you are in for a season that will make u bald... wait......................................wait for it.....................................LOL!
THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS: rafer played like crap at times last year and everyone wondered if he is even a decent starting pg, much less a good one. he ran the offense but just like yao and tmac, the limited talent of the team limited his game. I give big props to him, he didnt go to a dark corner and feel sorry for himself. he came out strong and he is trying harder. i admire that. he stepped up to the challenge of fighting for his spot and maybe thats what has made him better. its not whether you get on and off the bandwagon. the guy is playing better, last year i still would have said trade him, but thats what camp and preseason is for. for those of you who hate him as a person. youre insane the guy has great character and its been a tough offseason for him. the reduced minutes will help him increase his effectiveness.
Wasn't this what is widely renown as the Rox problems in the post season? Not having a person who could create, finish, hit the open shots consistently? Suddenly this is a good thing from Rafer? No offense Will, but Rafer isn't forced to make any "decisions" out there. TMac has always had to. TMac ran the offense, TMac decided where the ball was going, and TMac did the real distributing of points. Rafer still turns the ball over 2.5 times a game while not running the offense, and not having to "do much" but stand at the three point line. Have you not watched Rafer run a break last year? EXACTLY. He is getting wide open looks with Yao and TMAC, and not producing. His only skill set he brings to the table is launching three's, and trying not to get in the way. He doesn't create shots for his teammates, he doesn't break down the D, he doesn't get to the foul line, he doesn't hit his open shots, his D is suspect at best (watching him against Travis Best and the pacers last year was a horrible horrible horrible site, almost as bad as against Deron Williams) He completely plays the P n R wrong every time. He refuses to fight through them or step over. Ill can live with one defensive genius on the floor at one time in Battier, who doesn't bring any offense other than to sit at the three point line. We found out that having two really hurt our team, please go watch the Jazz series again man. Rafer will fail again.
Please see rafers career stats as mentioned above. LOL. Rafer only got his shot due to the lack of any viable option at all. Now the Rox have options. Unless you think they went out and didn't draft a PF (before Scola), drafter Brooks, brought in James and Francis because they plan on using him as a major contributor for another season.
i remember this, wasn't it howard for james, and then trade for klizas, i think it was john lucas. I know what you are trying to get at, but just to look at last year through mike james and only mike james is pretty simplistic. Unless you believe that klizas would have been serviceable. The pf position was a train wreck last year. what cost van gundy his job was not mike james. if so, then CD is also guilty, because he was the GM of the team. you are making it seem like van gundy had all the power in this decision.
i am probably the only person in this thread that owns his jersey... in other words, I never left the bandwagon
That is completely different from what I remember. (I'll grant I could be remembering wrong, but what I saw last year was many occasions when Rafer was the only one not named Tracy or Yao, who would even be willing to attempt a shot. This translated into many last second wild shots because there was no alternative.
rockets lost to utah in 7 games, so i wouldn't say it really hurt the rockets. rafer won't fail again, he won't get that chance, simply because rockets have more players besides luther head who can't dribble or pass, and lucas.
I don't find improvement too hard to believe with Rafer. Motion Offense and playing by instinct favors a streetballer.
Never been on his bandwagon and definitely not going to get on after 2 pre-season games. I still feel that he is not starter material and more like a 2nd string (more like 3rd string for our team) PG. However, if he doesn't try to be the 3rd scoring option like Gumby was trying to make him out to be, he probably won't hurt us. Besides, if he starts sucking, he can always be sent to the bench in favor of James and/or Francis. That was a luxury we didn't have last season. I still won't be surprised if we deal Alston by the trading deadline. Coach Adelman is doing the smart thing by playing him a lot mainly because he is the only one of the 3 of himself, James, and Francis that was a Rocket last year and to increase his trade value (thanks to Rafer making it close to zero with his boneheaded activities he did this past off-season).
I've been saying since I got here that a 38MPG Rafer is a completely different player than a 25MPG Rafer. While people on this forum may tend to overlook his great stamina and TO ratio in favor of his more glaring 3PT% and, as Hollinger points out repeatedly, his atrocious close-range 2PT% (a.k.a. tear drop from hell), they definitely have a right to play the wait-and-see game with Alston, as we'll never know how much of the suckage came from his play or Van Gundy's play-calling. Until now, of course. Let's see him in regular season games first, but if he ends up being a great fit for this offense and remains starter, I won't have considered myself a waffler nor should most Rockets fans (except for a few of those vitriolic posters who hate the very ground the man walks on, and they know who they are). We always knew what kind of player he was, and now it's just a matter of whether or not Adelman can do a better job than Van Gundy did of maximizing his assets while bringing in other pieces to make up for his shortcomings.
ive neen a fan of skip's since 1997 and i know his game up and down and i know for a fact he doesnt like to take 15 shots a game but if he feels he has to..to be succesful if you ever watch him in streetball games he rather have 20 assist than 20 points so this year you should see him take like 6 to 8 shots a game
What I also remember is we looked pretty bad when Rafer wasn't in the game. Considering our Point Guard issues last year, I'm extremely content and confident having RA, SF & MJ in out back court. I don't know, it just makes me giggle to think we traded SF for T-mac and James for Rafer and now we have all four...fricken' amazing!
rafer needs to time to set and shoot, any other shot he takes where he isn't set is an unnecessary one
If Rafer can keep this up, I dont see any reason to hate him. People only complained about Rafer last year because it was justified. Of course, Rafer's weaknesses were magnified due to JVG's system - with RA's motion offense I can see Rafer as a very functional and effective point.
man to hell with rafer can't shoot and stop looking at one game or two games look at the career of this joke for a ball player
clutch is right van gundy nixed the trade for james at the deadline because we had no frontcourt and yao was going to be out 2 to 3 more weeks. there was no trade on the table for any other 4. management wanted him to play battier at 4 the rest of the year behind hayes.
