yeah. you cant get anyone for rafer so why trade him? i dont like rafer very much, but i realize that trading him may actually downgrade the PG position...
The question is which "real PG" you think the Rockets can get and how you can realistically get the said real PG. Unless you have a concrete idea, all this b****ing about trading away Rafer is pretty pointless.
Rockets PGs net points per 100 possessions: Rafer Alston +11.6 John Lucas III -8.9 Vasillis Spanoulis -10.4 There is a reason that Rafer was playing so many minutes last season; it's because he gave the Rox the best chance to win. The offense was terrible with V-SPAN or JL3 in the game. V-SPAN actually improved the defense (very slightly) when he came in, while JL3 was bad at both ends. Now that doesn't mean that there are not better PGs out there, but there are not many that we could get that are going to push Rafer to the bench. It would be nice just to have a backup for him that doesn't have a negative plus/minus. I have hope for V-SPAN, but he will need to improve drastically over the summer, as he was statistically the very worst player on the team. Oh yeah, whoever said Mike Bibby didn't shoot a lot of threes under Adelman must not have seen many Kings games in the later years. In their last season together, Bibby shot 497 threes, or less than one per game different than Rafer. Since 3pt shooting is actually one of the strongest parts of Rafer's game, I would expect that you will see him shooting a lot of them next year.
Shouldn't it also be worth noting that the Rockets have a better play maker than the one team still competing without strong point guard play? But yes, I do think Rafer is going to make some strong positive contributions should he be around next year. I've said this in another thread, but Adelman has really stressed the importance of motion and angles in his offense, and I'm more than comfortable in Rafer's ability in both. We've seen Rafer's play-making role reduced to simple hand-offs to T-Mac this past season, so I think some may have forgotten (or are overlooking) Rafer's ability to penetrate and the accuracy of his passes. With Adelman also stressing how he wants to make scoring easier for Yao/T-Mac, those characteristics are necessities, and there aren't too many players of Rafer's ability in those aspects available. Oh and yes, his shooting is and likely always will be a problem. It becomes a decision of what is more important in your PG, ability to create with high motion and strong passing or the ability to shoot. With JVG at the helm, I'd say you could make a strong argument that the latter is more important. However, with Adelman, I feel the former will be needed more for our offense to run successfully.
i think he will be fine... he'll be serviceable... and yes, this is just my blind faith, but i do support rafer... and his spin move is damn sexy...
rafer can penetrate? LOL. if youre talking about when he steps two feet in the lane and throws up an awful floater than i guess that's penetration, but other than that he's horrible. hes not fast, hes not strong, and he cant shoot to save his life. he has none of the strengths needed in a motion offense, which is quick movement, strong screens, and consistent shooting. adelman will sit rafer at the end of the bench where he belongs and that will be that.
I think the idea is that, all this crying for Mike James etc....... its quite stupid. Im sure there were fat cries when Mike James decided to screw up Game 7 against Dallas. Lets not mention that his been on the bench for a shocking Minnesota team. He shares minutes with Marko Jaric for crying out loud. Do you really think James is THAT much of an upgrade? What people are asking, is like an all star PG. We can't afford it. I personally think if we had Mike James we would have traded for exactly same thing, just with different faults. He would STILL lose us that game 7. Lets not mention how the fact that Mcgrady has developed into a passing small forward, similar in fact to how Lebron runs his own team. Look at who they have at PG, his getting trashed and playing badly too. Its all subjective what Rafer is going through. His not a brilliant PG, but his not so crap that his below all the players that have been named as his alternative. Vspan? James? give me a break its a horizontal movement if we moved to those guys.
