The one guy the Rockets CANNOT afford to lose to injury is

While we ARE pretty weak at the point, no. Rafer is NOT more important than Yao or McGrady.

 

francis can stand out if rafer is down,but no one can take yao's slake if yao was down again.it's true that we have adequet forwards but those guys are all below 6'11 which is though to be the min height for a center.rocekts have no other guy higher than 6'11 besides yao and deke,it's unthinkable to put two undersized guys in the paint,i mean we should at least leave a tall guy there.however,we have no other tall guy besides tthe easily injuried yao and the eldly deke.then the shortage(pointing to our lack of rosters and the rosters' sizes) of our centers is the bigest crisis in our team right now.

 

i don't believe this as much this year. Way too many offensive options, plus brooks can bring the rock up and get it into the offense. Also, AB's 15 footer is way better than Rafer's. Plus if AB stinks up the joint, we can go with Barry or Tmac in the 4th Qtr.

Artest and Barry limit the impact of a missing Skip

 

Actually this team as constructed can survive any injury as long as it isn't multiple. Artest can pick up tracy's slack and vice versa. The team played pretty good without rafer at the end and the rox play .700 ball with yao. As long as they don't lose 2 guys at the same time, they're cool. Rafer isn't the guy that hold the keys. I actually like the prospects of brooks starting playing a lot anyway.

 

I love Rafer, dude has heart and skill to feed YAO.

 

Don't you remember that the absolute low point of last season were the two games that Rafer missed and Steve started in his place -- against Toronto and Philadelphia. *shudder*

 

As durvasa said, those games vs toronto and Philly were AWFUL with Francis starting. And you saw how well we played in the playoffs with Rafer.

 

Agreed. The team was terrible without Rafer. Francis as the starting point got the Rockets blown out. As crazy as it sounds, this team needs Rafer at the point. They don't need him volume shooting, but they need him setting up the offense and his hard nosed D, that's for sure. Perhaps with Ron and Tmac, two 'point forwards,' they could mask the abscense of Rafer but he has got to be there for this team to do well. We need another veteran point guard.

 

Easy, Tracy McGrady, Steve Francis, then Yao. With such a fast set of feet between Steve, T and Ron-Ron, even without Yao we look like a beefed up pre-Shaq Phoenix Suns team. Mix in Carl, Brooks, Scola and Rafer and you've got yourself a set of contenders. I'm not dogging Yao, but even without him we can win. I don't think the same can be said of Tmac.

 

again, weren't those the games right after he injured his back from the GSW games? and also he had his ligament torned up pretty bad if i remember correctly.

 

At this stage in his career, Francis is extremely injury prone. That has to enter into the equation. If the only players backing up Rafer are guys who are completely unproven (Brooks) or easily injured (Francis) then that makes Alston that much more valuable.

 

This team would be fine without Rafer, they would find someone else to fill his role.....the problem is it would take some time to find the right mix, but I believe that once they have been weened off the Rafer Teet, they would be better off overall.

They are probably good enough now with him, but if they had someone that could shoot a good percentage and handle the ball, Rafer would be buried on the bench.

DD

 

Rafer is not THAT important. It really depends on the timing actually.

I have full confidence in Morey to find a suitable replacement if Rafer gets injured before the trade deadline. Obviously, if he get injured right before the playoffs, we are indeed screwed unless Brooks has made ridiculous progress over the course of the season.

 

just wondering could Artest play PG?

sorta like how Ginobli did for the spurs when parker went down..?

 

Nope.

 

Dude, Francis? What are you smoking, the 2002 dreampipe?

 

You could get by without Rafer. Sure, he embodies your ideal workhorse type of player since he can effectively play defense, protect the ball and provide some offense all in one package. And at 40 MPG if need be, on top of that. That type of play cannot be ignored but at the same time his role, in itself, is entirely replaceable.

Whether you platoon Barry, Brooks, Francis or whoever getting minutes he can be replaced. That's the beauty of running the weakest position out of your starting five.

 

history has proven we can win without Yao more than we can win without T-Mac, but i agree with the thread. Rafer isn't as important as T-Mac, but he's a little more important to winning than Yao is.

 

How can Rafer Alston be more important than Yao and T-Mac? Tell me, which one is easier?

1. Get a player to replace Yao.
2. Get a player to replace T-Mac.
3. Get a player to replace Rafer.

If you asked Morey, he would tell you #3 would be by far the easiest.