Missed shots on the season: Rafer - 22 misses (35% shooting) Mike - 34 misses (38% shooting) Assists on the season: Rafer - 23 (3 shot attempts for every 2 assists given out) Mike - 11 (5 shot attempts for each assist given out) Just saying. That and, we REALLY don't need a new thread on this following each and every ****ing game.
Yes! If posts around here were more intellectual and provided more suggestions to solutions such as what you posted it will not be as much of a headace to read as the constant "Rafer sucks, start Francis" bullcrap that makes Houston fans look simple-minded. As for the actual trade suggestion, it is exellent but I don't think Sac Town will buy it, but hey we do have a GM in Morey Any thing may be possible _ Blues
I don't think I've seen enough of Ford play to make an non-biased account, but I'll take your word he is definately a possible upgrade over Rafer on offense, but I believe on defense he will be even more of a victim from stronger PGs posting him up. In the end I don't think it will be that significant of an upgrade but it would definately be a direction Morey could look at. _ Blues
Rafer Alston has to have nudie pics of Les Alexander. It's obvious. Now going on 3 straight years of the suckiest suckage ever and STILL he just keeps getting rolled out there to play. 2 different GM's, 2 different coaches and STILL they just roll their eyes and act like what is happening on the court is not actually happening. It must be one of the biggest jokes around the NBA. Yes he can dribble up court and get the ball into Yao better than the other players on the team but that is the ONLY thing he can do. He can do one NBA quality thing and that is it. Right now him and Scola are the weakest links by far. But at least Scola has been for 5 games, Alston is going on 3 years now.
So, Sam Cassell and Kenny Smith were not better than Rafer? Kenny was a 48% 3pt shooter for his career, and Sam was nails and a future all star. Not to be confused with never will be an all star Rafer. The bulls had Ron Harper, and he was a very solid defender. He also averaged near 20pts/game his first 8 years before joining the bulls. Scoring averages went down as Jordan and Pimple were the primary scorers. Again, way > rafer. Fixed it for you.
Most of the guards you listed are volume shooters that will not work with Mcgrady and Yao taking most of the touches. But yes I did miss a few names such as Billups. Most of the PG you mentioned has scoring roles for their teams which we DO NOT Need. A better shooter is what we need while retaining Rafer's strengths in other areas. The PGs i originally mentioned and Billups would be MY clear-cut upgrade over Rafer. Miller would be great but he has no 3-Pt Shot. and No way is Delonte West or Nelson or J.Jack better then Rafer, I'm assuming Blake to be pretty much the same kind of player as Rafer based on his role in Denver last year. When I'm talking about upgrade I'm talking about a solid pure PG with a much more steadier shot then Rafer and can defend better then Rafer. Clearly I wasn't talking about bringing in another superstar scorer like Iverson or Marbury because we already have a scorer in our PG position, his name is Mike James, he works like JT works for the Mavs. Btw please do not "FIX" my quotes in that kind of manner, it will cause confusion. Let's just agree to disagree. I believe that even scruby ROLE playing PGs can win championships, you don't. That's fine. I believe Rafer can run the PG job for the Rockets better then MOST PGs in this league and although is a weakness compared to contender team, can be compensated by the good things he brings and our star power in our other position, you clearly think he is garbage and Adelman is a dumbass, that's fine too. Now instead of argueing with me, go figure out a way to get a better PG. I'm assuming your not gonna answer me with Steve Francis, right? I've got a psychology exam tomorrow I can't believe I'm here posting =_=. _ Blues
is mike james that much better than alston on defense? i think big, physical guards can hurt them both (deron williams), but other than those select few i think skip can hold his own.
Skip is the better team defender because he was been with the defensive unit for the past 2 years. I'm not too sure about 1-on-1 defense. Big physical guards like D.Will hurt every PG and every team in this league. It's an advantage to them that we must find a way to compensate just like how our own Bonzi can post up perimeter players. _ Blues
Don't agree with you about Rafer being a championship point guard or even part of one. If his strengths as a PG are ball handling and distributing, then that's just not enough to throw them over the top. Outside of those two things what kind of edge over the opponent does Rafer bring to the table. Which player do you think Greg Popavich, Avery Johnson, Mark DiAntoni and Jerry Sloan will pick in the playoffs to force the rockets into beating them. During a 7 game series in the playoffs last season he did not have one descent (not asking for good) shooting game. You can win all the regular season games you want with Rafer, but he will not take this team to a championship. No Way.
I actually never stated what I believe in terms of a role playing point guard being able to win a championship. I don't dislike Rafer, but I do think he is such an offensive liability that in essence a team can play 5 on 4 in our offencive set, since they do not really have to guard him. I think that is his downside. Sure he dribbles fine, and he passes well, but I believe his negatives far outweight his positives. I think most GMs on the league would agree, especially since none of them would take him in trade during the off season. I guess as you can tell from my comments above, I do think we need a better shooter, at least more so than Rafer. I don't believe we need a 30 a night player, but a 12-15 per night who shoots better than 38% for his career from 2pt land. I believe that Francis is a better player than Rafer, but he in not really a great floor general, and has a game similar to James. SF does excel over Rafer in nearly every statistical category, except TOs and 3pt%. I would like to see SF play, but since we are 4-1 with the current line up, I see no reason to rock the boat, Yet. I could propose a number of trades to fix the PG spot, but since I am not a GM I could not make the happen, so I will not. BTW, I do not think Rafer is very good (notice I did not say trash), and I don't think RA is dumb. I think RA is merely playing the cards he has been dealt. Better you than me on the study front! I have been out for a number of years. Good luck on your exam!
I'm pretty sure our starting 5 has the ability to outplay the contender team's starting 5. Which means despite Rafer's poor showings against other team's PGs, he compensates for the teams strenghs (Yao and Mcgrady) being able to get them the ball with pretty much no hassle. Hence, Rafer as a part of the strongest starting 5 for last years team has shown he is capable of winning a championship if he had Jason Terry or Jerry Stackhouse coming off the bench for him. We did not have that last year and was the mainly reason for our playoff failure (barring other minor issues such as overall low fg% in the team and Boozer demolishing Yao). This year we have Mike James, this year our bench will not be outplayed, this year our starters will be fresh and continue to reign as the best statistical starting 5 in the NBA. & Like it or not, your hated Rafer Alston is apart of that starting 5, he is very capable of winning a championship playing his role and riding on Yao and Mac's back. _ Blues
Thank you very much, I am sorry that I assumed things that weren't the truth. I too don't think Rafer is very good but it is just a pain to see how much trash gets after every game when he actually played his role acceptably. I know this is usually because of bias towards Rafer and blind love for Francis. Frankly right now I see no PG available that can be much of a upgrade over Rafer and attain Rafer's experience with the starting unit for 2 years suddenly. For example if we attain Steve Blake for Rafer on a 1-1 swap, we would pretty much get the same player but without his experience with playing with Yao and Tracy for 2 years. If you have any ideas, please enlighten us! Right now I'm certainly looking out for Mike Bibby but I doubt Sac wants anything we have. James role is cleary defined and Francis is just not ready unless Adelman sees something and inserts him; Rafer is the best that we have now for the starting job. I sympathize with everyone's worries that his streaky shooting will screw us over in the playoffs, but we must be optimistic that Mike James will score those points when Rafer is on the line. Mac and Yao will lead us over the hump, and the best player at getting them the ball in recent memory, is non other then Rafer Alston. His trade value might not be so good, but his value for the Houston Rockets should not be ignored. With this years roster I don't think our role-players is subpar to the other contenders role-players, so it's all up to our stars to dominate and fulfill the prophecy of championship. Believe in Rafer!!! Doesn't anyone think it's a miracle after a horrible off season for him he still manages to retain the starting job? May be his a miracle worker! Ok now I'm just talking crap. I am so going to fail... _ Blues
Isn't MJ's role vs Rafer's different? Rafer primarily plays in a unit with Tmac and Yao, which means 2 superstars that definitely needs the ball. James on the other hand is a spark of the bench that's used as an immediate scoring threat. Hence the difference in assists. As far as scoring goes. Although they may have the same FG%, MJ is very capable of creating his own shots while Rafer isn't. The shots Rafer gets are mostly wide open, so that 35% shooting is basically wide open shots. Agreed
i also hear raptor fans hate ford because he hogs the ball and will only pass to bosh. basically he's mike james without a jumpshot.
The Rockets had a 14-point edge and in a span of a few minutes it was trimmed down to 7. Luther, Battier and Yao (twice) passed the ball right to the Spurs during that bad stretch. The play where T-Mac got doubled past halfcourt, called timeout and got pissed was not Mike James' fault (atleast I'm guessing it wasn't). If you watch the replay, Duncan came over to double and Yao just flat out had a brainfart. Yao looked down, turned around and walked away. T-Mac frantically motioned for Yao to come back and Yao was already elsewhere looking at the basket. Both James and Battier, who had gone to their positions on the wings, noticed this and sprinted back towards the ball. Too late. Now, the play before the same thing happened, and James did come over (and nailed a mid-range jumper)... so maybe it was his responsibility based on what we saw the play before, but it looked clearly to me like T-Mac was communicating with Yao. The reason Adelman (likely) went to Rafer is the Rockets could not get the ball inbounds on back-to-back plays... no one got open for Battier on an inbounds and he threw it away. The next play Bonzi couldn't get it inbounds and he called timeout. In came Rafer. The Rockets ran a set play and Rafer sprinted right to the ball. He brought the ball up, got the ball to Yao and Yao hit a tough turnaround 16+ footer off baseline over Duncan. Mike James doesn't have a problem bringing the ball up and he definitely isn't shy about throwing post passes to Yao. Watch the fourth quarter again ... Yao was consistently getting post passes from James. In fact, Yao shot the exact same turnaround a few minutes before but he missed it. Where James failed was getting open on those back-to-back inbound passes. I don't know if that was his responsibility as others also were trying to get open, but he couldn't. Rafer, after a timeout, got that job done. What scares me is the people who continue to think Rafer is irreplaceable because of this, that the offense can't "flow" or run without him. He is a good compliment to a better player like James, but we could still stand to upgrade those 25 minutes that he plays. As stated before though, he doesn't bother me near as much as long as his minutes remain reduced like this, which was always the hope. He did well though in the end... and the good news is that as bad of a shooter/scorer that he is, he isn't this bad (6.2 points, 35.3% shooting, 22.2% from three). He should improve. Captain Obvious, signing off.
Too bad other teams will continually rotate off of him leaving him open so that he can have the worst fg% in the NBA again. You just can't have somebody as weak as him on an elite team seeing significant minutes.
Free throw attempts is a very good stat for PGs if not the best, FTA > assist/TO 5 games, total free throws by them: Rafer: 3/5 Mike James: 14/19 points per game: Rafer: 6.2 Mike James: 13.2 Like most posters said: PGs do not play defense. Here is my question: are Rockets taking advantage of this like other teams do?
