eh, no they don't. aaron brooks and bobby jackson certainly weren't as good as rafer. steve francis and mike james weren't. we brought in 4 guys over the course of the season to try and beat rafer and they couldn't. so please show us this tree where Rafers fall from. thanks for the insight. im sure daryl morey had no idea this team would be better with a point guard who could do all the things rafer does, but shoot better while he does it. now that you've notified him and the rest of us, i'm sure we'll find our point guard solution in no time. i don't actually disagree with anything you're saying, its just that everything you say is so painfully obvious that it doesn't warrant complaining about constantly. will you soon be starting threads asking for a player like mcgrady who can also shoot free throws at an 80% clip, or a center like yao who plays more than half a season? i think those problems are just as significant as rafer's shooting woes, and probably need as much attention from your posts.
See this is what I am trying to get across, he IS bad...that is the point. The fact that the team is consistently running people at his job should be a clue to the rest of the people on here that Morey understands he needs to upgrade the position, but yet Rafer for some unknown reason gets a pass as someone that is not that bad. Or, people actually wanted him to win Most improved player, when in fact he didn't improve ONE bit from last year, same stats, same player. Rafer is bad, he is like the bad security blanket, sometimes you have to cut the chord and force someone else to step up for the team to get better. Two options. 1. Get a PG like Calderon or TJ Ford who can play the PG and make others better. 2. Get a PG who can shoot - and do what Rafer does...play solid D and bring the ball up and hand it to Tmac. - basically play without a PG...but with 2 SGs. As long as people are willing to settle for mediocrity, then Rafer is fine, but to win, you can NOT have Rafer and Tmac taking so many shots....it just doesn't work. Funny how some people are saying that the Yao and Tmac thing has not worked, when I see it completely as the Rafer and TMac thing hasn't worked. DD
It's not unknown. Adelman liked him more than any of our other PGs, and he's been pretty outspoken about that. If you have a problem with all the minutes Rafer is getting, you should point the finger towards the coach. In the meantime, I'm sure the Rockets will bring in another PG option during the offseason. If Rafer is still around, we'll see which one ends up starting.
Maybe you are right but everyone is saying we need an upgrade without saying who we should get. Really who is a realistic upgrade to Rafer that we can get? Hinrich , Terry and TJ Ford are the only realistic scenarios and even they are doubtful. You can say Steve Blake but I don't think he is an upgrade over Rafer , even if he is it's only by a slight slight margin. Does it really worth it to trade our best assets to get only a slight upgrade for Rafer? IMO it doesn't. Rafer is terrible if he has to be our 3rd leading scorer which he is right now. If we can get a Mike Miller type and Scola can yup his scoring , Rafer will be our 5th leading scorer and we won't depend on his shot so much. The bottom line is that getting a wing like Miller is a lot more realistic than getting an upgrade at pg.
Rafer really isn't that bad. He may not be the best of shooters, but, he does give the Rockets a guy that can hit it from behind the arc. Also, it's clear as day watching this team, that when Rafer doesn't play, it makes it tougher on the whole team. T-Mac is asked to be the primary ball handler, and gets doubled all the time. With Rafer playing, he sets up the offense, handles the ball, and this lets T-Mac come off screens. The problem isn't the PG position. It may be PG depth, as Bobby Jackson sucks at point and is better served at the two, and Brooks just isn't ready. What the Rockets need is some size in the front court, and a 2/3 that can create his own shot and is a scorer.
thank you, someone whose comments actually add value. everyone would prefer a PG who is better than rafer over rafer. its a truism. the problem is that the viable options aren't great. i'd argue steve blake is a better shooter but a poorer defender, so you gain some you lose some. i think hinrich is completely overrated and i wouldn't prefer him over rafer. jason terry is a deadly shooter but he's no point guard. he's a better version of bobby jackson, not the guy you want running the show. i love tj ford but who knows how he'd fit in given his lack of size and our team's current glut of undersized players. as Shay says, we can upgrade our point but it comes at a cost. we have a much better chance of upgrading elsewhere at a lower cost so that our net benefit to our roster is greater than if our sole goal is to replace rafer.
DaDakota, I've heard you mention before that Rafer is not a good passer. I think it is clear that you are the one who has his/her head buried in the sand. If we have 4 people who require coverage, and teams are leaving Rafer open, I'll take that. I think it's absolutely ludicrous thing to say we can't win it all with Rafer at the helm. Now if you had said we can't win it all with Rafer averaging 40 minutes per game, I'd agree with you. Rafer has shown what he can do, but he has also shown that he can't do it consistently. What we HAVE seen is that he's better when challenged for his spot. I absolutely think we can win a championship with Rafer at the point as long as we have someone else at PG who can handle 30 minutes per game without a problem. Someone like Bobby Jackson 5 or 6 years ago. On most nights, Rafer would get more minutes. But we have the opportunity to yank him without worrying about a total breakdown. Oh and there ARE total breakdowns when Rafer sits. His only problem is that he can't focus on all aspects of his game when he's playing 40 minutes. Rafer left open to shoot? I'll take it. I've rarely seen it happen, if ever, but I'll take it. At this point, you're offering the problem rather than the solution as well. Which is fine. But you're neglecting that we'd ALL like a better PG than Rafer, but we are also realistic and shifted our focus to "what else can we improve in the team?" or "how can we get a better backup?". That's the reality of it. Rafer is, currently, better than any PG we have a real shot at.
Man your argument about rafer being mediocre can be used for almost anybody on this team... Why single out rafer??? What about Battier??? He plays 40 min a game nearly but his offense is very mediocre..People can argue that hey if he's playing that many minutes we are always gonna be mediocre cuz he's taking a bulk of the minutes up and can't create off the dribble and provides us with no scoring punch unless it's a corner 3. Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses. Scola's not athletic enough and can't dunk around the rim. Don't single out rafer, the guy takes a lot of heat and it's kinda getting old. Talk about where we can improve in other areas too. Nobody in this league is flawless. Maybe rafer does need to hit his 3's at a better clip but then maybe battier should work on his offensive skills or atleast try and give us a good 10-15 a game consistently.
BTW rafer can shoot...He definitely has the capability to do so. When he played for the heat he was a deadly shooter off the bench if i remmeber correctly. That's how he got that contract he has.
I agree we could use a better starter at PG... but hell we could use a better starter at PF and SF too..While you're at it we could use a better starter at SG too..If you can shoot, you can shoot... It doesn't matter whether it's off the bench... If you're argument was about his abillity to run an offense as a bench player compared to a starter then that can be justified better but if you can shoot, i don't think it really matters if it's off the bench or as a starter. Shooters can shoot, period. With that being said, Rafer is not a shooter. All i'm sayin is that yes we could use an improvement at the starting PG but hell what position couldn't we use an improvement at. I know there are several SF's i'd rather have than battier and several PF's i'd rather have than scola. We all can't get what we want.
It's funny how Rafer shot 35.1% from 3 pt range this year and tmac shot 29.1% and it's rafer that gets the heat for not being able to knock down shots...
T-Mac doesn't get heat around here for not knocking down shots? That's a new one. T-Mac is a terrible, terrible three-point shooter... his three-point shooting down the stretch made Charles Barkley look like Jason Kapono. It was around 15-19% for 25+ games or so. He has no business sniffing a three at those percentages ... besides, most of his threes are pull-ups created by him -- not by someone else. Still though, the point is: Trading T-Mac or building around T-Mac is another topic altogether, but you are operating under the assumption that T-Mac and Yao are your core and you're not changing that -- that has been the case for 4 years now. One thing T-Mac does, clearly, is create open shots for teammates. Rafer's three-ball percentage is not hideous, but it's not great either. It's just under league average.
people tend to see the results only and forget asking why. let's look back at the series vs jazz. in two wins, we had better bench contributions. why? coz we have bobby and landry. when rafer was not in the game due to injury, our bench was terrible. so where was our bench? where was bobby? sorry he was in the starting lineup. we didn't have reliable veteran who knew how to be a good 6th man. that is what bobby should be, a great 6th man. he was forced to be in the starting lineup. rafer is what he is. his stats are not different from last year. he played the whole series vs jazz in the last playoff. however, we still lost. obviously, in the last playoff, not having a solid and good bench really impacted our chance. in this playoff, we had a good bench but not deep enough to overcome the starters' injuries. after first couple best benchers, we didn't have any one who can make some splashes. in conclusion, rafer is a solid pg w/o question but he is not one who can change the game directly. if our bench is not deep enough, rafer's absense will be felt. in the offseason, the main concern is not pg. not having big 2 or 3 backup is our major problem. of coz, if there is a chance to upgrade our pg, we should do but w/o limiting the flexibility to get big 2 or 3 backup.
I´ll try to look at bigger picture instead of singling someone out. The starting lineup of: Alston, McGrady, Battier, Scola and Yao is VERY GOOD. The problem is that after those 5 the only dependable benchplayers Rockets have are Landry(PF) and maybe Hayes(PF). They with Scola can also somewhat back Yao at C. Rockets have absolutely NO pg,sg or sf from the bench. The strain on the 3 starters is enormous. The biggest needs for this team are 3rd swingman to help McGrady and Battier AND PG that is able to play at least close to the level of Alston if not better.
To me, the irony of the situation is we lost the Utah series last year because Rafer played too much; this year, we lost the Utah series because Rafer didn't play enough. What the Rockets have lacked for a long, long time is a guard that can drive to the hole with efficiency and make a consistent outside shot. Rafer seemed to shoot better this year, but we've been missing an efficient PG since well before Matt Maloney. Until we get some efficiency at the point, we ain't going nowhere.
Rafer is 32 years old. He won't improve anymore. In fact, he is becoming to be injured easily. It is impossible for him to play 80 games with 40 minutes in each game anymore. If we didn't find a starting pg to replace his job, next season would be a big '?' .
