I have to agree with rofflesaurus on this one. The Rockets' starting five was not only the most successful starting lineup in the league, it was the best five player combination in the league. No other five players, when playing together, outscored their opponent by more than did Rafer, T-Mac, Battier, Hayes and Yao. While 3 of those 5 guys don't exactly set the world on fire on the offensive end, they are so good defensively that opponents cannot score against the Rockets. We always hear about how good Shane and Chuck are defensively, but not many people give Rafer enough credit for his defense. He is a good defensive player. The reason he was "exposed" by Deron Williams in the playoffs was because (1) Deron is an awesome player who can outmatch and get to the rim against almost any opposing PG and (2) Rafer was forced to play 40+ mpg in that series (and pretty much all season) due to a lack of depth at PG, a problem that has since been remedied by Morey. If Mike James was playing those same minutes, I bet he would have gotten burned just like Rafer (although he probably would have hit more shots on offense). The starting lineup was never the problem. It was by far the team's strength. Having no bench outside of Luther Head, Juwan Howard and Dikembe Mutombo (none of whom showed up for the playoffs outside of one decent game by Juwan) WAS the team's problem. I'd have to say that Mike James, Luis Scola, a rejuvenated Bonzi Wells, Luther Head and Steve Francis are a significant upgrade over Head, Howard and Deke from last year.
People forget how great we beat up on the weak teams and how horrid we were against the elite. Sure, we had the best +/- of any starting 5, but that's just a stat that means nothing, especially when coupled with a first round exit. Apparently our starting five +/- in the playoffs wasn't that good. I don't the difference in winning a ring and not is in our depth, we had far greater problems. Rafer isn't a championship starting pg. He's not going to cut it. If he's the starter, that's a step in the wrong direction.
The starting 5 won 52 & it WAS our lack of depth. I've still got 6 Rox games on my DVR, perhaps you'd like to come over & watch the 6mins without a basket by our 2nd string?
Our depth was weak, I agree, but c'mon, Hayes and Rafer as quality starters? Rafer had the lowest shooting percentage of any guard in the league, and Hayes was jsut a hustle guy who got into foul trouble - a lot! If Rafer is starting and Hayes is starting - oh man, what a sad day it is. Think about this, we had the best starting 5 +/- and yet couldn't advance past the first round. Standing pat isn't going to make us champions. We needed to upgrade. That plus minus is a testiment to how good Yao and T-mac are, not Hayes and Rafer......
the problem was not that hayes and rafer were poor quality starters. hayes proved quite effective, he had a couple games where he played very well in the playoffs also. granted, he should not be starting, but he's hardly poor. as for rafer, once more...the issue is not him starting, it's him playing 48 minutes per game. 25-30 minutes, he will be an excellent player for us. he's not someone we want playing an entire game, period.
My feeling was that Rafer and Hayes got chewed up and spit out by Boozer and Deron. Look, to be elite you have to be able to compete against the elite on a consistent basis, and we didn't do that very well last year. And whenever we played against elite teams....guess who got exposed? Those were the holes. Rafer and Hayes should be on the bench, if we haven't upgrade this off-season over those guys, then this off-season was a failure.
I'm pretty certain we have. scola could start on any team that doesn't have an elite power forward. 3 of the guards that will be coming off of our bench would be doing similar. hayes I agree on, alston I'm not so sure about. I think he can start, he just isn't good for extended minutes, and he won't be finishing games. he's excellent at getting our offense rolling, however and setting the tone. late in games we have much better options in james and francis, however.
I never really understood this line of reasoning that you and seemingly other people have. You say the problem with Rafer was that he got too many minutes, but his poor play never stemmed from him being burnt out or tired, but him being a liability. I don't see how that changes whether he plays 10 min or 40 min other than the fact that 10 min of play means less Rafer.
The best +/- is part because Battier AND Hayes exerting on the DEF end, while Yao/TMac on the OFF end. On top of it all, Adelman's system will alleviate the 2on5 offensive burden JVG's system created. SAT night, Battier scored 19 by being creating his show & getting involved. I also noticed Durant started something like 0-4 or 1-4 in the 2nd half thanks to Hayes. I was watching some other game of Seattle's just a few days before Rox vs Sonics & Durant was going off. Hayes shut him down & Batt got him too. Another tangent that most people won't consider is "relying on what you know/do best". I see it a lot in UFC fights where a guy is dominant at one aspect of the fight, but tries to win in another form. When it's not working, he reverts to what he knows. With our best 5 from last year starting, and a play doesn't develop under Adelman, they can revert back to a play(s) from last year. Look at SAT night, we won with great ease with Yao only getting 9. Think we could've gotten away with that last year?
Did you watch the playoffs??? Hayes didn't guard Boozer during the series. He spent the vast majority of his minutes guarding (and SHUTTING DOWN) Mehmet Okur. Yao was the one who got abused by Boozer. Do you want to upgrade him as well? People seem to forget that Okur was an All-Star last year. For the most part, he was rendered irrelevant for seven games by Hayes's suffocating defense. A guy who can shut down an opposing team's All-Star in a seven game playoff series can start for me any day.
C'mon now. Chuck score 26 points in a 7 games series. His complete lack of offensive capability was key to Utah's game plan on defense. Rafer shot .338 for the series. That's .338 for the 7 game series! If neither of these two were a problem then tell me how do you define a problem? You cannot blame it all on the bench and be reasonable. Do you remember that we only scored 67 points in game 3, and Yao/Tracy/Shane (26/24/11) scored 61 of our 67 points???!!! yet you blame the bench? Of course our depth hurt us, but so did having two very weak starters. Our starting lineup was EXPOSED by game planning. 7 game playoff series are all about game planning. BTW, not all of this is directed just at you roffles.
Hayes wasn't on Boozer all the time. It was Yao that couldn't stop Boozer & there would've been a lot of people having a hard time with Boozer last year, he was just that good. I think a lot of people under estimated Deron. I live near where he played his high school ball. The people here still rant about him.
Yao and TMAC will have to wait another year if Alston is still their starting PG coming the playoff time.
Good post. The starting lineup had flaws in it too, although our bench was admittedly one of the worst in the league. With a better bench we probably would have squeaked by Utah, but wouldn't have beaten the elites. If I were Adelman, I would make SURE I gave Francis and James major roles with this team.
Your points are well taken, but Rafer and Hayes are in the starting lineup for their defense and ball control abilities and because they best complemented Tracy and Yao. Rafer undoubtedly had a horrible series shooting the ball, but I wouldn't necessarily have benched him. If the Rockets had had James last year, I probably would have wanted Rafer starting with James coming off the bench, carrying the second unit and likely closing out the game. As for Hayes, I refer again to my point above regarding his suffocating defense on Okur as complete and total justification for him starting in that series.
when did I ever say his poor play WASN'T from him being burnt out? cus if you saw that in the text, please highlight it for me. I thought I was making it clear that I feel that WAS the issue. you can't play 48 minutes a game for an entire series and not get tired, not to mention he played every game the entire season. he's not the best pg in the league, but I think he's better than what he showed us vs utah.
LOL, I just said the same thing, omitting the Okur part. Okur was inneffective for 6.75 games & I think since he was off, Hayes was rotating off of him faster, which left him open for those 3's he did hit late in game 7. Game 7 came down to 2-3 possessions (UTA off rebs), but if my ritual for the games had been kept, we would've won game 6!
Bottom line is this. Either Alston getting all this play early on is trade bait, or he really is playing well in Adelman's eyes. Or it could be that Adelman's system better suits Alston's style as a true point, not as a 3rd scorer. I'd rather see Alston in there moving the ball around than Francis dribbling dribbling dribbling dribbling. (Or Snyder's holding holding holding holding)
Rafer had bad shooting in his whole career, not only in that series. a qualified starter should play both defense and offense. How can you jusitify Hayes as a starter only on the defense. The truth is: Rockets lost that series, the "best complemented " assumption is WRONG because they achieved nothing or TMAC would not have cried.
Rafer is a bad defender. His shooting is usually "horrible". If we had MJ last year, Rafer would have barely played after game 1. Hayes defense didn't make up for the fact he is a major liability on offense. It was like playing 4 on 5. We will never know for sure, but Okur was exhausted from being leaned on by Yao and that affected his offense. Either way, he killed us in games 6 & 7 when they faced elimination. Okur was the dagger-man. Now that we have alternatives to last year's two weak link starters, we need to use them. Especially at PF where Scola is far better than Chuck already and at PG where the gap between MJ and Rafer will become apparent.
