Rafer or T-Mac as Main Distributor? From studying Rafer's play over the first 14 games, it looks like his mentality is not that of a point guard, but more that of a shooting guard. This may be due to T-Mac's more prominent role as a distributor. Rafer's Shooting %'s Unfortunately, Rafer is shooting 38% overall, which is far from stellar for a point guard and downright unacceptable for a shooting guard. The bright spot is that he's shooting a respectable 36% from 3-point land. Over half of his attempts have been 3P (88 of 150). Rafer's Trigger Happiness Rafer is far ahead in 3rd place on our team in FG attempts, outshooting Luther Head and Shane Battier (102 FGA each) by 48 attempts. Luthor (41% overall, 48% 3P) and Shane (44% overall, 39% 3P) are both shooting better than Rafer overall and in 3P. Rafer's Decline as Distributor More disturbing is Rafer's decline in assists from 6.8 per game to 4.6 per game from last season, even though his turnovers (2.5 per game last vs. 2.2 per game this year) are essentially the same. You can clearly tell from watching his play that he is focusing more on shooting than on distributing this year. What Should Rafer's Role Be? Given the facts above and from what you have seen in games, how can Rafer's talents best serve our team? He's always had a high assist-to-turnover ratio, and always been a poor shooter (under 40% for his career). Why not have Rafer shift his role back as mainly a distributor (to get T-Mac going with his shot as well), and have him spot up for some 3P's occasionally. We know that some of Rafer's shots can be made at a higher % by Shane or Luthor, Chuck Hayes, or even Padgett. I think that Rafer should focus on improving his shot selection (focusing on taking mostly 3P) and changing to a more Pass 1st mentality. He should share more of the burden as the distributor with T-Mac, and share some of his shot attempts with his teammates, especially Shane and Luthor.
Too bad tonight, Yao just got 15 shots while Alston took 4-15 and Head took 3-12 as PGs Battier is great
Real funny... This guy (Alston) really think he is the star in this team, even had a same amount shots as Yao did... F**K off Alston...
Hes been clutch in the 4th in some of the games this year..so that's his only bright spot. At least he has a bright spot in the 4th quarters because last year he was dismal in every aspect. As long as he's shooting 3s and making them during important times..he's doin better than expected (for me)
yikes...let the flaming begin. id rather have head start over rafer, and have rafer distribute when tmac is off the court. start games with head, tmac, battier, hayes and yao, and let tmac distribute/shoot when necessary, behind the head playmaker. let rafer playmake for padgett/juhow, deke, vspan and (insert missing rocket ie bonzi, novak, jl3 or snyder). it'll reduce his shots, if he DOES get a good look he'll think twice bout geting owned on missing the shot, it'll and make him dish out more because he'll obviously be guarded tighter. eh, what do i know. the starting lineup i stated is pretty much our lineup for finishing up games.
What everyone else is forgetting that, out of all the rotation players, the only 2 people who can get a shot off at anytime is rafer and tmac. One of the ways to stop yao is to deny him the ball and teams always try to do that. Tmac looked pretty disintrested against the t-wolves or was unable to give it his all due to his injury. Vspans minutes are limited and he seems trigger shy when hes out there. Yao cant shoot every possesion because he is denied the ball and defenses always swarm him. So who should take rafers shots? Juwon,Chuck,luther? Rafer also isnt used as a traditional point guard who handles the ball alot and sets up other teamates. He usually passes it off to either yao or tmac and camps out at the 3 pointline, waits for the open shot, shoots. For those who think vspan or novak should be taking his shots, they cant since theyre not on the court long enough, and rafer cant do anything about that.
I think it's misleading to say Rafer thinks shoot first. He definitely passes first, even today in this role that isn't the best fit for his skillset. He just about always hands it off to McGrady or Battier to initiate the offense. He has rare moments too where his skills seem to fit, like when he made that nice pass to T-Mac in transition for a layup. So I would say he's definitely pass-first... BUT, the Rockets have unselfish players and Rafer isn't shy at all about shooting the open three when it's kicked to him (I wish Yao showed the same kind of quick trigger rather than hesitating and taking 3-5 seconds to consider whether he should pass or make a move). It's just that Rafer is not an especially good shooter and he's going to be left open a lot, thus he's going to have to knock them down. I mean how crazy is it now thinking back to Rockets111 and the others who scoffed at suggestions that Rafer needed to improve his accuracy, saying the team <a href="http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?p=2435597#post2435597">didn't depend on his shooting</a> since he would only be the fifth option shooting 3 threes a night. 9 more threes tonight ... I mean, NINE. Back to "rookie" for you. I need to start cleaning some of these ugly reads up.
I think the shot selection by the rockets this season has been tremendous, Rafer included. Rafer should keep on taking those shots like he's been doing, with confidence. If he's open, take it, and take it without any doubts, even he goes 0/10, i'd say take it. The worst would be Rafer shooting 3s without any confidence.
I have found one interesting thing about many Alston haters, many of them didn't even bother to watch the game. They made their comments after read the game stats, blame anyone who had a bad shooting night, particularly Alston since he has took more shots than anyone not named Yao & TMac. I have watched 3 Rockets games this year, but rarely saw Alston take a bad shot. The game is about to create mismatch, and generate open shot opportunity. If you don't shoot the ball when you are open, then why bother to run any sets to create that oppotunity? Alston is definitely a pass-first PG, but since his shots haven't been falling, the opponets have left him alone more and more. In those situations, Rafer had no choice but to shoot the ball as long as he is on the court. Of course, JVG can always take him out of the game, but that will leave us with no good ball handler. So, it's a touch situation for the coach, I guess JVG just values low-TO more important than missing shot.
this is going to be a hot discussion. i called rafer obsolete a while ago because he is a pass-first player in an offense that needs a shooter first, slasher second, passer 3rd. rafer still needs to play the majority of the minutes at PG for this reason: his TO's are very low. just over 2TO's a game in 36MPG. those who want to start luther for his shooting need to realize that if luther was given rafers PT he would average over 1 more TO per game while getting 2APG LESS than rafer, and a half a steal less than rafer. so better shooting at the cost of ball movement and turn overs. billy's stats are too limited to make a judgement, but i could only imagine (and i love this guy) that his shooting % wouldn't be much better, and his to's would be much worse. is rafer the best fit for this team? no. he's the best we have right now. we're winning. we might as well stay with him until we get an offer for someone better.
exactly. alston was left open alot, the wolves were daring him to shoot. he has to take those shots. and alot of times rafer shoots when the clock is winding down and theres no time to pass the ball. you can't expect Yao to get the ball every single time, the opponent are not that stupid. roleplayers have to do their job and when t-mac is off his game and the opponent is focused on yao and giving the role players wide open looks, you have to take it.
You pretty much nailed it. One thing I want to add is Rafer's ball handling, I think it is GREATLY underestimated by most people here. It looks simple when he brings the ball up to set up the offense, but not that many PG in this league can do it as smoothly as Rafer can, especially under pressure. Still remember a couple years back when we had Francis and Mobley on the back court? People were screaming ast those two to bring the ball up faster, but they just couldn't do it.
Rafer certainly has had open looks. But is this really the best option? Rafer has ALWAYS been a poor shooter. We would have lost to a better team than the Wolves tonight that knows how to exploit Rafer's weakness. Yao and T-Mac draw so much attention that the open looks will still be there for Shane, Luthor, Padgett, Novak, V-Span, Juwon, or whoever. Rafer's scoring success mostly comes from catch-and-shoot situations anyways. He doesn't create many successful shots on his own, contrary to what someone suggested. All of those guys listed above can catch and shoot better. Why not let them take those shots, and have Rafer focus more on improving the efficiency of our offense? Rafer has a role shooting open, spot-up threes, because he's at least not terrible at that this year. But I have no doubt that he can better serve this team not as a scorer, but as a distributor. More of his shots should go to equally open Shane or Luthor (not Yao or T-Mac when they are doubled). Bottom line is Rafer simply has a major weakness in his shot. The key is how do we not let the better teams take advantage of it to beat us.
i'm really displeased with the play of alston right now. he shouldn't take more than 12 shots in a game. this would make us a hell of a lot more effective, seeing as how most of his shots are 3's or errant runners. I really want him to play a risque "and-one" type point guard role, and focus on distributing and breaking down defenders one-on-one. JVG seems to have him as more of a set-up guy, and i think this is hurting him tremendously. I would like to see him take only 8 shots a game, but for now, 12 would be sufficient. Yao should shoot a lot more, t-mac should be playing the role rafer's playing right now more, and battier should spot up way more. also, JHO needs to stop shooting unless he's open, and head needs to stop handling the ball. these would all help the rocket's success.. i want less plays, more penetration.
The major problem with Rafer is his inability to shoot effectively off the dribble. His 3pt shot is very suspect and unreliable as is his mid range jumpers when he has to initiate them off the dribble or on the move. The worst and perhaps most glaring is his inabilility to finish layups and teardrops in the lane, with any sort of regularity. However his ability to catch and shoot seems solid, as is his ballhandling, passing and setting up of the offense. Rafer is indeed as Clutch stated a pass first guard. The reason he is taking so many shots, is obvious. They are for the most part, the best available shots the offence is getting at the time (or conversely what the defense is giving the Rockets). Everyone would like Yao to get more shots and rafer or whomever else not name t-mac/battier to not, but guess what? So does the opponent, thats why sometimes they deny the ball, double team, trap etc thereby creating open shots for others. For the offense to work everyone needs to take the open shot when its there. Hesitating, passing it off or forcing something because their shooting is off or they are afraid of missing is an even worst outcome and one I'm sure will have JVG screaming about. Ironically what rafer lacks in his game is what one player the rocket traded away was exceptionally adept at, shooting/finishing of the dribble and what that player lacked is what rafer has... namely ball control, catch & shoot, ability to run an offense.
The Rockets don't need PGs. They need 3 point shooters who can play average defense. Give the Rockets a Derek Fisher circa 2001-02 and you can lock this thing up. If T-Mac is healthy he will be the main distributor and you need to surround Yao and T-Mac with 40% guys from behind the arc.
I think that is right on. I think JVG (whom I have the utmost respect for) breaks the game down into number of possessions, and things like turnovers and giving teams 2nd and 3rd shot opportunities are to be avoided at all costs. Alston keeps the ball on a string, and is a solid all around point guard. While his shooting will likely always be his "weakness", I do see some improvement which is encouraging. Remember, when at full strength we can always go with another option in the 4th when he has an off night. (Bonzi)
i really don't mind raefer taking those three's, its just the fact that hes not making layups and 2's that's rather disappointing. He should always have a better over all FG % than a 3%. without him shooting though, our offense outside of mcgrady and yao are very limited. sure battier had a perfect shooting night but thats not what he does best. novak needs to progress quicker with his defensive game. i think once him and bonzi are inserted into the rotation is when the rockets really show their true colors.
