I DON'T REALLY CARE HOW MUCH RAFER CAN HANDLE! I WANT HIM TO ACT LIKE HE DID WHEN HE CAME IN AND DEMANDED THAT THEY TRADE HIM (A TRUE CRY BABY). LET HIM CRY OR WHATEVER HE WANTS ON THE END OF THE BENCH...I WANT HIM OFF THIS TEAM...PERIOD! (nothing against him personnally or as a human being, just as a basketball player) When we are 6-6, maybe you will think a drastic change is good for this team! We have NO team chemistry right now! Again...he is our championship starting lineup...please pass it along to Rick Adelman: Steve Francis Bonzi Wells Tracy McGrady Luis Scola Yao Ming
We all know what Rafer can do over 2 years of watching him. This is his third year as a Rocket and I guess Adleman just needs to see proof with his own eyes in actual games to see what we see. Morey said we were totally exposed at the pt guard position after the playoffs. Rafer Alston 2007-2008 Season is currently giving us these statistics 28.5 MPG FG% .330 3PT .220 FT .615 APG 4.7 SPG 1.1 BPG 0.0 TO 1.55 PF 1.50 PPG 7.0 That's ridiculous. less than 1/3 of his shots falling inside the 3 point line and less than 1/4 shots from 3 point range. His free throw percentage is atrocious for a point guard. While his assists/TO ratio "3.03" are decent, the other parts of his game really leave much to be desired.
I'd actually prefer Bonzi to come in with the second unit. Shane is a good defender who makes up for any offensive shortcomings he has and takes a little pressure off of TMac. Bonzi could be our Ginobili. Bonzi and James would be a great 1-2 punch off the bench and should give other teams' second units fits.
It may be a slump, but Wafer's overall FG stats have gone DOWN four years in a row! So they won't come up a lot this year from 30%. GLAD YOU SEE THE LIGHT! NOW LETS PRAY THAT RICK ADELMAN DOES!
Francis also takes to the rim and gets fouled a lot. Over their career, rafer only shot about 1/4th of the freethrows francis did. So Francis not only shoots better also even when he misses he draws fouls, and we have better chance take out other big mans like maybe duncan? I mean people can make 1000 cases why Steve is a better basketball player than Rafer, the only shocking part is people still keep saying rafer is a better pg.
I understand your analogy and it has some validaty in my opinion. But I just think it is better for us to get 5 starters that are ALL offensive threats on the floor at once to really make it as hard as possible for the other defenses. I would rather see Bonzi playing 33 minutes at Small forward and Shane playing the other 15 minutes. If we have the lead in the final 3 minutes of the game, Im all for Shane finishing the game as a defensive stopper. If we need the offense, then I prefer Bonzi to be in to attack the boards because if the other team has their best defender on Tmac, Bonzi is free to kill whoever is defending him on the offensive boards. And as I mentioned before, Shane and Chuck can shut down the other teams best bench players making their bench ineffective...while we will have the best starting five.
I think your idea would work really well against Phoenix. Let's hope Adelman loses his obsessive compulsive tendency to stick with the exact same rotation if we ever have to face them in the playoffs!
Thanks. I also think this lineup would be good against all teams, to help us blow out some teams and rest our starters in the last half of the fourth quarter. Also, I think it would allow Mike James to be free to be the scorer he can really be for us off the bench because he would have the green light to shot first as long as he is taking good shots! With our current starting lineup, all teams know that we want either Tmac or Yao to take the shoot...that's much easier to defend. I think a penetrating/shooting first Mike James would also play better with a 3 point shooting Shane and Luther head on the wings, depending on who else is in at that time.
do you have the stats for practice? I have it : 105 MPD FG% .730 3PT .720 FT .815 APG 24.7 PPD 70.0 Practice > real game. pure > combo one > two.
I am already starting to not like Adelman as the Rocket's coach. He seems very rigid and stubborn, the very qualities I didn't like about JVG. So far, I can't really tell any difference in the games. Same starting lineup, pretty much the same results. Even the TMac/Yao cycle of injuries has already started. And the team still can't shoot straight, something that has plagued this team for years. I really expected to see a whole new look. The team appears to still have missing parts, or it is a case of not properly using the parts that we have. They got out of the gate fast, but starting stumbling against the weaker teams, something they have always done.
.. seriously if Francis has his shots back and not gasping for air at times as seen last night, I would agree that Rafer go for vacation.
Ditto I agree completely, and ultimately what will help Steve is his schemistry with Yao which is as good as TMAC's at least if not better. Yao got most of his easy shots from Steve, that is good no matter what offensive system you run and I think this offense can use a scorer more than a shooter. I am tired of seeing floaters from 16 feet away from the basket we need people who will finish aggressively. I would not be opposed to starting James and putting in Steve to let TMAC get more rest toward end of first quarter either while going small that said Francis should finish games.
I think it is a horrible thing to leave Hayes and Alston in the court at the same time. However, if we put Battier, who is a career 39.1% 3 pointer shooter, and Hayes with T-Mac, Yao & Steve, we should be fine. We have to tell James not to be a ballhoger even with our bench players. I believe with Scola, Bonzi and sometimes Yao or T-Mac, James will have a lot good chances to shoot wide-open 3s.
If shooting 38 percent from the field and 35 percent from 3 point line is all is needed to be a starting point guard in this league, then why do why are we paying almost 15 million dollars a year on our point guards? Talk about low expectations. We could just get some guys from the D-league that can put up those type of numbers.
