Thank you. We should not rely on Rafer to be one of our main offensive weapons. That's what T-Mac, Yao, and Ron are for. Scola, Landry, and Brooks also help the cause. Rafer is the general of this team and it's his job to make sure we run our offense the way it is supposed to be run.
Meh, Feigen is a mouthpiece for the organization....... The fact is that Rafer is struggling because he needs shots to get his percentages up....he has always shot a lot....and being streaky it allows him to string a few together to up his average a bit. If now, they are asking him to shoot less often, his value to the team is mitigated. And, what this or any other article, or any fan that thinks he is good enough...is failing to do is to take into consideration what happens in the playoffs or when we play good teams. They leave Rafer WIDE OPEN....which clogs the middle for Yao, allows Tmac and Artest to be doubled and everyone else covered...EXCEPT Rafer..... And while he may have the occassional game where he scores the ball ok....the truth is that the Rockets are risking their entire season and chance of success on a sub 40% shooter...if he makes..they win, if he misses, they struggle mightily to win in the regular season and in the playoffs they lose. You can not afford to have so much riding on the shoulders of a player with great dribbling ability but absoutly HORRIBLE shooting ability. Rafer is one of the worst PGs in the NBA....and possibly the worst starting PG. He is smart, and does not turn it over and plays the passing lanes well.....but there are lots of players that can do that AND hit a shot. I hope the Rockets get someone this year, or we are going to be looking at another early exit in the playoffs because teams refuse to guard him. The only hope is that Aaron Brooks continues to progress, and that when Rafer sucks he gets replaced by AB. The truth is out there.......and all the Rafer Ostriches can bury their head in the sand and scream out "Rafer is good enough" and that doesn't make it true. Unfortnatly the truth hurts......Rafer sucks.... DD
Despite his bad shooting, rafer was solid down the stretch. he got landry a few good shots and played very sold defense on baron.
The main sentiments... 1. Best we got defensively and dishing out assists. 2. Decent 35% 3pt'er shooting. 3. Just take less shots, and we will be fine.
So, it is ok to say he did good even though he shot 1 for 6? Only because the team they were playing is possibly the worst in the entire league. But.....they won, so Rafer must have done ok, right? I am done apologizing for Rafer, he has to go....I can not stand watching him clank shot after shot...and worse.....the lack of respect he gets by other players simply NOT bothering to guard him. It is astounding....the guy is shooting below 30%....and that includes layups....and his 3pt percentage, usually his only redeaming quality as far as shooting goes is even worse. Rafer sucks...stop apologizing for him. X-files him....the truth is out there. DD
This is a dumb article and no team in the world who has Championship aspirations would accept a 33% shooting PG (Charlotte, OkC, etc..). Why, because in a tough game against the big boys they will double off him causing problems for SheMac and the Big Liability. Every team will force him to become a scorer, it only makes sense. Teams would rather see Rafer try to light them up than the Big Liability, SheMac, or Tru Warier. I refuse to believe that he can't improve his jump shot by working harder. Stop driving at night with your lights off after drinking 4 cranberries and vodka. Have your girl rebound while you take 500 jumpers a day.
Yeah, a guard's shooting percentage has no bearing whatsoever on his overall quality as a player. Signed, John Hollinger
The clippers are seriously not the worst team out there. In their first 6 games, they have played only teams that made the western conference playoffs Jazz twice Lakers Twice Nuggets Once and Rockets....seriously DD i can name you at least 7 teams worse off... Charlotte Bobcats Ohklahoma City Thunder New York Knicks Milwakee Bucks Memphis Grizzlies Washington Wizards Minnesota Timberwolves You can make an arguement that Indiana and Chicago are worse as well This team has Baron Davis at point Cuttino SG Thornton at SF Camby at PF and Kaman at C with Eric Gordon, Ricky Davis, and Tim Thomas off the bench. Im assuming your basing your "Clippers= worst team in league" theory on their record. Well Wizards and San Antonio have played almost as poorly as Clippers and they were in the playoffs last year. Those two teams also played worse teams than the clippers have so far.
They are certainly NOT a good team and will be fighting with the likes of Charlotte and OK city etc...for their record. They have some individually decent players, but the pieces don't fit. Still, it doesn't matter....Rafer sucks. DD
What do you guys want more? A QB for the offense or a dead-eye shooter? Unless we swing a miraculous trade for Parker, Paul or Deron, we're not going to get both in our PG, so deal with it.
Hollinger would tell you that volume also matters. If he's not taking a high volume of shots, the % gets more and more meaningless. And I bet Hollinger takes into account things like defense too, which the haters that posted above want to ignore for whatever reason.
Well the clippers arguement is not the central issue at this point. Rafer is honestly I think the best quality the Rockets can get at this point. You cannot give me a better solution for our PG woes than stating Alston. He gives you the best assists and team control of any player on this team that can run the position. We cannot trade for a better PG because 1) No one is trading a PG at the level of Alston (saying Marbury will get you bashed ) 2) We can't trade for a PG without giving away some of our depth. THE best solution is to start Brooks, but brooks is worse at containing bigger PGs like Billups, Davis, Williams, and Kidd. We give up Defense for Offense when you start Brooks over ALston....Let me remind you that we have 4 other options in front of Alston/Brooks
Please. I would take Brooks over Fisher right now. I can't wait to see AB blow right by him Sunday night. This is going to be fun to watch.
Great question. I would settle for someone who is a decent dribbler (not great..just decent) who can bring the ball up the court and is a decent shooter....over 40%.... That alone would be a massive upgrade, when combined with AB off the bench. It is why I suggested Luther Head.....him shooting those wide open looks would be deadly..but for some strange reason...in his 4th NBA campaign, Luther has not learned how to adequatly dribble the ball even as well as a 6th grader, so he clearly is not the answer. Hinrich, Blake, and any other average PGs that can shoot would be better for THIS team. DD
