more than anything that the alston signing does is let tracy come off of screens and have plays specifically run for him a lot more because alston is good at running an offense like a true point. he isn't as good as a defender or deep range shooter but he brings certain qualities to the team that is needed on offense.
Alston may not be a great shooter, but he is better at it than Sura. Hopefully DA will have a shooting year like James did last year.
If I remember correctly, he was there couple years back during summer league and training camp but was cut by then Coach Musslemen because of supposely attitude issues.
yeah, alston never made the final roster with golden state...i think the attitude issues are just speculation though, at that point he was just learning how to be a complete PG and probably didn't make the team because there was probably someone else better.
I dunno....I remember Alston was pretty clutch with that three when he was with Miami (and he could have been with Toronto, but being NBA Siberia, how would we really know?). The numbers don't entirely betray that either. If Wesley lands somewhere between his best and worst of last year this season, Alston could be our most consistent 3 pt. shooter (behind Barry).
got it up on the rockets.com site now. the word "passing" is all over that article in favor of rafer. pretty much says it all. mike james cant change.
that ain't no lie. i just watched the charity game, the kinda game where everyone is just a super-teammate, setting each other up for dunks and alley-oops, and this homeboy took it to the rack - no joke - about 90% of the time he touched the ball. i was actually pretty embarrassed on his behalf towards all of the other ballers. he was a good guy, but he's too much like a poor man's steve francis, which will give anyone a ticket out of h-town.
To add to what has been stated already.... 1. CD said that they started doing their homework on Alston a month ago. He said they interviewed all his former coaches even as far back as high school. 2. He said they started looking into this because of the uncertainty of Sura's health. So he did not want to go into this season like he did last year - he decided to be pro-active instead. 3. He said that team speed will improve because Rafer nevers walks the ball up the court - he always rushes the ball to the other side and sets up the offense very quickly. 4. Rafer's defense does not necessarily worry him (whether it is good or not) since every player JVG has coached has improved defensively and all team JVG has coached has always be defensively good. 5. He stressed the we must note that the peer pressure on this team is very good on and off the court. He stressed that a lot of times the composition of a team helps to determine how certain players will react and with our low maintenance stars (TMAC and YAO), Alston will fall into place and not be a problem (knock on wood).
.............{continued} CD also made mention that Rockets were the team who drafted Sam Mitchell and he coached him here. It seemed like he was hinting that Sam's temperament could have been a factor as well with Rafer's issues last year (also with Vince Carter.....though CD did not mention his name). So in effect he was saying that maybe the blame should not all be on Rafer alone.
You know, I really dared not even hope, not even consider that Yao Ming would be entering this season with a true point guard running the offense. Finally, we'll possibly get to see if there's improvement in his play with a genuine point! I like Sura a lot and I liked Mike James, too, but this **** is pretty exciting
