Aso, ja klar sehe ich ebenfalls so. Grant's erster Schritt kommt seinem früheren Niveau immer näher, dazu ist der Jumper besser und ja... ich glaube einfach er würde in so einer Situation eher einen Pfiff kriegen als Francis.
Außerdem ist er meiner Meinung nach schwerer zu verteidigen, da er ja entweder ziehen kann oder aber aus der Mitteldistanz abdrücken, bei Francis weiß man was kommt... Naja egal.
Hier mal ein neuer Doom & Gloom Artikel:
Magic in playoffs? Are they kidding?
ORLANDO - What fools we were.
Way back when this season was still in first gear, we watched this Orlando Magic team race to 13 wins in its first 19 games and we all pretty much reacted the same way -- talking, writing and assuming playoffs.
Dummy us.
There will be no postseason party for this team. Not the way they are playing now, losers of 10 of their past 11 and four consecutive at home, counting Saturday night.
To even think this team could have gone from league blight to league elite in one offseason flurry was folly.
We know better now, though. We know that this isn't a season anymore. It's a science project. It's time for the Magic to get a head start on seeing which ingredients will work best for the future.
And the future isn't now.
Certainly it wasn't last night, with Orlando losing 118-116 to the Phoenix Suns.
But we learn something from these games. This is, after all, still a fairly fresh set of players that we're all still learning so much about.
Just ask Chris Jent.
Uh . . . that's the Magic head coach.
"You've got to take from every situation -- win, lose, bad or good," Jent said.
What we can take from this current Magic situation -- which, by the way, is mostly lose and bad -- is that Steve Francis isn't an NBA point guard. And Jameer Nelson is.
Whether or not Francis even is an NBA shooting guard is open for debate, too. And that is the other thing the Magic need to figure out. Is this guy really someone they can win with, someone who can grow his game and adapt it to a different role, or should they look to shop him in the offseason?
I opt for the latter.
That Francis hurts this team from the point position is painfully apparent. That he isn't a leader is apparent, too. Since blowing off the team's first practice after the All-Star break, the Magic have gone 4-13. It's time, then, to force him into a role he doesn't really want -- shooting guard -- and quit delaying the inevitable.
As clearly as we can see Francis now, we're starting to see how different this team plays when Nelson is playing the point. That was evident in last night's second quarter, when Nelson came off the bench with the Magic trailing by six, and left the game later in the quarter with the Magic leading by seven -- a 13-point swing.
"That's been my role all year," Nelson said. "Whether I'm playing 30 minutes, or six minutes, I've got to find a way to impact the game."
He does.
Now it's time to allow him to impact the game in a more meaningful way.
Start him.
Johnny Davis had reached that conclusion before he was fired. Davis had started Nelson 11 straight games before the ax fell.
Then Chris Jent took over.
Jent, by the way, is Slavic for Stop-Gap.
Just kidding.
(Not really.)
Jent is apparently as bullheaded as Francis. One of his first acts as the Stop-Gap head coach was to remove Nelson from the starting five.
"I want Jameer coming off the bench to give us a lift," he said. "I feel as though with our style of play and the way that we want to run a little more, that we need to sustain that level of intensity. It's led by the point guard. We're a point-guard running team."
Well, yeah.
But with Francis at point guard, he has run and run this team right out of the playoff picture.
Last night, Francis did what he does best -- and worst. He played like a high-speed car chase through crowded city streets. And his line score read like it.
Steve Uh-Oh had six turnovers, only two less than the entire Magic starting lineup. He also hit on just five of 17 guns . . . er, shots.
But, you know, he did play hard.
If you're tired of hearing that, join the club.
You know, Ron Zook used to work hard when he was the Florida Gators' head football coach. But when you think about it, I never heard anyone accuse him of working smart.
Same goes for Francis. He plays hard, but rarely smart.
And, really, Francis probably doesn't play any harder than most every other player. He probably doesn't play any harder than someone like, say, Grant Hill. But while Francis is that high-speed car chase through crowded city sheets, Hill is like an Italian sports car zipping through a winding country road.
Point is, looks are deceiving.
Unless, of course, you were looking at Jameer Nelson last night, who was named player of the game afterward.
Coming off the bench, Nelson finished with 19 points, two more than Francis. He also had three steals and only one turnover in 26 minutes.
He looks like a point guard and plays like a point guard.
That's why it's time to start him at point guard.
And keep him there.