This is a personal foul 15 yards, with a clip out of bounds, and a flagrant foul 2. Rafer is consistently horrible. Rafer has a good game about 25% of our games. Brooks has the ability to at least be a threat in everygame. I view him like Rondo with the C's. He will get better the more situations we put him in. Plus his finishing around the rim is 10,000 times better than Rafer.
Defense is still a MAJOR issue, even though he is making improvements. The Rockets have been uncharacteristically poor defensively over the past three games, especially in the first half. Aaron Brooks has started the last three games. That, in my opinion, is *not* a coincidence, not by a long shot. Brooks on court/off court defensive efficiency numbers have been quite poor this season. On average the Rockets are allowing more than 112 points per 100 possessions this season when Brooks is on the court. That isn't average -- that's pretty bad. By comparison, the team's defensive rating is 102.2. Rafer's rating is 98.1. And here's what will surprise you: Rafer's on-court offensive rating of 105.6 points per 100pp is higher than Brooks' 104.1. The result is that we're getting off to great offensive starts, but we can't clamp down until we make last ditch extra efforts late in the game. Score 30 in the first quarter, give up 33. Sound familiar? Sorry, 3 decent games isn't enough here. Rafer has more than 3 years of chemistry with our starters. He runs the team much better than Brooks does. I am definitely in favor of giving Brooks more minutes and allowing him to play alongside McGrady which he seems to do pretty well, but I am firmly against demoting Rafer from his starting job, as things are right now.
Rafer Alston ... worst in the league in FG% among PGs (this year and previous years) but will take a significant number of shots. His defense is only decent. I honestly can't believe we have a huge number of Rockets defending him. WAKE UP! He's definitely on the bottom half of the league in terms of PGs.
I agree with your assessment, that skip is 15 to 20 minutes per game player and that's only if his shot is going in. The other stuff is dwarfed by his lack of shot making.
What do we have to lose, we've been put out in the 1st round 3 times now. We keep doing the same thing (starting Rafer) expecting a different result.
Lols According to Einstein: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Believe in Obama guys: Change we believe in
Btw JeopardE are you really a rookie? I remember you being a member waay back...or maybe I just mixed you up with someone else
By that logic McGrady, Yao, and Battier all have to go. Rafer wasn't to blame last year. Anyone with half a brain who watched that series would know that.
If Pop had the same logic as some on this board, Parker would never be a starter as a rookie and Daniels wouldve been. GMs in this league will take Daniels over Rafer, yet one is a starter and one is a bench guy.
Guy, you're just wasting your time. Some people live in a fantasy world and you can't convince them otherwise. If almost 4 years of Rafer Alston hasn't made them change their mind then nothing will..not even a better option in AB. Maybe some of them are used to seeing Rafer's poor play for so long that they've just gotten used to it and can't see all the good possibilities in AB taking the starting spot.
Pop had David Robinson and Tim Duncan protecting the basket to make up for Parker's defensive slip ups. We don't have that same margin of error, unfortunately. Also, Daniels was a more effective scorer than Parker in his rookie year. Maybe Pop wanted Daniels on the bench for the same reasons we'd want Brooks on our bench.
I know what youre saying and its true. But at the same time, here are Rafer's combined numbers in his two elimination games with the rockets: 5-18 FG 27% FG% 2-10 3pt FG 20% 3Pt% 3 Assists per game 1.5 TO per game Its only 2 games, and he was hurt in the second one....But those are extremely important games, and he stunk.
I don't even want to look at William's stats in those games either. Too depressing. We just got destroyed at that position...We can improve. I hope...
Obviously JeopardE here didn't get the GARM memo in time about On/Off court statistics being meaningless and completely irrelevant. Only box score stats matter along with "watching the games" analysis, so we can allow ourselves to hate on Battier and Alston as much we want to. Check your inbox more often you damn rookie!
I don't know what's up either. I'm kinda hoping someday Clutch notices my emails and tip jar donations while looking in his archive. I think I've done more than enough to earn contributing member status, but that's up to him to decide.
That "rookie" has 10x more posts and has been here 2 years longer than you. We are all Rox fans here, no need for the haterade
Well, Adelman has been choosing Rafer over Brooks every game Rafer has been available, so excuse me if I take a potential hall of fame coach's opinion over yours.
Here's what it comes down to: In the scoring department, Brooks is better hands down. He's the better shooter, and he's able to get to the basket quicker. Although, it should be noted that while Alston is 37% FG% and 3P%, Brooks is only 43% and 40% in those catagories. So while he's better, he's not killing Alston in the shooting department. In the defense department, Alston wins simply because he's taller and he puts effort out on defense. And this will always be the case unless Alston loses his quickness. Alston will always be able to defend the post up better and always be able to contest shots better. It also helps that he's been in the league a good 7 years over AB as that experience helps. In the leadership/offensive setup department, Alston kills Brooks. Its basically the reason why Alston is the starter. He gets our offense into the set fast and executes it well. Tells people where to go, calls the plays, etc. Its not even comparable. Brooks has no ability to lead a team from the PG position as of right now (maybe give him a year or two). I know some of you are going to say "well, the offense has looked pretty well the past couple of games with Alston out". Thats because Tmac has been racking up near triple doubles in Alston's absence. Tmac is running the offense for the most part, with Alston out. So having said all that, as the starting PG in a line-up with Tmac and Yao (with Artest being the first to check in, this can be important because usually the starting PG stays in the entire first quarter on this team), which would you rather have? The leadership and offensive awareness abilities of Rafer? Or the explosive scoring abilities of AB? Its less about who's the better player and more about which skills fit better in the starting PG position.
