I have always considered him a good (not great) defender. He doesn't gamble too much, seems strong enough to not get posted up and generally plays sound, fundamental defense. A lot of the hate he gets is similar to what Hayes gets. Both guys catch hell for not being able to do things that they were never expected to do by the organization, the coaching staff or knowledgeable fans. Alston is a good defender, a great ball handler, a good decision maker and a fiery competitor. Unfortunately, he isn't a good enough shooter to make up for Tmac's chucking, Yao's timidness down low or Shane's reluctance to try and put the ball in the hoop every now and again. It's the same thing with Chuck. He plays fantastic defense, hustles, grabs rebounds and makes almost no mistakes but since he isn't popping 15 footers and dunking missed shots he gets killed on this board. Never mind the fact that all he has done is exceed the franchises expectations of him. I just don't see why the role players get so much grief when we have a 6'8 freak of basketball talent who won't go to the rim and spends more time telling the media about his injuries than he does practicing free throws and a 7'6" Center who has yet to realize he is bigger than everyone else and that the league is his to dominate if he ever decides he wants to.
Rafer actually doesn't have the length and athleticism you would expect from a good defender... and before the Rockets, Rafer was not that great a defender. Rafer's defense now is just a product of being under JVG's system for several years prior. The top two defender's on this team last year were Shane Battier and Chuck Hayes, both who learned solid defense from JVG. Rafer, I would say, is the 4th best defender on this team, behind Shane, Chuck, and Ron Artest. Rafer is definitely not a lock-down defender. But I will out on a limb (and probably get flamed for it) and say that he plays the best team defense out of any point guard in the league. He is capable of containing players, meaning he won't allow the opposing point guard to play to his strengths. When he played Chris Paul, he played Chris for the drive and for the pass, trying to force Chris to shoot rather than pass. I think in that one game the Rox won, Paul had like 30 points, but he was limited to around 7-8 assists and was also uncomfortable running the offense all night. That is where Rafer's strength is on defense.
Rafer IMO is one of the best defensive PG in the league. He doesn't get huge loads of steals and hold his opponents to half their average, but he does a good job of staying front of opponents and getting them out of their comfort zone.
Bear in mind that Alston didn't play in 2.5 of those games... We happened to lose the 2 full games, and collapse in the second half of the other one with nobody to guard Williams
he is pretty good in defense compared to aron. But ...... rafer may be able to lock up derek fisher and mo williams, but how about CP3 or deron? Many times we have seen him being eaten up by jason kidd. further, rafer's offense can not match the lose in defense with his bad shooting skills.
No, that's not a photoshop job at all, the guy in dark red uniform is just rafer himself. I bet the photo was taken by a policeman who is in favour of mike james so that he took the photo on purpose that the photo would harm rafer's reputation, in order to make mike's game time longer. as you see, the slim arms and waist belong to no other guy than rafer.
4th best defender? If you are saying man on man defense, i take Tmac, yao and deke over rafer along those you said above. And how on earth is he containing players, when the example you shows is Paul going 30 points and 7-8 assist? In other words that is getting torch. The reason his not giving out assist its because he have the shot to take.
Umm heh heh? I don't know how many times I see something T could have done but didn't for what unknown reasons, too many times. For man on man only reason I would easily pick up Alston over T. Now I guess a thread got deleted or something but it was about Rafer as well. So I will just post it here. Basically it was a debate about who the floor general is. Who ran the offense. Not who scored more. But in todays Chronicle T said Alston is the floor general, the play caller or whatever you want to call it. Its a good article with some impressive stats. Like during the 8 season game that Rafer missed, Rockets went 4-4 (50 percent). During the PO's, we lost all games that Rafer missed, won all that he as back for except the last one where he left before the half due to injury. That alone shows a lot on who runs the play. So for the T fan base that claimed T was the floor general the one who called the plays or set the defense you should read this article. Rockets like what they have at point guard
in other words: TMAC is not a point forward. damn, no wonder Rockets are losing. when Rafer is your floor general, you are doomed.
being the floor general meant nothing as of to this topic. This topic is talking about alston and his defense. About the 4-4 record, it shows me that the back-up for rafer is weak. Same goes for the ever debate about who is more important tmac or yao. Just look at the bench, when yao goes down, scola, landry, hayes and deke cover yao. When tmac goes down, all you have is luther head. Thats why the bad record when tmac is down. Going out of topic for a while, if tmac goes down this season, rox will still be able to win its fair share of the game, as the squad now is more equip to handle the extra 30++ minutes per game. Instead of seeing head/bjax/harris getting more playing time, we have battier/artest/barry to play those extra minutes.
You should really learn to read what a poster writes before commenting especially when you quote it. Now I guess a thread got deleted or something but it was about Rafer as well. So I will just post it here. I cannot start a thread otherwise I would have. I put the record down showing the rockets won more with Rafer playing then not playing so how is that weak? And if we can maintain a same w/l record with T going down like you mentioned why are we paying him 20 mil for??? did you even bother to look at the stats, we won more with Rafer playing.
"won more" can not justify anything other than "Rafer is better than his backup" by losing I mean losing playoffs. we did not win any playoff series . that's the fact.
Truth. But just look at the last year PO stats. The games we lost Rafer wasn't playing with exception to game 6 where Rafer left before the half was over due to injury. The games we did win Rafer was playing.
Isn't this repeating that "Rafer is better than his backup" thing again and again? why just look at last PO? how about the PO before the last when Rafer played more or Rafer's whole career?
