...but Adelman needs to strongly consider moving him into the starting point guard position. This is not a knee-jerk reaction to Aaron's stellar performance against Dallas. This is out of necessity. I argued vehemently after the Dallas game for the need to keep Aaron in the role he was in off the bench, but this team simply cannot afford to keep playing Rafer Alston. Rafer is literally killing us out there and giving this team next to nothing. Now that we have viable alternatives in Brooks and Barry, we just can't afford to keep running Rafer out there. I have never seen a player miss more wide open shots in my life while providing virtually nothing else. The guy's greatest virtue is the fact that he doesn't do anything - how about that? The fact that he doesn't turn the ball over is no longer sufficient enough of a reason to keep running him out there. Please get Rafer out of there.
... You act like were a couple weeks away from the trade deadline. I wouldn't mind seeing Aaron start. It would make Rafer be more competitive for the starting position like last year. I was on Rafer side for being a good player on this forum but now he is making me take back my decisions.
Alston is still our best all around point guard and fits the starting lineup much better. In the starting lineup Brooks will need to play controlled and think twice before every move he makes , and we all know he can't play like that. People need to stop overeactiing after 2 games.
That's how 0-fer manages to stick. He never has 4 bad shooting games in a row and his bad stretches are usually 2 games. If he doesn't finish with a good shooting % after the 4th he will in the next game.
i think aaron is best off the bench. is he more effective than rafer? depends who he's playing with. a lineup of: Yao Scola Artest T-Mac Brooks i mean ... aaron is best when given a little bit of freedom. if in the game with those 4 guys, the pg only needs to get it to them in the spots they like. he can do that but really, rafer knows how to best ... after all he's played with yao and tmac a lot longer. aaron is of course the better scorer and knows how to create shots for his teammates and can do so a lot better than rafer. however, he doesn't need to with tmac and artest on the floor at the same time. the only reason every1's a little impatient and testy with rafer is because he's struggling with his shot even more so than last season. in the end, i think they should either split minutes or have one or the other having a few more minutes than the other. it really depends on any given night. right now, due to a lot of circumstances, our starting 5 is very very slow on offense and not precise and mobile as we hoped they would be. if rafer is benched, his effectiveness take a huge dip. i doubt he'd be effective with guys like landry and barry out there. i'm not bashing those two, i'm just saying those guys are better at finishing (mid range shots and dunks for landry and 3's for barry) ... rafer just wouldn't fit with those guys well at all ... what i love about our 2nd unit is that brooks leads it. and like bill worrell noticed, he brings a sudden change in pace to the game that really catches the other team off guard ... i love it. rafer has to really get his shot going ... if he does (like to the level of when he owned the lakers and sasha ), we'll be a very deadly team. brooks is awesome.
There's no question that the Rockets have played flat out better with Brooks rather than Alston in the last 2 games. Brooks gives you better shooting and playmaking off the dribble. He's far more potent in transition (Rafer is really overrated as a transition player). Conventional wisdom is that Rafer's defense and veteran poise in organizing the offense is more suitable in the starting lineup. But the offense has been sloppy, not organized, with him for much of the game. Ideally, you want Rafer to start. Brooks is better suited as an energy player off the bench. But Rafer simply has to play better if we want to beat the really good teams in a playoff series.
Rafer is shooting 21.7% from the field in the first three games. He is 1-8 from inside the arc and 4-15 from beyond it. He's putting up 3 assists a game in over 32 minutes of action. http://www.clutchfans.net/stats.cfm Way too early to draw any conclusions, but the good news right now is he's not sniffing the quantity of shots that he did in the past, thanks to Artest.
The past 3 seasons, the Rockets were pretty much toast when Rafer played like a dog. The last 2 games this season, AB has been there to take up the slack. Rafer's "pathetic"ness may be due to an injury we aren't aware of. Or maybe he's hit the wall at 32. Before the season, I thought there was a good chance Morey would make a trade during the season to add a rotation PG. Maybe Rafer ends up being traded or pushed out instead of AB.
I don't think Brooks is ready to start and he may never be suited for that role. At the same time, Rafer is hindering this team. He almost never penetrates and the few times that he does, he either throws up a low percentage floater or just dribbles it right back out. He has no mid-range game and is scared of taking contact. Playing 35+ mpg last season, he averaged under 2 FTA per game. As far as I see it, Rafer just dribbles the ball to half court and hands it off 9 out of 10 times then floats out to the perimeter waiting to jack one up. If he was a great shooter this would be acceptable, but he's not. He's actually the total opposite. Since he is such a bad shooter, the only way he could be useful would be penetrating a lot and creating for others and getting to the line. He does neither of those things either. He is a bad PG, not even decent. The only reason he has low TOs is that he never takes the slightest risk. That is more of a bad thing than a good thing. Brooks isn't a starter so I hope we can swing deals at some point this season to shore up this weakness as well as our lack of frontcourt length.
Rafer is horrible tonight. I am really surprised how much he has regressed since last year. Looks like AB is the future. He can be our version of Tony Parker in my opinion.
that's the good thing...rather than jacking up shots and missing them whenever he feels like it, rafer's ust missing open shots where he's suppose to shoot.
The first half of pre-season Brooks didn't look to me as if he could handle the primary backup role. Now I'm curious to see if can handle playing as a starter..
I don't think he would make a good starter either. He's perfect off the bench in that energizer role. But they have to get Rafer out of there and he's the only other option. This isn't a guy in a slump. This is a guy shooting 20% from the field who shot under 40% in a career year. This is a guy shooting 20% who's only job is to shoot open 3's and walk the ball down the court. Someone else needs to be in there.
That is a knee jerk reaction. Give it time. You can't call for replacements 3 games in. Give it a couple weeks. Think of it this way. If Alston and the rest of the starting team can get themselves rolling, which is not dependent on Alston's shooting, just his running the offense, imagine the strength of having Brooks then come off the bench and push the tempo.
When will people understand that Aaron Brooks is a scoring guard. He's not gonna get his shots in the starting lineup. Rafer Alston will only have limited attempts. If he goes 1/5 or 2/6, fine. I could understand if some called for Brooks to get more minutes, but he's definitely not starting over Rafer.
Rafer is one of the worst PGs in the league....but he is the best starter we got....at least the other 4 are good players. DD
