Calling all sane people...end the Reefer Madness already

The problem with that is that we have two seasons of experience with Rafer, not just one game. We know what he brings to the table and he's not getting better or expanding his game.

 

by the way, hayes is not a zero, he protects yao by his hustle and rebounding.

 

obviously if tmac and yao are off it's ok for mike james to jack shots, but what you dont see if james still jacking shots when yao and tmac are on point.........see people make fun of rafer's teardrops and they'd rather have james shoot contested 3's............what they dont understand is, for every rafer teardrop, you'll see james take 3-5 contested/tough shots.........now the other 3-4 possession with rafer he'd pass the ball to tmac and yao which is what you want......

did people even watch yesterday's game?? with rafer the rockets opened up a 12 pt lead in the 3rd quarter, james came in and lakers cut the lead to 8 by the end of the quarter

 

I hear ya. And as someone said on thier siggy on here, "Rafer is who we think he is."

A good ballhandler, decent 3pt shooter, horrible 2 pt shooter, good assist-to-turnover guy.

And I guess my annoyance is with the thread dedicated to think that after one game this is indicative of his play every game, and that last night's ALMOST-breakdown was his entirely his fault. Like I said...blinders. Hate if you are going to hate, but at least hate intelligently

 

We get your point but you need to get your facts straight, Donkey.

1st quarter shooting
Batter: 1-6
McGrady: 1-6
Yao: 2-5

http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/gameflow.cgi?date=20071030&game=HOULAL

 

You must have missed the part of the game where with Rafer in we opened up the game with a 10+ point deficit which was later changed to a lead with Mike James on the court.

 

Most teams have strengths that other teams do not and a good team can beat an excellent point guard most of the time. Some of those guys happen to have good teams as well, which is the scary part but we have a fairly good team ourselves this year (and some larger ball handlers that can help with defense on some of the tough matchups).

Rafer is unreliable. But over time his averages and low turnovers are a plus. Mike James is excellent off of the bench. He played OK this game but there were still times where he would cross half court, try to drive at the hoop - back it back out - try to drive to the hoop again - repeat/rinse until the shotclock is at Rafer time. There were one or two where he drove to the hoop only to be smothered by the defense resulting in a turnover without a single player touching the ball on the possession. Most of the time he did ok this game and the three was falling which tends to erase those other mistakes from James' fan's minds (and help bring soothing calm to those who are objective).

Having Rafer on this team isn't a liability. Having him as the only option is a liability which was addressed in the off-season. When full court pressure is on the ball handler bringing it up the court there isn't another player on the team, T-mac included, that I would rather have handling the ball than Rafer. The turnovers this game are certainly not indicitave of his game and the one from the inbound pass wasn't completely his fault. Yao should have come out to receive the pass and instead we ran the risk of turning the ball over anyway from not being able to inbound in time. This forced an inbound pass into a terrible spot to a small guard in the middle of an instant double team. That particular moment was a forgivable aspect of the first game of the season in my opinion.

The one other area where I am quite impressed with Rafer is his passing into the post to Yao. Mike James did OK last night but I still felt uneasy at times (but I suppose if the ball actually leaves Mike James' hands and goes to Yao I will deal with it and he did have one nice pass into the post that I remember).

I thought your write-up on the game was a fair assessment of how things went so there probably isn't a whole lot to discuss other than the details.

Cheers,
Brock

 

No, I don't blame the last nights game on him, after all this is a TEAM game. I also know how he plays every game, not just last night and he usually plays better than that, but not much better. The only thing that was different is that he had 4 TO's which doesn't happen very often, but his shooting was where it always is. I don't like Rafer, but Steve didn't get his but in shape so he rides the bench, Mike James well, that speaks for itself. The problem is that none of our point guards a well rounded, all of them have one or two great things they do and below average the rest.

 

But we do have more options now that allow us to at least minimize those shortcomings in regards to the point. If we need someone who can body up against a larger point guard we can put in Mike James. If Rafer isn't hitting the side of an ocean sized barn - Mike James. If Mike James is too slow or having trouble passing the ball into the post or handling pressure - Rafer. It would be nice to have an all-star at every position but that isn't reality. This way, we can at least minimize the damage at that position and play whoever matches up best for the majority of the minutes.

This is the reason I was so against trading Rafer for Mike James. You are trading one liability for another, in my opinion, which doesn't solve much. Having both is what I have advocated from the beginning of the Rafer/James debates.

One of the strengths of Rafer that no-one talks about is his ability to pass into the post. He's one of the best players on the team at getting the ball into Yao. Bottom line is we need both. One or the other isn't going to cut it.

 

Rafer has the ability to pass it into the post because he's not pressured and well of course the fact that he actually passes the ball. At this point we really have no choice but to use both of them. I actually wanted Steve Blake instead of Mike James because he was more of a Rafer Alston type guard with better FG%.

My problem with Mike James is that he rarely looks to pass. To wave off T-Mac when he's calling for the ball is ludicrous, not when T-Mac is the go to guy on this team not Mike James. Maybe Steve Francis would have done better, but he's not in the rotation for a reason.

 

Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.
Adleman and JVG know more than you.

 

Point guard position by committe betwen mike james adn rafer alston we get


18pts 10 dimes 4 steals 9 rebounds

 

Sweet link. Thanks for posting.

 

It is a very common word.

 

thats pretty damn good, and rafer had 8/10 of the dimes. people need to stop b****ing

 

I thought rafer was terrible last night.

 

i thought rafer was decent last night


though he can play better

 

That's not a biased opinion at all.