Rafer will put up 10 assists per game or very close to 10 assists per game with a healthy Yao, McGrady, a shooter at the 2, and James on the bench. Rafer will be the perfect fit when surrounded with those kinds of players. I'm telling you guys a thousand times, he is going to come very close to 10 assists per game if 111 are healthy and if we add a couple scorers/shooters to our lineup.
If by that statement you mean that some of us want to see this team with a point guard who matches up against the competition in their division (guys like Parker, Harris, Duhon) - a point guard with a reliable offensive game who is not a weakness that opposing teams can exploit at will - then yes, we do appear to have high standards in a point guard. It's amazing how people continue to insist that an inferior talent at a key position is a "good fit" for this team.
Per Declan32001: "Disagreeing with solid, Gater and m_cable in the same thread is enough for me to want to just shut up. But Rafer was a good pick-up. He looked to me as confused as anyone ever has last year, but ball distribution got complicated after our second game. Not hitting open shots on a team with virtually no one on it has rankled seemingly everyone here. A confused point guard is what he is. The guys that think he's part of the problem had better want to bring in V-Span or come up with an alternative. Which no one has. I think we're farther away from contention than most here, but I do think Alston deserves another year just so that we can judge. Funny thing about Alston and Stro, if they're not assets Yao and T-Mac aren't going to be able to do a damn thing. And a lot of people are cool with that." My standards are lower than some here. I am pleased Rafer is pass 1st. His shot is poor, but he is sometimes hurried to develop a play when surrounding players do not help. I recall Matt Maloney, Charlie Ward, a broke down Mark Jackson-lots of past disappointment. IMHO we need someone to unselfishly distribute the ball. He does that without turning it over. I will be surprised - shocked if we can afford Mike James and Rafer is affordable.
some of you guys need to realize that a big part of Yao's development has been due to having rafer as our point guard. skip passes very well into the post. if mike james was here last season, do you think yao would have had the same opportunities he had last season? would/could mjames make some of the passes rafer made to yao?
I don't know about that. I remember the first two preseason games that they played together, where Rafer threw a couple of beautiful passes into Yao. In a number of situations, Rafer repeatedly fed it into Yao, and got it into him in fabulous position. I remember being very excited about the whole thing. But it never really translated into the regular season. Yao and Rafer never seemed to click IMO. First Tracy went down which screwed up the offense. Then Rafer went out. And by the time that Rafer got back, Yao went out as well. When they finally did find the court together, I don't recall Rafer's entry passes as being anything more than adequate. And he didn't "seek out" Yao nearly enough for my liking. Maybe they just need to build some chemistry together. And maybe JVG needs to be faulted for not running enough side Pick and Rolls/Pick and Pops which Rafer had so much success running with Juwan. But no matter what, Rafer's still got a lot to prove in my book.
2005-06 Assists per 48 min: Mike James = 7.6 Rafer Alston = 8.4 You're right. Those 1.2 assists per 48 are so much better a fit than someone who can score, has above average 3 point range, can get to the rack and play some semblance of D.
That is an interesting stat! I wish I had seen MJ play more often last season to see what it was all about. The only Raptors game I saw was Kobe's 81 point game, where MJ cratered and choked on offense just like everyone else on the Raps except Chris Bosh and Jalen Rose. From various buzz I've heard, Raptors fans don't want MJ back. Also, Bosh made some remarks about not wanting MJ back because he wanted a PG who was more effective at passing the ball. I wonder if MJ's assist stats are like Baron Davis', who always has a good APG average but still makes his teammates mad because he won't pass the ball. Confusing.
He also had some very good games last year. While he may be somewhat of a ball-hog, he could be very valuable to us on games where T-Mac is out, or even worse, when T-Mac and Yao are out at the same time. Hopefully our draft pick solves that problem though.
You're right. This entire past season didn't make any sense. Who among us here didn't think the T-Mac/Yao p'n'r was unstoppable? We saw nothing. Sigh, it seems I'm always defending JVG these days. But he was responsible for the Alston/James trade and you have to do it then, now and tomorrow. The problem with Alston last year wasn't the multitude of bricks, but it was that 4 to one assist to TO ratio went negative about the time Yao started bresking out. I still believe Yao needs a sesaon where he averages 5 TO's a game. Seriously. I also believe anyone throwing a pass into Yao shouldn't be penalized for it even if it's a terrible pass. In Alston's case everything became an epidemic last year. "No TO's, no TO's" may have just as well been stamped on his forehead as he played. He fumbled, he seemed as lost as Stro often. Everything went from bad to worse. JVG has accepted generic blame for that mess, but he's never said anything specific about where he miscalculated. No one got better with the exception of Yao and well, that was going to happen someday no matter what else did. A pg is always the easy whipping boy, but Rafer deserves another shot. Maybe next year he'll know when to take one.
The Chronicle indicated that they haven't beeen able to move up! Will they move down and get two picks with the chance of picking up two players in the first round?
A_3PO - I was in a small minority that was upset with the trade of Mike James for Alston from minute 1. I have been a big Mike James fan since his days with the Celtics. Because there was such a pro-Alston crush on this board I made it a point to watch the Raptors as much as I could when the Rox weren't on. Here's my admittedly biased summary. The Raps are/were a 1 man team (Bosh) before James got there. Bosh missed the final 12 games, Sam Mitchell is mediocre at best, Villanueva is really a tweener SF/PF, Joey Graham never got untracked, and Jalen Rose was a mild distraction. The Raps had no depth to speak of and unsuccessfully paraded Matt Bonner, Jose Calderon, Andre Barrett, Rafael Araujo, Pape Sow, Eric Williams, Darrick Martin and Loren Wood on to the floor. In spite of this... * James totally destroyed Alston in a game TMac scored 37 in... http://www.nba.com/games/20060106/HOUTOR/boxscore.html * was part of Bosh in fewer minutes taking more FGA's in 2005-06 than the prior year... http://www.nba.com/playerfile/chris_bosh/index.html * was allegedly a ball hog in Mo Pete's near career year... http://www.nba.com/playerfile/morris_peterson/index.html * and was a part of 16 of the 20 best lineups TOR could put in the court. http://www.82games.com/0506/0506TOR2.HTM At this point you have to step back up and draw a conclusion. Mine is the TOR had no chemistry and that James is an easy scapegoat because he (not unlike Steve Francis), plays the game passionately and comes across poorly in most interviews. I've always felt we gave up way too much for the luxury of an occassional post entry pass. Especially since Alston's lack of range means the defender can sag back and make the post entry pass much more difficult. In a league strongly leaning towards uptempo, the ability of perimeter players to get their own shot and players who can stretch the floor with range...Mike James is truly the one who is a better fit. Think about it...how many of us would be upset if Mark Cuban were pursuing Alston.
Sura was good at finding the open man and pulling down boards, but it was Mike James who played the 4th quarters. Not to discredit Sura, it kind of shows who's more important in key moments. Beside, we have no depth at PG anyway. Just get Mike James on board and let them dual it out for playing time, I think it'll put who is the better/fitter player debate to rest. Nothing to lose, really.
rafer is a good passer, and pentrater except that he can't make those lay-ups which makes me pissed. hes also misses free-throws. i think our free-throw percentrage gone down ALOT. even with yaos improvment. tracy missing freethrow. swift, rafer, bogans, are 60-70. wesly and juan were good, but they got worse than last year. jvg probaly knows rafer is a bad shooter, i think i saw this play when rafer was playing0 with yao and tracy. rafer passes to yao. yao gets doubled, so he passes back to rafer, then one man that was dobuling yao goes back to rafer, and rafer makes that extra pass, to someone in the wing, or back to yao.
So the guy has 38%, 39%, 37% and 35% shooting over 4 seasons, and his numbers go down one season..... Suddenly he's a bad shooter? There's so much more evidence to suggest that he's a good shooter than a bad one. First of all, the 35% shooting season was in Toronto with no low post presence, when he clashed horribly with his coach. Still, 35% is decent when taking 5 attempts a game. Second of all, I believe someone dug up the stats that when Rafer played with Yao, he shot a much better percenteage, something like 36% believe? More importantly, Alston has yet to play an extended stretch of games with both Yao and T-Mac. Imagine coming to a team, then both star players are hit by injuries, you are hit by injuries, key role players are hit by injuries, then you come back and play with a few people you're playing with for the first time, a few for the second time, with half the plays missing because of missing players, and new plays added as well. It was hard to get into the flow of things, and I think he did an incredible job with his passing considering the situation. Finally, GATER failed to mention the TO numbers too: Alston averaged 8.4 assists and 3.1 TO's in 48 minutes James averaged 7.6 assists and 3.4 TO's in 48 minutes To put things in perspective, the jump from James to Alston in terms of assists ad TO's is the same as the jump from Alston to: 9.6 assists and 2.8 TO in 48 minutes. Better than Luke Ridnour, Sam Cassell, Kirk Hinrich, Chris Paul, Andre Miller and Baron Davis. Basically, better than any PG not named Chauncey Billups, Steve Nash, Brevin Knight and probably Jason Kidd. So the difference in passing between rafer and James is the difference in passing between Alston and the top 3 PG's in the league. Be patient. Alston is an excellent passer, a good shooter, and an average defender. He is an above average PG. He is paid less than the MLE. Alston also shows heart, something a lot of players on this team lack. Even the harshest of critics has to admit that given another chance, he will most likely shoot better, pass just as well, fit in better, and make this team's fastbreak better than it has been in years.
Alston is the same type of player as Howard, Wesley, Head. He's a backup player that's being counted on to produce as a starter. Sorry but that dog just won't hunt. He is simply inadequate for the task you are asking him to perform: giving this team a competative option at the PG spot. His weaknesses are easily exploited by opposing teams and he does not provide a level of play that forces them into mismatches in our favor. The bottom line for any player on this team has to be whether or not they can help make this team a true contender. And that's just not Alston.
