Head/Alston 1 & 2 in 4th Q 3-FG%

Head is quickly becoming what I hoped for him. Cuttino Mobley with some court vision.

 

Not surprised by Head, but rather surprised by Alston - considering how people were saying he is not a clutch player - this stat seems to indicate that he might become one.

 

The guy is humble. Gotta love him.

 

this is the only reason i am not completely unsatisfied with rafer, every time i am about to scream for his head he makes some late game 3 (after bricking through the first 3 quarters) hopefuly after his last game something will click.

 

The charitable spin on Rafer's stats is that he's clutch.

The uncharitable spin is that it takes him three quarters of bad shooting to warm up.

 

Both of them should be thanking Yao for the wide open looks they get in the 4th as teams are trying desparately to shut down Yao.

 

A pretty small sample size. But what I like about them is that they are not afraid to shoot no matter which qtr it is, and they make enough to space the floor. Now if they (and the rest of the team) can just do other stuff (taking care of the ball, defense) better, the team will be better.

 

Tell me about it. Most of the time, Rafer kills this team.

 

"because he is undersized and under-quicknessed."

I am not sure if that is true, Head looks awfully quick to me.

 

That's a good point. By the 4th, Yao's scoring is usually getting buried under 3 defenders. Our shooters have to be getting some really wide open looks. All the same, I'm glad our guys are actually knocking them down this year.

 

The numbers in those charts imply Rafer's 42 out of 124 in the first three quarters so far this season. That amounts to 1.75 out of 5.17 three-pointers per game in first three quarters. Or 33.8%.

 

excellent article- thanks...

also, anyone noticed how he almost never smiles or celebrates? I dunno, maybe its just me...

 

... says the guy who started to cite stats from 82games.com when the season was only one-week old.

 

Most 3 point shooters rely on someone else opening up their shot for them (Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Kobe not included).

 

My impression was that Rafer shoot a lot better in the second half than the first half. I don't know if he just have preference of the direction or he just needs miss a lot to become effective.

 

That depends on the conclusion you are trying to draw.

If you are saying this is how the guy has done so far, then you can do it after one game, let alone one week.

If you are using 25 shots alone as something that reflects a guy's overall abilities, or that this may become a trend, then 25 shots is not enough.


I remember my observation based on 82games.com stats was about Rockets having done better with Battier on the court than not. That was a statement of what happened during the games up to that point-- that the Rockets had been better overall whenever Battier was on the court.

When I try to predict Battier's overall impact for the rest of the season, I didn't rely on that 1 week worth of data alone, but also added both observation based on game videos (that he tends to make a lot of critical plays-- stopping fast breaks with a strip, taking charges, generally taking care of the ball, etc) as well as the fact that Battier's +/- had been very positive for the last several years (while playing with totally different players on the Memphis team from year to year).

For the purpose of looking at "clutchness" of Rafer and Head, I'd like to take a look at their 4th qtr 3pt shooting in the last few seasons... maybe then we can determine whether this is reflective of something larger than just luck.

 

If the conclusion agrees with your stipulation, then the sample is good enough.

Dude, a small sample is a small sample no matter what the statistical conclusion you are trying to draw. I would argue that we have played almost one third of the season and it is fair to conlude that Rafer and Luther are not scared to take and make shots in the 4th quarter

 

Shooting 3s at a 33% clip is like shooting 2s at a 50% clip. Now if Rafer never shot a 3 and limited himself to shooting mid-range Js and drives to the bucket and he was shooting at 50%, we would say he's pretty good.

I don't know what all the concern is about this 3 pt shooting. He only takes open looks and as long as he is shooting above 33%, I'm OK with it. However I do wish he would do more creating and drive to the basket more frequently to get his overall % up.