Last 3 games, Rafer is 19-44 from the field (43%), and 4-13 from three (30%). The TS% has bumped up to 50.2% (still not great, but far better than before). I'm not saying I'm happy with Rafer. He's been a huge disappointment this season. But I think Adelman was starting to question him as the starter, and these last few games might have bought Rafer some more time. Too bad we don't have a win to show for it. Maybe we would have been better off if he really stunk in these games as well.
You combined the last 4 games from the field, and the last 3 from three-point range ... but anyhow, with all due respect, Rafer has only had one good shooting game -- last night (7-13, 3-7 from long range). If you combine that with any two games, it will look better. Case in point -- the two games before last night he was 7-18 from the floor (38.9%) and 1-6 from long range (16.7%). I don't see that as improvement.
You're right. At any rate, I still think the Mavs game bought him some extra time. And I'm not too thrilled about it.
I could live with a Rafer/Steve point guard combination. I think Rafer would be a commodity if he played 15-20 minutes a game. Over 30 minutes a game, however, is unacceptable. And I cannot stand watching Head & James in the backcourt together. If RA keeps this up, the only option I see is Morey intervening by trading either Head and/or James. If a trade were to happen, I believe it would be Head/James over Alston. You still need Alston as a back-up point.
Van Gundy has said on a couple occasions that Rafer needs to play big minutes to maximize his efficiency. JVG, for all his faults, was pretty meticulous when it came to tracking stuff like that, so maybe it's true. And if Rafer can't play "effectively" (38% from the field, 35% from three) with getting 35+ minutes, is he even worth keeping in the rotation? I assumed that Rafer would start shooting better eventually. But if it requires him to get big minutes, I'm not sure if its worth it.
Zactly. It's one of Rafer's 5 good games a year. And we still lost because a good Rafer is still not half as effective as a good TMac or Yao. Teams have figured us out. We're still a 2-horse show and if they shut down 111, they will just take their chances with everybody else. Drape defenders on 111 and then force James to take bombs or drive to the hoop and contest him there. Rafer?? Let him fire away. Luther?? make him put the ball on the floor and then continue to cover up 111. Shane?? same as Luther. Bonzi?? Scola?? I have no idea why they didn't get major minutes last night. Sure Chuck was playing great. But he can't score. Rick was flipflopping him and Mike James last night at the end. What in the world did Scola do that warranted stapling him to the bench last night?
Problem is, if you take Rafer out of the rotation entirely, and use Francis as a full time starter, who is your back-up? Head or James? Neither is effective at running the point, even for a short amount of time. What if Francis were to get hurt? As bad as Rafer is, you cannot trade him unless you get another PG in return.
Chuck played great, and Scola didn't. I don't usually like to focus on +/- numbers for individuals in a single game, but this time it's telling. We were +18 with Chuck's 31 minutes on the floor. That means in the 17 minutes he wasn't on the court, we were outscored by 22. Watching the game, it's clear why. Chuck was a force on the boards, and he was excellent defensively. Against a team like the Mavs which likes to exploit perimeter defense by bigs, Chuck is invaluable because he can switch and play effectively against almost anyone. Given all that, I don't see any reason to question Chuck's minutes, or Scola's lack thereof. I remember very distinctly that Scola's miscues on the defensive end cost us big time down the stretch earlier this season in Dallas.
I'm just hoping Rafer can shoot better playing 20-25 minutes a game. And I think Francis/James should split backup PG duties. That would be ideal. And if Rafer continues to suck, I'd favor removing from the rotation entirely, using Steve as the starter, and having James/Brooks split backup PG duties.
At some point. . . Game Performance has to trump Practice Performance Rafer and MJ maybe tearing it up in practice well . . it ain't happening in games We need to check and see if 'the guy' that ain't tearing it up in practice can do something in GAMES I'm just saying. . . Give Steve a Chance Rocket River
Adjusted +/- minutes which takes into account all those variances Durvasa spoke about. Ranking our players Yao 4.25 T-Mac 3.45 Alston 2.09 Battier 1.38 Hayes 1.36 Francis 1.09 Head -.44 Wells -1.95 James -3.15 Snyder -3.53 Brooks, Landry, Scola, Mutumbo not enough data Novak off the roster Alston/Francis should be our backcourt according to this metric.
I am not sold on MJ even as a backup point. He is not a distributer by any means. Brooks, maybe, but judging by the preseason, the kid cannot play any D, possibly worse than Rafer on D. Even with Rafer's shooting woes, as a backup, he would be better than any of the other options we have. I think a good combination in the second unit would be to play rafer at the 1 and MJ at the 2
That's for the last couple seasons, I believe, and those are fairly noisy stats as well. So, I wouldn't say it's really reliable or anything. Still, those rankings do make some intuitive sense, and it's interesting that it can be derived purely from point differentials and not using box score stats.
We don't need James to be John Stockton coming off the bench. I'd settle for a poor man's version of Gilbert Arenas. We need players who can do something with the ball in their hands. Adelman decided to put James off the ball, and Head with the ball the last handful of games, and to me that's just ass backwards.
Chuck was effective, no doubt about it. But you have to keep in perspective when he was out there who else was around him? Most of those minutes were when 111 was on the floor. By the way, there is no bigger Lil Chuckie fan than me. I love the guy. And Scola has had problems, no doubt about it, defensively. But are you going to claim that we were that negative when he was on the floor? 2 things stick out about last night's game. 1. Brandon Bass tore Yao up. Dallas isolated Bass 15 feet out on Yao and he took him, just like Boozer does. No Scola and No Hayes. I think after I'd seen that two times it would have been time to make a change to get them out of that. Everybody knew they were going to milk that. Scola played 9 minutes and who was he on the court with? He couldn't possibly have been worse against Bass in that stretch than Yao was. 2. In the 2nd half when we went to the Head/James lineup with Head running the point, we immediately gave up the big lead with our poor offensive execution and Luther's turnovers and poor decision making. We shoulda at least had Bonzi out there defending Stackhouse and creating some mismatches offensively. And we should have had Francis out there to clothesline Devin Harris after that second flagrant against Yao. Nobody stepped up. Harris got off cheap shots against both McGrady and Yao. Francis wouldn't put up with that crap. Harris would have had to take a lick. And that alone would have changed the complexion of this game down the stretch. The refs were letting them roughhouse all night long. We shoulda been in there banging with SF3, Bonzi, and Scola, not James and Luther throwing the ball away.
As I have said before, I'm not much of a stat fan. However, if one looks at them, perhaps one should have a category for opponent won-lost record. You might find that players' +/- stats get absurdly padded with floor time against pathetic teams or getting yanked when playing good ones.
I agree with you to some extent. I am ok with James off the ball, but not with Head on the ball. See my earlier post. Why not try James off the ball and Alston on the ball. Of course, Steve would be the full-time starting point. That is a pretty big shake-up. Keep in mind this is the 2nd unit with TMAC and Yao possibly both out. You need someone who at least has some PG skills on the floor at such a time. Head would be the odd man out of the rotation which I am fine with.
I am fine with James off the bench at the point shooting it up with the 2nd unit while McGrady and Yao are out. Let him fire it up and fight with Bonzi over shots. Put Scola out there with them for some more offense. But I don't want him running the point when 111 is out there. He does not get the ball to them effectively, he's a horrible post passer, and he's horrible distributing in traffic. Dude can shoot the dickens out of it when he gets hot though, just like ole Vinnie Johnson.
All James brings to the table is being a streaky shooting guard. When he's on, he's on. When he's not he plain sucks. He's the epitomizes mediocrity.
