I don't know for who, but once MJ is on board it's the perfect time to jettison Alston. There is sure to be some sucker in the league that will think he is good enough to be a starting pg. I mean, he hasn't had any character isssues since Toronto and played a ton of minutes for a winning ball club last year. And he does have some positives. Not sure exactly who would want him. Denver, Indy, Sixers, maybe even the bucks could need a "steady" pg to play a bunch of minutes. Now that the rox are going to be running more of a high post offense, we definitely need more players who can hit jumpers and finish. Trade Alston for someone who can do that, whether it's in a package or by himself. Doesn't matter if it's a pg, sg, sf or pf. Anyone of any decent value will do. Are you ready to give up Alston? Or are you still attatched to what he can do for this team?
and backing up MJ will be? luther, billy, and lucas...again? rafer is nice to have for 24 minutes a game off the bench. he doesn't turn the ball over and he gets the team into the offense quickly. so he can't score, that's why he will be a backup.
i dont think this means the rockets dont need rafer. MJ isnt exactly a pg that runs an offense that well. Both rafer and MJ have different strengths and i think this team needs both of them.
I wouldn't be heart-broken if we traded him, but I don't see a need to yet. I think he's a better player than he looked last season because he was forced into the 3rd scorer role. Now that James can do that, Alston may look better while staying inside his distributor role. I think it is up to what sort of system that Adelman wants to build around Yao and McGrady. If we still need 3-pt shooters, he might be out. If that's less important, Head might be the one. I don't see a need to keep all of James, Skip, and Head. If Skip stays, James can take Head's role as gunner. If Skip goes, James would be the starting pg and Head can stick around.
A Houston guard rotation of TM, MJames, VS, and KS would be respectable; SB can provide perimeter shooting from the SF position. This leaves RA, LH, BS's contract, and the first round pick to work a trade for a PF.
if we are 100 percent sure we can get another pg, like steve francis, then go ahead and trade rafer, if not, hes a good backup.
Toyota Center Custodial Staff is looking for some help cleaning the crap after the game. He would be a perfect fit there at point.
hey man as much as we can hate rafer's shooting, he's valuable in ballhandling and at least bring the ball upcourt w/ low TO. he had a very good assist:TO ratio. w/ his shooting and mike james on board, its a good thing he won't play 40+ mins, which is why we lost in utah or the reason why we didn't win more games. rafer is not a guy who can play 40+ mins for a good team. but he can be great playing 20-25 mins, splitting time w/ james. teh PG is set now. hell, we might use james as a SG so vspan can get some time under adelman.
Contrary to popular opinion here, I think Rafer will still start. Imo, he's one of the best fits for this team, especially with Yao. High post or no high post, motion or no motion, you need good post-entry passers with a big man like Yao, and Rafer does that well enough. What James will probably do is to become the 6th man like his role for us was in '04-'05. That effectively gives teams 2 different looks at the point. One a more traditional set-up man in Rafer, and a sparkplug gunner in James.
Thankfully, you don't need a PG that's adept at facilitating the offense, taking care of the ball. A guy that breaks plays, resists feeding the post, and continually gets knocked by management and locker rooms as he's being bounced around the league will be perfect for us. Mike James is the solution for the Rockets' PG woes. Brought to you by the BBS that chafed when Marc Stein insinuated Stro Swift wouldn't start in an offseason column, claimed that Derek Anderson was simply misused in Portland, that Bonzi wouldn't be fat with a bad attitude if it wasn't for Van Gundy, etc. All we needed was a coach with the sense to turn off the greenlight for Rafer's high shot volume. JVG himself has said that Rafer was shooting so much because he told him to. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am (who does?). Everyone loved to point to James' contract-yr numbers in Toronto. How come no one thought to look at Rafer's numbers there as a comparison? Hey, sure he never avged so much as 13 ppg (or 5 apg) any other time in his career besides Toronto, I'm sure that James is going to avg 20 and 7 and lead us into the elite. Evan
Perfect time, but IMHO it will take a Howard - mj kind of deal. Or an inclusion with Sura('s contract) to effect an out pass for RA. So, who needs to dump salary? Or a 1? Phx, Nugs, GS, Indy, Heat. Any place else? Piece something together from there -- my fav being RA + BS = Camby. I wish. Or RA + BS = Murphy. I wish, tho I wouldn't want to pay TM's contract.
i would, but i can't stare longer than 2 seconds at it since you wrote it with the intensity of the sun.
exactly...we trade Rafer right now and we are right back where we were last year with no PG depth. If Rafer gets traded there needs to be another PG coming in here. Rafer will play better in an uptempo system and now he doesn't have to log so many minutes per game. When Rafer had an off shooting night it was amplified even more by the fact that he didn't have a suitable backup to come in and relieve him. He was forced to play through it. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't.
Whats the rush to trade Rafer. Wouldn't it be better to trade a 1 dimensional player like head. Looking into the playoffs, head did nothing. Why? Cant handle the ball,cnat get his own shot. If you're going to be undersized 2, you at least have to be able to break people down off the dribble and get a good shot. I think the haggle over players might include a old rocket in Griffin. I'm not really opposed to this either.
Rafer is an awesome backup to have behind MJ. Last year he had to play 44+ min a nite which prob wore on him. Playing only 24 min or so will give us energy off the bench and a way to get into the offense. I don't get the need to trade rafer unless we have someone better lined up.
keep rafer, james is a bomb waiting to explode, if things dont go his way he'll play like he doent care, cant have that.
