I guess. I wouldn't call him a traditional PG but that's not necessarily a problem. Francis, in his prime, was pretty damn good and, iirc, took houston to the playoffs, pretty much by himself. It's only a problem if Rose starts calling himself "franchise" and forgets that passing the ball is part of his job.
Mikedc Sham started it on Twitter this morning. Said some "factions" consider Rose Francis II. He said they were wrong. I thought it would be a good poll and a thread for discussion. Francis was very good the first 3 or 4 years in the league. Very fast, explosive. Could Rose be considered the second coming of Francis? Francis downfall was his attitude. Rose is quiet or a saint compared to Stevie and his attitude.
There are quite a few similarities, but Rose isn't the player he's ultimately going to be so we have to wait and see. Francis didn't shoot as high a FG%, but he grabbed about 2 more rebounds per game. Francis never really had great (mature) players around him. Hakeem was already past his mid-30s, he only played with Yao for two years. I think Francis had to reasons for his downfall. First and foremost was his injuries. Second, he didn't want to be a traditional PG (he played SG for Houston) and for that there was friction with the coaches.
Stats are comparable. Stevie was 22 when he came into the league He shot a much better 3 than Derrick does. Career 34%. Shot almost 40% his second season. Derrick shoots the ball better than Francis did. Francis career 43%. First two years in the league, 45%. Rose shot 48 and 49%. Francis got 6.6 assists first year, second year, 6.5 Rose...6.3 and 6. Rose averaged 16.8 and 20.8, while Francis did 18 and 19.9 first two years in. Considering Rose is two years younger than Francis was, I would say you cant compare the two, but it is interesting.
I think people are underestimating the difference in the attitude of Rose and Francis. Don't forget, Francis was too big of a star to start his career in Vancouver and got himself traded away before he even played a game.
I think there's a lot of pretty obvious differences. 1. As TBF pointed out, Francis came into the league with two years of age on Rose. So it'd make some sense that he was better out of the gate relative to what they'll become. 2. If you judged Francis based on his first four years, he put up numbers to somewhat justify his billing. He was really, really good, and then he pretty much fell off the map because of health problems, attitude, and the fact he couldn't play very well at a half court pace under Van Gundy. So I think if you said Rose is comparable to Francis through the first two years of their career, it would be somewhat sensible, but it would tarnish Rose because what we're really thinking about with Francis is all the crummy stuff that happened with him later on in his career. And those are things that have no obvious parallels with Rose. 3. The one key stat I see that's very different between the two is that Francis was always a huge turnover machine. In his best year he had a substantially higher TO rate than Rose's rookie year, and Rose improved on his rookie year despite handling the ball a lot more.
Rose is a totally different product. The only comparison is being able to perform flashy dunks. Francis * Cocky * Too much dancing to pull off a crossover and get by a defender and score * Used to be compared to Kobe back in the day to see who kept the ball longer * Wasn't willing to continuously learn how to succeed in the NBA Rose * Humble * Always a student ready and willing to learn the game so he can play 4ever * Takes him 2 seconds to pull off a deadly crossover * Understands that team ball is going to lead to victory * He plays so well that he doesn't have to say anything, his game speaks for itself
In their first two years, I would say their games are pretty similar, but Rose is doing it at a younger age, which should count for a little bit. The confusion comes when you compare Steve Francis' entire career to Derrick, which conflates a lot of items that are tangential to what they did on the court early in their careers. Derrick does not seem to be a flake or a malcontent, which was Francis' undoing.
