There you go again comparing Rafer and Tmac. Both have different roles. Tmac is supposed to be shooting the rock, therefore most of the time he's gonna shoot below .500. Most of his shots will be contested too... Rafer, on the other hand, should be shooting about 7 to 8 shots a game (all wide open)...intead he's in the 13-16 range and missing a lot of the wide open shots he takes. he shoots about 6-9 threes a game. Yeah sometimes he does go 5-9 from behind the arc which is great...but the fact that a PG is shooting 9 threes in the first place blows my mind....he does know he can get closer to the basket right???......but would he want to get closer the the basket? His shooting pct. is worse when he does...
You have no concept of team offense if you want him to pass up wide open shots...please read a book and get back to me. If you've ever played organized ball at any level above junior high you would most likely realize this. There is a reason the coaches urge him to continue to shoot, because its whats best for the team, they aren't doing it for his mental health. And once again, the comparison to TMac is not as a player what so ever, its in the fans perception of the two. I love TMac and think he deserves all the leeway in the world but Rafer deserves some too. You guys want to hang him after a bad shooting night, he can obviously shoot the rock somewhat or he wouldn't be put in the situation to do it.
i dont want him to pass up wide open shots, but when your shot isn't falling, you take it to the basket.
and i dont expect him to make every wide open shot he gets. he's not gonna do that. nobody does that, but i also dont expect 1-10 (against boston) and other nights when he's 4-14. cmon man. he's an NBA player. If you've played any basketball at any level, when you're 1-10, you start taking it the basket. It doesnt matter who you are, unless you're steve kerr or reggie miller. He did that one time in that boston game, and guess what? he got fouled! you would think he'd try that again....i'm beginning to think he's afraid of contact too. THATS WHY HE SHOOTS THE FLOATER! After how many shots do you hold him accountable? When he's 1 for 11 or 1 for 12 FROM BEHIND THE ARC! Yeah, Battier had a bad game too, but at least he tried to take it to the basket. Even last night against Toronto. Battier took it hard to the basket a couple times and once he got fouled....Meanwhile Rafer is shooting off-balanced threes that hit nothing but backboard. I dont care if Rafer takes it to the hole and gets blocked, instead of jacking up wild shots and not hitting the rim. When do you hold him accountable, if you didnt when he's 2-7 last night behind the 3point line and 1-10 the night before that?? .........Then he'll be a solid 4-9 and we'll win and the Rafer lovers will start a thread asking us to give him his props.....but then he's back to 2-7 and 2-8 and those same people disappear... ..and I know he's open but why is he shooting so many threes? "He can shoot the rock somewhat" is not good enough when you're shooting that many threes. Against Boston, w/o Tmac (when we need him to create the most), he shot 11 shots. TEN OF THE SHOTS WERE THREE POINT FIELD GOALS! Are you kidding me? He has to be a lot more consistent if he's gonna shoot. Now im not saying we lose cuz of Alston. We lose cuz of a lot of things. Luther Head's stupid passing, Poor team D, etc. But Rafer is playing a good 38+ mins every night and getting so many good looks and we need him to come through more often than you think. On top of that he's our only PG and playing that many minutes is not gonna help his performance. At the trade deadline: The stupid people who were saying "oh you cant have an all star at every postion"... Asking for a better PG is not asking for an All Star...Y'all act like a step up from Rafer is Arenas, Kidd, Davis, Williams or Billups....guess what? it's not.
luther head is playing like trash too. he throws these no look cross court passes that end up in the stands, if not to the other team. where is kirk snyder??? people are starting to get on luther now too. it's not only Alston. If luther head keeps it up, you'll start seeing threads about him. He's the exact opposite of Alston right now. So if you open your eyes, you'll see more threads on Alston cuz of what he did last year and what he's doing this year....but like i said if Lu keeps it up, just replace Alston's name with Lu's name and list all the opposites....
I am not a supporter nor a hater of Rafer. I am just telling a fact. For people who doesn't know Rafer and Nash and I tell them these data Turnover/steal per 48 minutes: Nash : 5.1/1.02 Rafer : 2.9/2.13 I am sending a message that Rafer>Nash while Nash is TO prone and doesn't play defence.
Exactly. Too many people think Luther is so great just because he can make wide-open 3's sometimes, but his passing is worse than my grandmothers. he is a turnover machine and every time he throws is to the other team it seems like it turns into a fast break for them. His decision making is atrocious. Why does he so often jack up shots off the dribble or when he is covered, always resulting in a brick and turning into an oponents fast break? Does JVG tell him to do it? He actually does some things well, but he plays well outside of his limitations.
If luther had any pg skill whatsoever, he should and would be the starter on this team at full strength. Alas he doesn't. I also commented the game before the break vs dallas that luther wouldn't pass the ball and was taking ill advised shots. He needs to be a spot up 3 pt shooter who can drive when a defender crashes on him on the perimeter. That's it. Not iso luther head.
You know the thing is as bad as Rafer has been lately he's been far better than Luther Head. I personally find the way these two manned the point in this recent slump to be vomit inducing. Just HORRIBLE The NBDL Iverson (Lucas) looks better Meanwhile Spanoulis still doesn't play. So I also find fans refusing to see JVG is the real problem to be much more nauseating than anything Alston is doing. If the fans want to be fair here, the whole criticism on the PG atrocity needs to be treated fairly. 1. JVG a coach who simply refuses to use any common sense at all on the PG spot. 2. Alston, our starter who has recently been nothing short of awful 3. Our backup, Luther Head who now officially is the worst PG in the NBA that JVG plays him there. Why is there not a thread for Luther since he is making Alston look like all-star material? 4. Lucas - well not his fault again see above as per JVG Guy just isn't good enough to be the backup PG on a team that wants to win a playoff series in the west perhaps down the road not now, he's a 3rd string NBA PG and not even one of the better ones Spanoulis does not apply here because it's only JVG-Lovers and JVG himself that are too damn stubborn to see the truth. The CLEAR-CUT starter should be Spanoulis and he just rots on the pine. Everybody chiming away that "isn't ready" "can't play" is just "a turnover" just "no shooting" etc is totally brainwashed by the JVG kool aid. The thing I think positive though is I don't think Dawson or Lindsey agree with JVG or the fans at all on Spanoulis. The bad thing is that Geek boy Morey seems to think evrything JVG does is great. The only guys involved here that have any ability at all to scout talent are Lindsey and Dawson and they can't stop saying how great Spanoulis is. Remember what JVG said in preseason about Spanoulis? "Everyone needs to remember he is a 50th draft pick, a second rounder. Hecan't shoot, he's a turnover machine, he can't guard anyone. I really don't think he's very good. Oh but I've never actually seen ever seen him play." This is what so many fans call "good coaching" amazing largely these SAME fans wonder why the PG spot is so bad......... do they place the blame on the REAL culprit (JVG)? NO! They find their punching bag therapist in Alston. And funny how everything people rag on Spanoulis for is nothing more than the catch phrases JVG repeated over and over until his flock memorized them. ANY coach can make ANY player look bad if he chooses to do so on purpose, then when that player complains he goes on an ego trip. Sad that fans can't even see something that is beyond painfully obvious. If the fans want to solve this problem they really need to get a damn clue the REAL problem is JVG.
I'm just saying, Rafer is not the only problem right now. So Rafer Lovers, dont get it twisted. Most of the time we don't lose just because of him... but he's definitely part of the problem more than Luther Head or anyone else is, because he's getting 38+ mins a night
First of all, people who dont know steve nash obviously dont watch the nba and wouldnt know what a Turnover/Steal ratio really means. You can tell that same person that same person that Ben Wallace averaged more blocks than Michael Jordan and tell them Ben>Mike while you're at it....Second of all a person who does watch the NBA knows that stat means nothing when comparing players......if you wanna try to convince an idiot that Rafer is better than Nash, show the video of both players, and they'll see that the opposite of what you're saying is true.
you must believe that $100>$1000000000000 or carbon dioxide > oxygen or chicken sashimi > fried chicken
I think you guys are getting over sensitive. I am not saying Rafer>Nash nor I am trying to support Rafer. I am just trying to say when selected data is presentated, the author is presenting a particular message. btw, there are people who play baskerball but don't watch NBA. I am 45 years old Chinese living in Hong Kong and I watched a lot of NBA during Bird and Magic time when I was going to college in San Marcos and when I was working in L.A. but I stopped watching NBA for over 10 years while I know exactlfy what turnover is but cannot name any active NBA player till 2002 when yao was draft. And stat DOES mean something but not everything when comparing players.
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First off, yes - terrible choice of words. Even switching to "negative bias" is desperate. Do you even know what bias means? How can we discuss a fact, perceived as negative, about Rafer's shooting without being accused of being biased? Rafer's field goal percentage is the lowest in Rocket history at this many shots or higher. Whatever "negative bias" you pull out of that is beyond me, but I have no idea how we're even going to discuss the elephant in the room without clowns pouncing on the messenger. As for T-Mac, he didn't take a historic low 3pt % for the number he took last year, as you stated he did. I don't recall praising T-Mac's play last year. T-Mac had a back injury much of last season. T-Mac doesn't have a history of cranking out seasons with last year's percentages. That is a hilarious comparison. "Turnovers/steals per 48 minutes" ... you sure you don't want to divide by the square root of their fouls too? All your stat is saying is that Rafer gets more steals than Nash. If anyone was trying to send a message that "Rafer>Nash", they'd be destroyed. Nash averages nearly 7 assists a game more than Rafer. Mind you, Rafer is not even close to averaging that number by himself. Nash shoots 18 percentage points higher from the field than Rafer. E-i-g-h-t-e-e-n. He shoots 11-12 percentage points higher from three-point range. He shoots 18 percentage points higher from the free throw line. All I said was exactly what is up there -- whatever message you got that is equivalent to "Rafer>Nash" is something you pulled out of your ass. Equating what I posted to your example was absurd. Exactly what message did you get from my "selected data"? And if presenting data is now opinion, what is ignoring data? I merely posted the information: No player has ever shot this many shots or more in one season and shot this poorly in Rocket franchise history. Whatever opinion you get from that is up to you... the statement I made, however, is a fact. It's been been fun watching some, who can't deal with the information, focus on me.
