Houston Rockets nba.com Posted by Rafer Alston on Oct. 4, 2006 at 2:29 p.m. ET My summer went great, man! I spent a lot of time with the family. Just the family and staying in Houston and working out, that’s it. Staying in great shape; putting up a lot of jump shots and doing a lot of conditioning work. I didn’t spend a lot of time in New York this summer, I stayed away. I traveled with the family, man. I did a little Bahamas, went to Vegas, you know, things like that. I traveled, went to Disney, took the kids to Disney. I just worked on being a consistent open shooter. You know…Spot-up threes…Pick-and-roll pull-up jump shots…Catch the ball, catch-and-shoot, and catching the ball, making a move and then shooting. There’s a lot of different variations of shooting the basketball. You just try to be a consistent outside shooter. You had guys like Luther Head, Chuck Hayes, John Lucas and Steve Novak in the gym. But, a lot of the things I did were individual, but then sometimes I’d get with some of those guys and we’d do some things, some drills and things together. I just put a lot of time in down on one end of the court fine-tuning my game. Going into this year we’re going to work hard, play together and compete, and hopefully we can just stay healthy. I think a key thing will be our health issues. Last year we got hampered by a lot of injuries and we had to play with different lineups and different players. I think now we just want to be healthy and play the best, solid basketball we can. Yao looks great, Tracy looks great. They came in in great shape. Yao had a very productive time in the Worlds and you know, Tracy has been working out key spots in his game being that he missed almost half the season last season. Shane is Shane. You know what you’re getting in Shane. You’re getting a hard worker, competitor, you’re getting a defender, a guy that can hit the open three…just a team-oriented guy. Novak, he can stretch the defense out with his shooting ability and the guy is a smart basketball player. Kirk Snyder is a tough competitor. He competes hard, he works hard. I haven’t really seen much of him in his NBA career, but what I’ve seen at Nevada he’s a great mid-range shooter, he’s been working on his three. He definitely can post-up and slash to the basket. And then Bonzi, you know he is a good mid-range to low-post player and he’s a fierce competitor and he’s a team guy. We have to understand that our first two options are Yao and Tracy and our third one has to be Bonzi. My job is, hey, get these guys the basketball. It’s a good thing I’m a pass-first guy and I’m a true point guard so I don’t really mind it. It’s going to come easy for me. The only thing I’m going to have to work on is get some reps and knowing where these guys like the ball, being that I haven’t played with Battier or Wells last season. I have to familiarize myself with the times that we played against them and understand where their scoring comes from. You know that Wells likes to post up and shoot the mid-range and you know that Battier is a good corner 3-point shooter.
Yeah, Rafer you got it, think about shooting when you sleep, practicing it in your dream too. We need you to shoot well. Looks like you understand your role on this team.
Sounds like he's really focused this season. He definitely got the 2 most important things down... 1. Work on shooting. 2. Learn how/where to get his teammates the ball. If he's successful in both those areas, we're going to be flat out NASTY.
I couldn't have said it better myself. He knows what he has to do, it's just a matter of him being able to do it. This is great and exactly what I wanted to hear from Rafer.
With Tracy and Yao healthy-his assists will improve. We have better shooters-there will be less pressure on him and more of his shots will fall. If he is the same or slightly better than last season - he will be an effective distributor of the ball. He will be our point guard I hope. I am happy with Rafer Alston
Totally unimpressed with Alston last season, but some nice comments. I hope his shooting and defense have improved, otherwise, his minutes are likely to fall.
Some great comments from Rafer!! I really like Skip. He is often the "forgotten starter", but I think he knows what he needs to do and it sounds like he has the drive/determination to make the necessary adjustments.
I have to reserve any judgement with Rafer. He's played less than half a season with Yao and T-Mac together and he had an "off" year. Right now he may the most critical factor in determining how this team does. We desperately need him to play well.
Im expecting big things from Alston this year. He obviously knows his role and knew what he had to do in the offseason and it sounds like he has done that. I hope he can prove alot of his doubters wrong because it would be great if he can step up and hit those shots he wasnt hittin last year.
hmmm, it almost sounds like some coach, ooh, i don't know, maybe jvg completely broke down his role on this team because this is exactly what i'd like to see from him this year!!!
I remember some games where Rafer put up Nash like numbers, along with steals. Ahh......13 assists a game...........hopefully he will average 7-8 assists next year with the talent we have.
it's great if he averages maybe say, 10 points and 10 assists. But even if he does, his matador defense against the other teams PG's is gonna be the big question mark for mine. we all know he can dish, and organise us offensively. Hopefully his work on the outside shot will pay dividends aswell - but if he gives his man as good (or better) as he gets offensively, then his effort goes for nought.
I think Rafer gets hated on these forums to much. He was still putting in 7-10 assists a game w/ scrubs out on the floor that couldn't hit ****. His numbers would have been great if people could have put the ball in the hole. I know his shot wasn't that great, but if his teammates would have helped him he would have looked much better. I only say this because I had him on my fantasy team (large league) so I watched him more closely. I got him purely for assists and he didn't let me down mostly.
I think Rafer is serioulsy underrated I cant think of any other point guard (not a star) that can be better for our team in terms of organising the team and running the offense
Alston is exactly the point guard this team needs. Last season he was pressed to be a scorer which he is not. He's a passer and there are a lot of guys to pass it to.
I happen to think that Brevin Knight might fit even better. Neither guy is a scorer, but Brevin plays much tougher defense. I might take Jason Williams too for his ability to hit the spot up 3. That said, I'm happy with Rafer and I definitely think that people are too hard on him most of the time. You can't blame a pass-first point guard for not shooting well and not racking up assists with a bunch of scrubs. When he deserves to be thrown under the bus is when his turnovers are too high and he takes shots he's not supposed to. Neither was the case last season.
