I remember I read somewhere that JVG encouraged Alston to shoot those floaters because even if he missed, Mutombo would be there to pick up the offensive rebound. That sounds like a good theory because when you go inside the paint, you usually draw the defensive big man off from boxing out your own big man. I wonder if someone have done some stats as of how many of Rafer's missed floaters were rebounded by our own guys.
I'll rather have Rafer do layups than shotting threes all night...He seriously needs to improve his stamina, it would help him offensively and defensively, but at his age it might be already late
Excuse me...his record low for number of attempts was the previous year when he was entirely healthy. The sad thing is I know you knew this and failed to say it in your previous post. That is what bias is...you simply reporting the facts that support your way of thinking. I have a feeling that you also knew Rafer was approaching the record for 3 ptrs made in a season by a Rocket, yet that is not the FACT that you reported, you chose a negative fact in an attempt to validate your negative opinion of Skip. Comparing TMac and Rafer is not at all the point of my argument just as comparing Nash and Rafer isn't the principle of ccjj's argument. It is simply to point out the bias that exists here. Knowledgable posters like yourself pull facts out that support your negative opinion while IGNORING ones that do not. This irks me even more than the guys that come on here and have no basketball knowledge saying oh, rafer shoots too much, he sucks, blah blah blah...they don't know any better...you know there is information out there that casts Rafer in a negative light as well as the info that casts him in a negative one and simply choose to post only the negatives. That sir is negative bias. I'm not one to say Rafer is all we could want in an ideal point, not at all. His shooting has improved from last year, we can all agree on this I hope, so I see him making progress. As much as everyone seems to ignore it I really feel he is/was a key factor in Yao exploding. Just b'c there isn't a stat supporting his outstanding ball handling/passing ability doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Sure you can point to low assist totals like you have in your signature but we all know assists aren't the end all be all of passing. Rafer threads the needle game after game and gets the ball where it needs to go. Contrary to everyone's mistaken belief he doesn't look for his own shot, he gets the ball where it needs to go in the offense. I estimate he takes 90% of his shots within the context of the offense and that is why you never see a teammate or coach get on him for his shooting. As much as we want our team to be stacked at every position its not a real life possibility. Did you see who was running point for the Heat last year? Did they happen to have a dominant big man and superior wing player? 5 stars aren't required to win a 'ship. The majority of rings are won by stars with parts filled in around them to win. If the Lakers could pull one off with Samaki Walker and Derek Fisher in the starting lineup I will always believe the Rox have a chance.
I settle for Rafer from 15 to 17 feet or drive to the bucket. The only 3 he hits consistently are from the top of the key.
haha all this negativity is gettin to me...i believe most can interpert the true meaning of that. this is our team, just baffles me to see everyone dogging one player constantly. i don't like skip any more than any other player on the team, i just feel like somebody has to defend the man when he's gettin blamed for everything but injuring yao around here.
Yes, it's very interesting to see the polarizing effect of this bbs on fans (and the polarizing effect of the internet on people in general). It seems that often it comes down to who has the more polished talking points, and which idea has the most vocal supporters. I tend to think that the internet in general is a bad place to form opinions, since there's already enough pre-existing material to support almost any preconceived notion.
If thats all you could pick out of my post to argue with I feel I did a good job haha. Not necessarily a positive light but he was a 41% shooter that year....limited passing skills. I would rather have Fish running the Rockets now probably but not in a landslide. The combination on Rafer and Juwon or Hayes is about equal to Fish/Samaki...disagree?
And in the playoffs that year he shot 35.7 from the field and 35.8 from deep while playing 35 minutes...sound familiar?
What on earth does Walker have to do with anything? Would I rather have Fish running the Rockets offense? Absolutely. Fisher's last 3 games... 18 of 36 FG% 8 of 12 from Downtown 14 assists, 5 steals, 7 TOs 17 ppg That's the last 3 games. Sure, I'd rather have him over Alston. That isn't an option.
Funny deckard, what would you have said after Rafer's 3-game streak coming out of the all-star break? I suspect you would have been singing a much different tune. 21.0 ppg, 20 assists, 6 turnovers, 22/44 shooting (50%)
You do not play three games in NBA, also the samples collected from three game can not be good because the p value could be >0.1. I am not talking Rafer, but for any NBA players.
Just pointing out the Rockets two weak spots in the lineup compared to the players who played those positions on a very similarly built team who happened to win 3 straight 'ships. Thats it. Nothing relevant or anything.
I quoted his last 3 games, using the stats NBA.com has on it's site for Fisher. If you'd asked me about Alston after the games you mentioned, I would have replied that Alston would make a great backup for Fisher on the Rockets. In my opinion, that's what Rafer is... an excellent backup point.
I'm sure if Rafer was approaching the franchise record for freethows or assists, it would be in a thread. What other postivies do you think about? He runs the offense the best on the team. we know that. whats that saying about our other PGs? He handles the ball well and he doesn't turn the ball over (part of that is b/c all he does is bring up the ball and give it to tmac at the three point line). He's not that great of a post passer. Battier and Tmac are better than him....There are a lot of PG's that can do that....sorry...asking for chucky atkins is not asking for our starting 5 to be stacked. starting threads about Jose Calderon is not asking for Chris Paul. you know that......and derek fisher was better than rafer alston back then. he shot lights out when his team needed it the most
Not that great of a post passer huh?...that says enough. There is no sense in continuing this conversation. If you fail to recognize that Rafer is the only one who consistently gets the ball to Yao early in the shot clock down low where he can catch it at chest height and turn around and shoot the jumper or drop step I'm not positive how closely you watch the game. Its ok if you're watching the game just to watch it, I do it myself sometime but please dont enter into a conversation regarding intricacies of the offense in which you have no idea about. Jose Calderon would be a nice player to have as would Chucky Atkins, but to have them clearly start over Rafer would be a joke, you saw what Atkins did when given extended playing time in LA...Calderon could be a good spark off the bench but his outside shooting would not survive when put to the test of consistently taking 3 pt shots.
My way of looking at this: Right now, Rafer is the best PG available to us. Nobody in the D-league or on the free-agent market could do better, especially this late in the season. And certainly Lucas and V-Span are not ready to step up, regardless of whether that's due to lack of ability or lack of playing time. Maybe it's JVG's fault for not playing them, but if the playoffs started tomorrow, the last people I want to see running the team are Lucas and V-Span. Granted, Rafer's a mediocre NBA-level point guard. There are many better and many worse in the league right now. But that's not an issue we can address until the off-season. For now, he's our guy. So it's very simple: For THIS year and for THESE playoffs, Rafer is our only option. I wish JVG would rein him in a little bit and tell him to look to pass more and shoot less. Hopefully with Yao back, that'll happen. But guys, it's time to face it -- this is the hand we're playing with for the rest of the year. Complain all you want, but it's time to face reality.
I disagree with the statement about assists. Assists are the primary and best indicator of a good pointguard. Nash won MVPs primarily because of his assists and his team just isn't the same without him because the assists numbers aren't there.
