This should really go without saying: For the month of March (no Yao), look it up, *all our starters* have increased shooting at worse efficiency (except Alston, btw). FGAs are up; pts are up; but efficience is down noticeably. Look at Battier and Scola's number. Battier is at 10 shots a game at less efficiency. I'm not saying Battier is shooting too much. I'm saying that Battier is not able to play within himself like he generally does. Yao is down. Battier has to shoot move. That's just the nature of making up for Yao. Rafer's numbers for March, albeit inconsistent from game to game, are actually pretty good compared to his other months, but he is shooting much more. I mean, 40% on 3s is much better than I thought he could do. And 40% will spread the floor; no one can deny that. I just don't understand this thread and why anyone is bashing Rafer for numbers he's showing when Yao is down. It's not like Adelman or Rafer want to shoot that much. They'd rather pass to Yao. All this proves is our efficiency really goes down when Yao is out. <b>All other points are secondary points</b> used by people to prop up or criticize a player merely because they have to stick to their long, tired arguments from last year. That said, I'll repeat myself. I don't like Alston's early 3s, this month or any month.
Rafer's been getting a lot of open shoots when McGrady for example is doubled. He just gotta make them or drive to the basket insted and put the pressure on opponent's defense. He did a wonderful job yesterday. T-Mac tweaked his angle, couldn't be as much effective offensivly and we would like so Rafer picked up his game. First of all he was driving all night long. And I belive teams will let him do that, he just needs to drive and drive.
You have a great point but when you get past his rushed or ill advised shots there is another reason he has so many attempts. When they can't get anything good on offense and tmac is being doubled, he usually dishes it off to Rafer who is either open or has someone rotating towards him. I know its not pretty but what other option do they have in this situation with time running off the shot clock?
This is so true, and it highlites the inconsistency....2 games out of 8 he was good..... My problem is he shoots too danged much for his abilities.... DD
It is definately not good but I don't see what would be better. He isn't going to be able to drive on every team the way he did on the kings, everyone is that soft upfront.
How are they two different roles? Bobby Jackson seems to do both when he's inserted into the game - are you saying it's not reasonable for Rafer to make a hard cut to the basket instead of faking it everytime and going back to the 3-point line? My point was he was the taking the second most shots, not that he was the second highest scorer - big difference. It's like what JVG used to preach - efficiency. Per Clutch's earlier post, aside from LA, Rafer should never be taking that many shots (unless it's an LA night) - can we agree there? Playing like James in the sense of his volume shooting lately, not necessarily coming down and jacking. It pisses me off when Rafer waves off Tmac and decides to run the P-n-R himself. A lot of times he gets the ball with 10~ seconds left, and he'll dribble it down to 5 and then try to take his man - something he's flat out not that good at. When his shots are going in, his bad shots and decisions look good - but when he returns to normal, he looks bad. Really bad. Our motion offense has a lot of problems - and Rafer is a part of the problem. I didn't mean it as a "get rid of Rafer and the offense is perfect" post. TMac seldom runs the offense - he seems to want the ball right away instead of taking and making cuts like everyone else. McGrady comes across as being really lazy in this offense to me - but there's another million threads on this. I think Shane & Scola have been the two most consistent starters in running the motion offense lately - you can't expect Deke to be involved in that, so Rafer and Tmac need to pick it up. Watch Bobby Jackson in comparison to Rafer - the motion just looks a lot smoother when BJax runs his cuts. Do you think Rafer is better running the offense than BJax? My Sig was made when Rafer was making his case to get cut from the Toros early in the season. Francis was actually playing better before he got hurt, and as a fan I'm hopeful he can help us next year. Sorry for not updating my sig with the change of winds for you, I didn't realize that invalidates my argument. I'm not one of those fire/trade people - I just don't think Rafer is good in this particular offense. We have a lot of problems with this team currently, but you would naive to think Rafer isn't one of them. It could be argued that presently he's the worst PG of all playoff teams -West and East. Hopefully we'll look to upgrade that spot again this offseason - PG's now days seem to be as important as big men were in the 90's.
LongTimeFan, Good post. I just want to add that BJax actually plays two different roles. SG and PG. He does play with Alston. Look at the recent mins that they've played combined. 52 min vs Sac 55 min vs Pho 64 min vs GSW 46 min vs Nor 44 min vs Bos 60 min vs LA When he's playing SG, his role is to cut a lot to the basket, like Head. As a PG, he's penetrating. Our offense just insisted designed (we don't have the passer talent) to make many cuts from the key or weakside high wing and receive a pass from a big. TMac is better passing to our bigs or cuts from the corners, and our bigs are not like Webber, Miller and Divac.
HP, Agree on our bigs, though I think Chuck is an underrated passer. The Yao-Vlade passing comparisons will hopefully stop after this season. I know Bobby plays both positions, but I don't think he ever changes his style of play because of what he's playing. To me, the motion offense is designed to give everyone equal opportunities on cuts and open looks - thus making what "position" you play pretty negligible. I'm admittedly pretty lost on how to improve this team. It's almost as if the 22 wins took the wind out of my sails - I was really upset at the pathetic showing we gave Boston and NOH, and Phoenix to an extent. I knew we'd lose sometime, but I expected us to at least compete and fight - I didn't see that in those two games. Pretty much made my hopes of a playoff run vanish pretty quickly. I'd like some PG upgrades, but we have Rafer, Francis, Brooks, and BJax all on our payroll for next year. We'd have to trade one of them, IMO - with Brooks being our future, and Francis having low trade value/contract, I'm inclinced to think Rafer will be shopped again. SG seems to be our biggest weakness - ideally you'd want a good-sized guard who is quick, can spot up and create for himself. I was pretty hyped up about Green because I think he'd develop into the perfect SG for us - but the key word is develop. We basically have two SF's (McGrady and Battier) and Luther/BJax running the SG spot. SF spot seems locked with TMac/Battier combo. I'm inclined to bring in a starting SG and sit Shane, but his defense is tremendous, while TMac shows up once a month to play D. Not sure what to do here - it's almost if the problem would be solved by trading McGrady and picking up several valuable pieces, but you never know. PF/C spot is locked with Yao/Scola/Landry/Chuck. We could use another 7-footer, but I don't think it's a must unless Yao goes down - which he probably will if history shows a pattern. So basically my post comes down to: What the hell do we add next year to put us over the top? A strong SF/SG? It seems that everyone has an elite PG now days, but those don't seem to be available anytime you want one. I guess we're going to groom Brooks and see what he can do next season.
i've had some similar thoughts about next year. there are quite a few thing i just can't think clearly right now (not that morey will listen to me, lol). i guess i'll leave them to the offseason.
32.2? From 3/10-3/24? I show 35.7% for 9 games. And if you take out the Lakers, take out Atlanta too and you get 36.9% from the field and 30.8% from the 3; he's 37.9% from the 3 w/o removing any games. Why remove the LAL game anyway? We needed his performance in that game, and it was one of the most important games in that stretch. For those 9 games, he would have 17.4 pts on 17 attempts. For the season, it would be 18 pts. He's no TMac, yet if TMac took all of those shots (assuming the same efficiency), we would have what? About 2 more points per night? And that's why Rafer catches so much grief? And he does a lot more than shoot the ball, yet that often seems to be the sole basis of those who criticize his entire game.
Looks like you're just trying to cause problems for no reason whatsoever. I said 2 weeks as in the last couple of weeks of hiding -- I wasn't referring to a stretch starting exactly "14 days" ago. I stated very clearly what stretch was 32.2% shooting. I only took out the Lakers game to show how it was one excellent shooting night surrounded by 6 poor to very poor shooting nights. Of course it was a brilliant shooting night -- we would have lost without it. So am I therefore not allowed to mention the other 6 games? I'm really starting to think some people just like the conflict on Rafer.
So the ones who support a player are the ones trying to start a conflict? If you can live with the status quo, there's no topic. And it's not like our team hasn't lived up to expectations, esp after Yao's injury. Why be so negative on one of our high-minute guys? You can probably find a stretch of 7 games, remove one, and make anyone on this team look bad. Particularly the stretch that includes the post-streak hell week. How about Tracy? Last seven games, remove one, 101 points on 118 attempts.
What's your point? TMac got criticized like no other for his poor performances. Just because we went 10-0 against mostly inferior competition in Yao's absence, we shouldn't be able to criticize one of our "high minute" guys? The thing is, we expect it from Tracy. We know he's a volume shooter and sometimes he's hot, sometimes he's not. Any bad stretch he'll go through is pretty normal. Rafer? We don't expect him to be taking 17 shots a game - he's not a good enough shooter or scorer to justify taking that many shots. You seem like the type that rushes to defend a player just because he's on your favorite team - he's on our favorite team too. We just care about getting the team to play better, run the offense better, and be more efficient. In our case, no one ever gets a free pass - Yao, Tracy, or Loren Woods.
Get over yourself. If you took the combined basketball knowledge of everybody on this BBS (myself included) and multiplied it by 10, it still wouldn't equal Rick Adelman's knowledge of the game. The idea that these endless and repetitive threads are about "holding players to a higher standard" is ridiculous. This is the place for fans to be fans and a lot of that is knee-jerk panic and attention grabbing. I can deal with that. I just think that you're full of crap if you think that the So-and-So Sucks threads are instructive in any way. Do you think that any NBA player, or coach reads a message board for advice about how to get "the team to play better?" Please.
Maybe we can get to the bottom of this real quick: Do you think Rafer Alston was in a bad stretch shooting the ball? If not, I can't help you. If yes, I'm just going to assume the rest is personal. You haven't refuted a single stat I brought up. T-Mac is never criticized for poor shooting performances? The 32.2% shooting from the field is with the Lakers game -- that's bad. It was worse without it.
Talk about knee-jerk reaction! I never once said that Adelman read the board or would ever read a message board for advice on what to do. I just said we, ClutchFans, like to talk about what we think our team should do to better themselves. This is a fan message board, isn't it? It wouldn't be much fun if we were never allowed to second-guess coaches or state our own opinions of what we think would help. Not sure where the "get over yourself" came from..
I really dont understand why people keep on biatching about Rafer's shooting. Rafer is a career 38% shooter. There is no way to get around it. It's not like Rafer was shooting 45% before and now he's shooting 38%. As a matter of fact, Rafer is having his best shooting season as a Rocket. CD didnt bring in Rafer for his shooting, but to set up the offense. Rafer is not supposed to be the 3rd scorer, but somehow he takes up the void when nobody steps up. We should all thank him for that. Rafer is giving his close to career best numbers and people can still whine and biatch about it. What a pity! Do the Rockets need to upgrade their PG? Yes, if Morey can find one. But I am sure it's not Mike James biatch.
