Rafer for Lowry and Cook; looking back 1 year later

That is decidedly past tense. He got mothballed weeks ago.

 

If you call 0 minutes in the last 17 games as actually playing 27 minutes a game due to a team suspension, then I guess you are correct.

 

I loved the trade immediately.

I recall laughing at all the doubters who thought Rafer was really about to lead us to the title.

 

I couldn't believe anyone was upset with that deal in the first place. It added no future salary, actually got us under the luxury tax that year, and nabbed us Lowry.

If anyone had been watching the grizzlies, they'd know Lowry was the better player. He hasn't had a quantam leap in ability since coming to Houston, he's always played this way. Seeing people freak out at the Lowry/Alston trade was just a huge mindbender.

 

Rafer was overvalued b/c we were short of PG and his strength was magnified alongside with Tmac and Yao.
Lowry was undervalued on a bad team w/ a log jam of young guards picked high.
Fantastic deal by the day from now and on.

 

A-Freakin Men

 

I had a problem with the trade mostly because I thought Brooks' ceiling was a very poor man's Leandro Barbosa.

 

He's been suspended from the team since the beginning of march. His shooting percentage for the year was 35 percent. We have seen the last of Rafer Alston in the NBA.

 

Kyle Lowry is shooting 39% this year and 28% from downtown. Although Rafer has declined a lot this year, it seems like Kyle Lowry exhibits the same problems that caused people to clamor for a Rafer trade to begin with.

 

I knew this was going to be a one-sided trade when it happened for two reasons.

1. Morey had been openly (but not agressively) been trying to get Lowry since he came out of Villanova and if Morey's going after a guy, I'll bet on him being a very solid player.
2. AB was already finishing games and playing the same amount if not more minutes than rafer was. AB was ready to go full time (as evidenced by his playoff success only a month or two after taking the starting role).

However, perhaps Brian Cook was the real gem of this trade...the sweet-shooting power forward offered up size, unrivaled athleticism and an outside jumper that could make Dirk blush...

 

In the last season and a half of his time in Houston, Rafer had been improving a good deal and was playing well for us. At times he had bad shot selections and coupled with his streaky offensive game, that hurt us, but really he was a good solid starting PG for us and his injury situation was obviously what cost us the last playoff series against the Jazz during his last post season run with us. Most people that watch the Magic go through the finals, know that Rafer was a key part of that and they really faltered in the finals because they were shoehorning in a obviously still injured Nelson.

That being said, the trade was indeed great for the Rockets. The Rockets wouldn't have push the Lakers to Game 7 without Brooks and Lowry. I was skeptical at first as well but it was a great move by Morey.

Here's hoping that the Martin/Hill for McGrady/Landry will work out just as well.

 

Where is Rafer? How many more years Lowry can play? Still not a good trade?

 

Yes, it looks great now.

I was 'meh' when it happened, but it honestly only took me about a week to like it. I'm a Lowry fan and I was a Rafer hater.

 

Cook was given to the Rockets by God himself, similarly to how He gave the Ten Commandments to Moses.

 

I still can't believe people thought that Rafer was a starting caliber PG. We've known for a long time that he wasn't. We've known for a long time that he was a weak link on the Rockets and that the only reason he was seeing daylight here was because of our crappy PG depth for years.

 

I'll never forget it, I'm sitting at my grandmas with nothing to do but watch nba tv, I get a text during a commercial from one of my friends saying "Rockets just traded Alston!"; I though he was bull****ting. Then NBATV came on and it was breaking news that alston was just traded to orlando, and I remember thinking three things:
1)"Wow, my friend didn't bull**** me"
2)****! We just traded our starting point guard for a backup from memphis? We got jipped!
3)"Oh well, Brian Cook looks promising"

boy was I wrong

 

I am beginning to suspect that Morey has set a mole on every one of the other 29 teams, convincing the coach not to play some good players. Then when the GM is convinced that said players are worthless, Morey would come in and scoop them up in exchange of a bag of chips.

 

I absolutely loved the trade.

Rafer was playing well yes, but I liked the fact that AB was getting an opportunity to show what he was worth. He had/has a lot of talent and obviously Adelman had faith in him running our system at the time.

Lowry was a great pick up, he could have probably taken over if we didn't have Brooks but it was a good and has been a good 1 2 punch to start the game and off the bench.

I don't know why so many people started flippin out here.... Morey ain't dumb. :grin: