anyway sonics take em for watson? i cringe everytime rafer comes onto the floor. terrible decesion making... he wants to take three pointers but cant make em. oh whats even worse are his running shots... he thinks hes mcgrady out there. burn rafer burn
Because doing so would have handed the Lakers a huge advantage in both size and experience. These two would have been useless anyway against the likes of Smush Parker last night.
experience, maybe, though i'd argue that experience didn't seem to help rafer much last night. size? yeah lucas is a midget (though his quickness would have enabled him to get past smush parker much better than rafer), but spanoulis is bigger than rafer, and definitely more composed mentally. for all the turnovers and crap spanoulis pulls, i get the impression that he would be a very solid player in crunch time. he has a winning instinct. and you'll probably say 'but you can't say spanoulis would be good in crunch time because he's never been in that situation before,' but then i'd say you can't say he wouldn't be solid in crunch time because we've never gotten the chance to see.
Walker can, when he has a D-Wade that went to the line whenever a Mav looked at him. Derek can be a bench rider on one.
Mike James for Rafer Alston is the Rockets equivalent of keeping David Carr over Vince Young. Haunting !! DD
LOL - I am just clowning ! I do like the proposal for Antonio Daniels, that would be the ideal fit if he is healthy. DD
His weakness has been exposed in the last couple games due to the heavy minutes JVG asked him to play. Most time for him to be effective is 30 PPG. Even JL3/Billy is not ready yet, you still have to play them. But best situation is looking for some new PG. Earl Watson/Antonio Daniels/Mike James/Chris Duhon/ will do a better job here for sure.
I don't think the answer is dumping Rafer, but to find someone to play PG and steady the ship when Rafer is in his "crazy mode." And no, Luther Head, Lucas, and Spanoulis are not the answer right now. Rocket really do not have an excess of semi-reliable guys with PG skills right now. Rafer and TMac are pretty much it. You need more ball-handling, not less. Rafer is a lot like Jason Williams with Miami. He's a useful player-- brings the ball up court fast, hits some shots, makes some good passes. But I have a hard time trusting him in pressure situations. Notice how teams used White Chocolate his entire career-- play him a lot in 1st and 3rd qtrs, but always make sure he has a strong backup capable of playing big minutes during his bad times. In SAC, it was Bobby Jackson. In Memphis, it was Earl Watson. Last season, it was Gary Payton. I trust Rafer Alston for 20-30 minutes a game, but ideally, there needs to be another guy playing the other half of the game. I agree with Kelly Dwyer's take in SI about Earl Watson. Rockets should try HARD to get him. Watson did a great job subbing in for Jason Williams in Memphis. He's also one of the best (perhaps THE best) defensive PGs in the league. His defensive prowess would fit well with Van Gundy. Besides, I'm tired of seeing 6'8'' SF Battier trying to contain the Baron Davis/Gilbert Arenas of the world.
As soon as Bill Waston said the ball should go through the big man, Rafer took a brick, then J. Barry said, Wow, hit nothing. What a joke! Funny things are that JVG never controls him, at least on TV. Why did you trade James for the man without a brain? Lots of jokes.
Rafer is a backless stool..... JVG needs to make the change or he will be one too.... When Tmac gets healthy, I think its time to trade Tmac and Rafer....When TMAC has a couple of good games and looks healthy (which is only temporary) is time to trade him and get somethig for him and rafer...we can't count on Rafer's play and TMAC's back....
Derek Anderson and Walker are not running a team. We are talking about the point guard who is the initiator of the offense. If the offensive sets are not started sharply, they don't have a good chance of getting scores
Luther head drops too many turn over on second OT. I think that is the problem. Also Our coach need to think something more than pass the ball to yao or Tmac... We need the third scoring option!
I'm definitely up for getting Earl Watson. So far, he's got some pretty good games with the Sonics, and I really can't see how the Sonics fit a defensive Watson into their uptempo offense and little defence. If we can somehow trade Bob Sura for Watson (or even JLIII or Alston) I would be over the moon. Watson has the talent, it's just that the Sonics aren't using him.
Funny noone says anything about Skip to my loser passing him the ball while Kobe is playing the passing lane and right in front of Kwame so he gets sandwiched and ripped. That's not how you set up a player for a chance to score.
About Rafer... OK, this is not another bench or trade rafer, rafer sucks thread, although i do feel like that sometimes. i wanted to get specific about things he's doing wrong and right IMO. first of all, i've been noticing that his 3 point percentage increases drastically when he catches the ball and shoots. too many times i see him dribble up and throw up a brick. i think last night he shot one where it hit the left side on the board, missing the rim completely. bill worrell and bullard commented one night that rafer should not be the first offensive choice. and i also noticed that when he throws up the bricks, the rockets are completely caught off guard and the rebound goes to the opposing team, and they score on the other end more often tham not after a rafer miss. to be fair, good thing about rafer is that he's hit some clutch 3's. again, because most of those came after a good ball movement, anf he shoots after getting the pass. also, he can penatrate and score point blank range at times, but others he settles for the "tear drop" shot, and you just have no idea if it's going in or not. he just reminds me of francis and mobley at times. but at least francis and mobley were better shooters.
We should start admiting that there is no alternative for Rafer in this team: Head is a SG, JL3 is much too short in order to be a starter and Spanoulis...well I believed in this guy a lot, but JVG has definitely destroyed the boy. This is not the guy we liked during WC and pre-saison. So we have to get along with Rafer...
