No doubt about it! Alston is a significant asset of our team and this year he should blossom into all that we have hoped he would be. Last season he had such difficulty in passing the ball into Yao Ming when he was set up and calling for it. I hope that during this season,as the healthy team bonds together we will see Alston focusing mostly on playmaking more so than any of his other attributes.
Myths? With better offensive players around him, Rafer will shoot less and probably at a higher % than last season. He also probably won't play 39 mins/game either. The burden on Rafer has decreased quite a bit. We can also hope competition from JL3 and/or V-Span will push Rafer to be better. Nobody is saying he doesn't have a lot to prove. Rafer is on trial this year and knows it. If he is a serious offensive liability, he'll find a warm spot on the bench in crunch time. He also better improve his decision making in close games or he may as well go take his shower when the 4th quarter starts. I'm more concerned about this than his shooting.
Rafer is an excellent backup at the point. We should be thrilled to have him. Seriously. If someone goes down ahead of him, we have a competent distributor, who's a below average shooter, below average defender (to say the least), but a good man at keeping turnovers low and getting the ball where you want it, much of the time. The problem, as I think the excellent article Sam posted from Clutch points out, is that he is, or at least should be, a backup PG!
I love how the opinion of Clutch is the final arbiter as to what is "myth" and what is not in some people's mind. And I do want to know who is the alleged Rockets insider pushing for Lucas over Alston. Is it an assistant coach? Another player? Morey? Or some random fan that this guy talked to? We'll see. Lucas will get his shot next month to prove what he can do against real NBA players. If he beats out Alston, he gets the minutes.
Alston is a career 39% shooter from the field. That is atrocious for a starting NBA player fellas. His 3% career is OK but not good for a PG: .356. His FT% 72%, pretty bad for an NBA PG as well. So while his career averages are bad for an NBA starting PG, last year was even worse. The dude is also hit 30. VSpan, Head and JL3 should all try to go out and take the starting PG spot away from Alston. Alston IMO needs to be a much more efficient offensive player to keep his minutes to starter level. The Rockets most need a starting PG to shoot well and defend, the playmaker role is an afterthought because Yao and Tmac are the playmakers. It should be open season for the PG minutes. If Rafer shoots above 40% from the field & high 30s from 3--both above his career average, and does other things well, fine, keep him as the starter. But I am not confident these will happen.
Why are we to believe this? With better players around hm? He shot worse when we were healthy last year. Why are we to believe he will shoot better? Oh and by the way, he shot the same number of 3's per game and fewer overall in 06 than he did in 05 - and his % went DOWN, not up. Why not? We've got a UFA and a greek guy who's never played in the NBA as his backups - that's not exactly depth. Please.....I'm not talking about "the opinion of Clutch" (which happens to be similar to my own)...I'm talking about facts - the facts are that Rafer sucked last year at most of his primary tasks (12 and 7! 12 and 7!....spare me) and the rationale that his apologists give is full of holes and has been exposed as nonsense by Clutch and a variety of GARM posters for months. Other than hoping he will magically get better there's not a lot of upside there either.
"He's gonna go right....he's gonna go right....he went right" Thats what I said when watching Lucas in the Vegas summer league. The kid can't go to his left, he knows it, his dad knows it, JVG knows it, and most importantly opposing defenders know it. Until he figures that out, at best he'll be another Tierre Brown. In conclusion, Alston starting job is safe as long as Lucas is the next kid behind him.
If Luther keeps his legs under him this season, this role fits him to a T. I'm rooting for him and hope he gets a good shot at it.
Maybe he'll be like Moochie and have a decent season or two before everyone figures out he can only go in one direction.
If JL3 beats out Rafer that would be good for the team, we need someone who can SHOOT around our players......and JL3 though undersized could be a significant answer to the PG question. DD
has everyone allready forgotten about spanoulis? he's the guy that will challange rafer for PT. not lucas.
Of course, what people like Sam don't and apparently can't understand is the time it takes to make a statistically significant judgment in basketball. It can't be done in 15 or 20 games. There's an adjustment period to spacing and timing with new teammates, and it also leads to a potentially very unbalanced schedule. There are tougher 20 game stretches than others, for example. Basketball is a sport where players routinely have fluke entire seasons. 22 games isn't close to enough to make a definitive judgment on a player, at least in my opinion. Maybe Rafer will perform the same this year with Tracy and Yao, and if he does, then we'll know and I'll tell Sam he was right. And I'll emphasize again that I'm not necessarily saying I think Sam is wrong - just that it's too soon to tell. But the theory that Rafer's shooting percentage would increase based on more consistent playing time with Tracy and Yao makes logistical sense, and the sample size saying otherwise isn't large enough to decide yet.
That's why I'm basing it on years of data. In those years that he's played, it's obvious that Alston can't shoot, and can't defend, and is not what the team needs. The team needs Derek Fisher or Ron Harper - instead they get Kenny Smith without the range. That much was obvious no matter who was on the court. What people like you can't, won't, and don't understand is that basketball is not magic and detecting trends is not that difficult.
Again, however, the theory isn't that Rafer is a good shooter. The theory is that his numbers would and could be inflated by the presence of two dominant players like Tracy and Yao playing alongside him. In all those years of data, there's only 22 games that actually go toward proving or disproving that theory. Maybe the theory will be proven wrong - it didn't hold up in those 22 games, that's for sure. But it does make a lot of sense (at least to me) and I think we need to give to give it a bit longer to decide for sure.
He's been mediocre at shooting for five years, and he doesn't exactly throw a lot of shots up since he knows his limits. i doubt that the open shots that he was missing last year are going to start going in this year even though he'll have more of them.
LOL, that's cold blooded. EZPASS, your NY NJ origins are showing. Rafer wasn't the best at staying in front of his man because he's not super quick or athletic, but he has pretty quick hands and gets his fair share of steals. I was not a fan of trading Rafer for Alston but there was that string of games last season where he was a wizard distributing the ball. I can't remember what game it was but there was that play where it looked like he had a string on the ball, faked a pass, pulled it back in and then laid it up. I'm definitely looking for a whole season of that from Rafer and less 3 point shooting from him.
it does surprise me how little respect rafer gets. He had an off year shooting but no one ever said he is a lights out shooter. But if he shoots over 35% then that will be good enough. But for him to be #10 (or something like that) in assists last year given the complete lack of offensive weapons around him. thats impressive. I dont think it ridiculous to think that rafer could break into the top 5 this year. He gets the ball to the right people in time and good position, he sets up the offense well and he is a competitor on the floor. and his defense isnt that bad. He isnt a lockdown guy, but he gets his hands on a lot of passes and gets a good amount of strips.
I agree with you Sam. He is a 39% career shooter. He was slightly worse last year, but it was within the trend for a guy coming on 30. Alston 2 years ago looked like a servicable PG. Not a good one, but a serivcable one. Now he looks like an NBA back-up. Lucas hit 43% from the same NBA 3 line in the summer. The key job for a Rockets starting PG on offense is draining open 3s. If he does this better than Alston, which is possible, he is a better fit. If they can drive, have good court vision or have a good midrange game, and even better. (Also I seem to remember Avery Johnson having a strong preference for driving one way to the bucket, yet he was quick enough and have enough finese with it they he still mostly beat his man knowing which way he was going) Also, it isn't like Alston has a good % driving or midrange either. His strength is seeing the court and creating for others, but with Tmac and Yao that isn't his role. We could live with a subpar 3 game from our PG if they were efficient in other areas a la Tony Parker/Avery Johnson for the Spurs champions. But Alston isn't good at finishing or the 18 footer either. Like I said, open season for Lucas, Head and VS getting PG minutes. It is up to Alston to prove he is better with more minutes and in the starting line-up than those guys. If Alston does shoot better, above his career averages of 39%(Fg) & 35%(3), great, he can keep starters minutes, but it is no sure thing he will do it, that is what we are saying (SamF seems even more doubtfull than myself).
It also forms the lateral part of the ankle joint. Do you feel the ankle is not important to a basketball player? I'm not blowing it out of proportion, I'm just saying that virtually no one mentions he was out for many weeks with a broken leg (no running, no conditioning etc. for weeks during the season) and when he came back was asked to play major minutes without much backup.
