flashes, but in two games against teams we "should beat", he certainly didn't show anything to support that he deserves to be starting. Only 11 minutes and looking pretty bad in those 11 minutes certainly didn't help his case tonight. For now I would keep him in the 20 minute off the bench role and see what happens. Ideally we still need to trade for a better PG than both Steve and Rafer, but I don't really see many options there at the moment.
bonzi and james is more firepower off the bench then you had last year, and they dont even run the f'in system half the time............go read the guy's post.......he says the team sucked with rafer, it didnt, that's all i said......
Steve is 30, not 37. I think it has more to do with him not being in game shape and not his age. Obviously, he's not ready to handle starter minutes yet.
Hard to blame his struggles on conditioning when he only played 11 minutes tonight, and looked bad for most of those minutes. Hopefully he improves as the season goes on, but he certainly didn't take advantage of the opportunity presented to him these last two games against opponents that we "should have" beaten. His man was scoring at will, but then again that could be said for most of the Rockets. It was his decision making that really bothered me. After several games where he looked great in limited minutes, tonight he looked really out of sync and made the type of turn overs I remember hating the first time he was here.
Francis played some of the worst basketball I have ever seen tonight. He passed up an open look that came from the flow of the offense, and held it, and stood there, and finally forced up an airball (though he was lucky enough to get a bogus foul call, though he missed a freethrow). Later on , he's wide open from 3 and throws up a terrible brick. Every other time he caught it with a decent look, he hesitated and forced a drive. Add in a missed layup or two, along with letting Willie Green score at will, along with a reluctance to shoot that let his defender sit in Yao's lap, and 3 turnovers, and an inability to get the team into an offense efficiently, and you've got a lot of terrible basketball his short amount of playing time. God, at least Rafer is willing to take the shot. Hey steve, passing up good looks does not make you unselfish. It makes you a liability. And if you don't have confidence to make the shot, get off the floor.
yeah i believe he has a problem is to not seem selfish, people made him believe he is selfish and he changed that. Now people believe he is too unselfish and he needs to start changing that. Francis need more work to do in order to be a player we can be satisfied with
The better guardis the one who guides the team to victory. Individual statistics are trivial. Wins and losses are all that is important.
He didn't get much time in the preseason and didn't play in the first 10 or 11 games. When he has came off the bench, he's looked good. He just hasn't shown anything to be starting material. At least in these past two games. IMO, his best chance to secure the starting spot were these two games. Now, it's a long shot unless something happens.
Just waive Francis. Not only would it make the Rockets better, it would also remove a lot of clutter from the GARM.
This is about which guard does better in Adelman's offense. So far I haven't seen much from this new offense. If the Rockets played the conventional NBA offense, Francis hands down. Maybe that's what Adelman should do. Play the conventional NBA offense and let the guys play the way they are supposed to and know. Defensively, I saw very poor box outs and very poor energy in getting to the boards. Offensively, they defended the pick and roll very well and doubled Yao. They clogged up our lane and dared us to make our 3 pointers. Well guess what, we are one of the NBA's worst 3 point shooting teams right now. No wonder they clogged up the lane.
Freaking Rockets just sucked tonight!!! Nobody stepped up!!! I was glad to see Francis start but it just seems that he's too scared to mess up that he mess up. This game was plain pathetic. Let's hope the next game is a complete turn around!
I never said Rafer's job was easy. I have watched Francis for years and did not form my opinion based on the few minutes he has played this season. The reason he needs time is to get his legs under him, get comfortable playing regular minutes again and get used to a new team. Even after his performance tonight, I still think he is our best option at PG. Do I think he is the ideal player? No. I am only passing judgment based on the current roster. If Rafer penetrated more often and could FINISH or get to the free throw line, then he would clearly by our best PG. He is above average for a point guard at shooting 3s. He just doesn't do anything else scoring-wise. The fact is that Rafer almost never finishes around the basket or shoots free throws and with limited offensive players around him like Battier and Hayes seeing so many minutes, his offensive deficiencies have an even greater negative impact on the team. If we don't take Rafer out of the starting lineup, then we need to sit Hayes' ass and let Scola start ASAP before this team is in too big of a hole. You can't play Adelman-ball with Rafer, Chuck and Shane playing together for signficant minutes. It is hard to argue with that reality.
Rafer's job is not to score. When he does penetrate he dishes it out or sometimes he'll float one up. He is a pure point guard, through and through, and this team does not need his offense. That is why you pay Tracy and Yao the big bucks. Rafer might not average 8 assists per game, but just his presence on the floor directing things is enough for him to be the starting PG. And for all you "Mike James should be the starter" backers, there is a MAJOR problem when your guard jacks up more shots than Yao instead of running the offense and letting it run through the big guy.
Actually, the fact is that Rafer *is* penetrating more often this year, and the fact is that he *does* finish around the basket now: last year his eFG% on shots in the paint was 50%, this year it is up to 62.2%. Also, his eFG% on shots with less than 3 seconds left on the shot clock is 59.7%, up from 43.3% last year. His 82games.com +/- rating is still the highest on the team at +7.9 (I'll have to look up BV later on). His shooting is still awful, but I think some of his improvements are being overlooked. If you've been watching the games you'd know that he is taking less floaters, has learned to finish with his left, and even on the floaters he is hitting a much higher percentage. Take out his horrible 3pt shooting earlier in the season and he hasn't really been bad. I'm still for Stevie as a starting point guard and I think his struggles in the last couple of games have more to do with confidence than anything, but if we want to start talking facts, Rafer is clearly our best point guard right now.
