http://www.clutchfans.net/news/1348/hard_look_rafer_alston/ Clutch, nice work on the statistical analysis! But one major problem as you pointed out by yourself is the sample size. We also did not include other facotrs such health conditions of other players. To me 32% vs. 38% of shoot for Rafer is not a huge deal. Rafer jack up about 300 trey the last two years, 6% increase means 18 more threes, speardout the whole season will be 1 three ever 4 games, or merely 1 point a game. Is this a huge factor? Stats could be misleading. I thin the intangibles, such as control of the temple, half court organizing, is more important. I think Rafer's no 1 weakness is still defense rather than % of three point. One or two extra foul on Yao because of guard penetration means a lot more than 1 three pointer every four or three game.
How bad was Alston's scoring efficiency with the Rockets last year? If you go by TS% (scoring efficiency), he would fall in the 5.9% percentile for all players who played at least 1000 minutes last season! Here are the bottom 20 players in scoring efficiency who played at least 1000 minutes (254 total players): Code: [COLOR=Navy]player TS% %rank[/COLOR] vujacic,sasha 47.93% 7.5% ruffin,michael 47.92% 7.1% knight,brevin 47.85% 6.7% walton,luke 47.73% 6.3% [b]alston,rafer 47.51% 5.9%[/b] rush,kareem 47.13% 5.5% palacio,milt 47.01% 5.1% jaric,marko 46.83% 4.7% ariza,trevor 46.83% 4.3% ross,quinton 46.48% 3.9% mcleod,keith 46.42% 3.5% rose,malik 46.35% 3.1% mason,desmond 46.00% 2.7% livingston,shaun45.97% 2.3% tinsley,jamaal 45.77% 1.9% richardson,quent45.19% 1.5% greene,orien 44.89% 1.1% snow,eric 44.44% 0.7% collins,jason 42.52% 0.3% griffin,eddie 39.75% 0.0%
Must be all those missed lay ups! He misses an amazing amount of those! Maybe Durvasa will come up with some stats!
Funny... Alston's FG% on layups is 55%, higher than McGrady's 48% on them, and equal to Dwayne Wade's 55% on layups.
Clutch's analysis expresses exactly my concerns with Alston. I like the way he pushes the tempo and distributes the ball. His shooting is unacceptable and his defense is poor. I do not think he is the starting PG of the future, but I think he would be an excellent rotational player. The Rockets need a "scoring" PG that breaks down the defense. It would also be nice if our PG could make a lay-up. I think only Bogans had a higher percentage of missed lay-ups. Trading away James was one of many really "bad" personnel moves made by the Rockets in the CD era, which will mercifully end soon.
I watched most every game. Did my eyes betray me? He must have made a lay up every time I went to the bathroom or to get popcorn.
I thought it was weird, too... Alston going to the basket makes me cringe as well. I think the main problem perhaps isn't he misses more layups than anyone else, it's that he doesn't have the atheleticism to go for the much higher % dunks. Take Wade, for example... he makes 55% of his layups, but 90%+ on his dunks, and he dunks pretty often, so he finishes around the basket at a much better clip than Alston.
From 82games: He shot around 55% on inside shots. Not great, but not terrible either for a PG. Here's a list of every team's primary PG, ordered by FG% on inside shots: Code: [COLOR=Navy]player FG% on inside shots[/COLOR] 1 Steve Nash 70.20% 2 Tony Parker 70.00% 3 Smush Parker 65.50% 4 Gilbert Arenas 65.10% 5 Anthony Johnson 65.00% 6 Joe Johnson 63.30% 7 Mike Bibby 61.10% 8 Jameer Nelson 61.00% 9 Marcus Banks 60.90% 10 Delonte West 60.30% 11 Sam cassell 59.60% 12 Baron Davis 58.90% 13 Jason Terry 58.80% 14 Jason Williams 56.50% 15 Mike James 56.30% 16 Jaun Dixon 56.10% 17 Allen Iverson 55.60% 18 Andre Miller 55.30% [b]19 Rafer Alston 54.50%[/b] 20 Kirk Hinrich 52.80% 21 Jason Kidd 52.30% 22 Chris Paul 52.30% 23 Deron Williams 51.30% 24 Stephon Marbury 50.20% 25 Bobby Jackson 49.70% 26 Eric Snow 48.60% 27 T.J. Ford 47.90% 28 Luke Ridnour 47.80% 29 Brevin Knight 45.80% 30 Chauncey Billup 43.40% Nope, Rafer's problem was that: (a) he didn't shoot jumpers well (b) a high proportion of his shot attempts were jumpers despite (a) (c) he didn't get to the line often, because of (b) (d) and when he did get to the line he only shot 69% But how about Steve Nash leading the list, despite not being particularly quick or athletic. And Chauncey Billups ... wow. Perhaps this stat is particularly dependent on the type of offensive sets teams run.
durvasa... sorry for getting this on a tangent, but speaking of TS%, where are the newcomers Battier and Snyder in terms of their percentile rank?
Alston has great ball handling abilities and he gets the ball into the post, but he's not starting PG material. His defense on quick strong players is non-existant. He's to weak and light to finish most times at the basket. His outside shooting is horrible. Would he start on any other WC playoff team? Hell No.
Battier, with a 57.4 TS%, was ranked in 81.8% percentile. Snyder, with 53.7 TS%, was ranked in 51.3% percentile.
I find it interesting that his numbers are most efficient with Mcgrady/without Yao (highest field goal %, highest 3-point %, most rebounds, fewest turnovers, highest A/TO ratio), while he is least efficient with Yao/without Mcgrady (lowest field goal %, fewest assists, most turnovers). I think he’s a horrible fit with Yao and we need to limit his minutes with Yao as much as possible next season.
I think it has less to do with him being with Yao, and more to do with him not having McGrady on the court with him.
Does his shoting really matter if were winning games. When Alston, T-MAC and Yao completed games we won 15 out of 22. This equals to be 55 wins if they played the whole year together. With the addition of Battier i think this roster can go deep into the playoffs if heathy.
True. Here's another breakdown, applying a GS/40 rating (quick PER approximation) for each stretch (not counting Yao's last game against Utah as a "Yao game"): Code: [COLOR=Navy] GP GS/40[/COLOR] Yao,Tmac 22 9.9 only Tmac 11 11.7 only Yao 20 8.4 neither 10 11.0 So, this coincides with what Clutch said. However, my thinking is that the "only Tmac" games are somewhat of an abberation. They all occured during the month of January. It's possible that he just got on a hot streak, and he started to cool off once Yao got back in the lineup. He also started the season off terribly, probably getting used to the system and all, and a lot of those games were also with both Yao and Tracy.
Welcome to the new world of basketball. Judging a team by wins and losses is sooooo outdated when you have 82games.com (though I admit becoming addicted to it lately!).
Any chance someone has the story page open? Can you paste it in here? Clutchfans.net is not working right now.
