Hahahaha! Seriously? You're from 2003 and you think Lin is the one that causes people to be obsessive and over analyze? Before Lin, there were Yao fans and T-mac fans. And before that Francis fans. And before that even more.
Lin gets NO WHERE NEAR the amount of hate Skip to my 'Cant hit a Teardrop' Alston got. That guy was a street ball legend and total NBA scrub, deserved every single bit of hate he got, and then twice more. Half the threads posts were something about his bricktastic 3's or his utter whiffs at that stupid teardrop....damn thing never stood a chance in hell of going in..... Still can't believe he set the club 3's made record, god I'm glad that got trumped...
It was pretty ugly. I even remember making a thread on Rafer of how surprisingly good he was playing in Orlando when he and Dwight were in the playoffs. He was so bad, come to imagine that Morey was able to get rid of him for an upgrade in Lowry was shocking to me.
Ehh Yao got too much hate... he made a huge difference on the defensive end and was an exceptionally good player. Hell even James Harden gets too much hate. Every time he does well LOF's come in with claims of "ball hog","lazy" or backhanded compliments... my favorite coming from TOROCAN inferring that the huge game Harden had against Portland was due to Portland being a mediocre defensive team. Lin gets too much hate, although I believe most of it is not against Lin, but against LOF's.
His career peformance in game 4 against the Cavs prevented the Cavs from a 2-2 series tie and put the Magic up 3-1. It was the difference-maker in that series. To this day, I believe LeBron would have made the Finals and beaten the Lakers if it weren't for Rafer's fluke shooting that night.
Rafer always got more hate than he deserved, but his expectations were also lower coming in. He was an average PG, who like Lin, played with a ball dominating shooting guard in TMac. Every year the Rocket's tried to bring in a replacement PG and until he was traded, none of the replacements were able to take his job. Rafer wasn't as good a finisher as Lin, but he was better at taking care of the ball and limiting his turnovers and he was a better than average defender. He wasn't a good 3 pt shooter, but he had a slightly better 3 pt % than Lin has so far. Of course the inside-out offense also led to Rafer shooting about twice as many 3's as Lin per game. Rafer 1st year with Rockets: 12.1 ppg, 1.6 stl, 4 rebounds, 6.7 assists, 2.5 turn overs in 38.6 minutes, 37.9% FG, 32.7% 3pt, 85% free throws Lin's 1st year so far: 12.5 ppg, 1.9 stl, 3.5 rebounds, 6.1 assists, 2.9 turn overs in 32.7 minutes, 44% FG, 32.1% 3pt, 77% free throws For comparison sakes Steve Francis the year before he was traded to Orlando for Tmac: 16.6 ppg, 1.76 stl, 5.5 rebounds, 6.2 assists, 3.7 turn overs in 40.4 minutes per game, 40.3 FG%, 29.2 3pt%, 77% free throw Of course Lin has a better FG % (44% to 37.9% for Rafer) though Rafer was asked to shoot more 3's in the offense that was being run which hurt his %. Their 3pt % was basicly identical Rafer's first year at 32.7% vs 32.1% for Lin so far. Rafer did "improve" up to between 34.8 and 36.3% for his other 3 years with the Rockets. Lin played less minutes (38.6 minutes per game for Rafer vs 32.7 per game for Lin). It's reasonable to think Lin's points, rebounds, steals, and assists would go up some if he got 6 minutes more per game, but it's also likely his turn overs and fouls increase too. That's assuming fatigue wouldn't effect Lin's performance negatively over those extra 6 minutes per game.
No, but AB didn't warrant nearly the hate he got. Coming off of a playoff series victory in which he was instrumental + second round taking the lake show to 7 games , MIP next season, he got a lot of hate in between. It was always "He no true PG" or some ****. Which was true. But before that injury the guy was a LEGIT shooting efficient PG. We could seriously depend on him night in and out even with that useless chucker Ariza on the team. He hit some cold blooded 3s and had a 46 point game too.
sometimes I still wake up dreaming about Rafer's tear drops. Other than that he was a fun player to watch. Rmb when he was toying with ppl during the winning streak?
Rafer was one of the most frustrating players to watch ever. Fans gasped every time he took a shot. He missed with amazing regularity. He made as much sense on the Rockets as Moochie Norris. We have had so many dud players it is not even funny.
Below average scorer, above average defender, good at taking care of the ball, started on the Magic team that went to the finals and probably should have played more minutes there over a still not 100% Nelson. Production was basicly the same as what Lin is doing now. Actually better as a passing PG than Francis was the year before we traded him. Some people are just over fixated on the scoring aspect where Rafer was weak. Rafer was certainly closer to below average than to being an all star. Every team is going to have a weak link some where, but too many fans wanted to compare Rafer's lack of production to Nash, Deron Williams, Chris Paul and Tony Parker's production, where he obviously was going to look very bad, rather than Steve Blake, Earl Boykins, Mike James, Smush Parker, Brevin Knight, Eric Snow and other average non-all star PG's where he was comparable over all. Rafer was bad enough that the Rockets made several attempts to find replacements for him, and good enough that none of those potential replacements beat him out for the job up to the point that he was traded.
Most accurate assessment of Alston in this whole thread. As much as DD say's he was bad, I remember quite a few times DD would acknowledge Alston's D when he shut down Tony Parker or Steve Nash. He became a competent 3 point shooter in his later years with the team but he never could perfect that floater but he withstood challenges for his starters job from the likes of Aaron Brooks and anyone else that came along while he was here.
I liked his effort. The guy was a dark horse for the allstar game(trademark). He could play 40 minutes handling the ball. But yeah Lowry was much much better.
