You have to consider that the two losses against PHO and the one loss against Minnesota have a lot to do with that; PHO effectivly double-teamed Yao at a 24/7 rate and MIN TRIPLE-TEAMED him with KG. But uh, all that aside, the only that this tells me is our team, despite all this crap about how the support cast is much better, still lives and dies on 111.
r is very good and unless you are required to use sas you should be ok. sas is very cheap through schools. Stata is very user friendly.
Player's good stats versus other player's bad stats can overlap. Every player's numbers are gonna look better from the games won compared to games lost. It just means, generally, that any player on the team can turn in a good performance on that given night to lift the team. McGrady might shoot bricks one game, but Luther Head coming off the bench in the same game might go off in the scoring column. But then next game McGrady can put up 45 and Luther 2, with the team still winning Some stats are still more telling than others though like Rafer's here, and can directly follow an equation Its assumed all the players ahead of him from #103 play most of the game, but is that entirely how it is? Wouldnt players ahead of Rafer maybe also get taken out? I'm not too stat minded, just wondering
Rafer Alston is HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Get this scrub off of the Rockets... I watched him in Toronto...and he sucked so bad... People were booing his ass every game.... Rafer Alston is the smaller version of Antonie Walker....A Guy that shoots too much, cannot create his own shot, and is a huge liability on the defensive end. Houston will not go far into the playoffs with this And1 scrub. I guarantee it. I dunno how you guys can put up with this guy, I cant stand this idiot. I'd rather have VSpan be starting point guard... Rockets Fan in Toronto
By the way I'd invite you Houston Fans to come to Toronto.... I went to my church on Sunday, and our pastor was telling about a conference that he went to. He was talking to a pastor from Houston, one of those megachurch pastors, and the Houston pastor was preaching that the world was so corrupt and lewd, and so sinful... And than when somebody asked him where is a very sinful unGodly place... The idiot pastor said Toronto.... My pastor was nice and just laughed it off.....Dont knock Toronto, its the greatest city in North America, we are so multicultural, we have all religions. Canadians are nice people, just because we dont want to join your wars doesnt mean we dont like Americans, and I hope the feeling is mutual.
LOL, I'm sure lots of people on this board will laugh them off, including Canadian members. I mean your posts.
Not just McGrady and Rafer. Check out Yao, Head, and Howard. You know, almost all of the guys we look to for most of our points. Battier is really the only exception here. Rafer is actually no worse than those guys when you look at adjusted FG% for losses. T-Mac is .437, Rafer is .436, Yao is .433, and Howard is .434. Head is the highest at .460. So basically, after looking more closely at what the stats say, I think that the idea that we win if Rafer makes shots and we lose when he misses shots can basically be said about almost all of our scorers. Whatever the case, keeping in line with this idea and consdering that we currently have 16 more wins than losses, I guess our guys are having more good shooting nights than bad ones overall.
Just wanted to clear up something here. I in no way meant to say these stats are the be all end all of everything. Obviously, when the Rockets win games they shoot the ball well and when they lose they dont. What i was trying to show is just how good the Rockets have to shoot the ball from the 3 pt line to win games in particular with the point guard position. Like i said earlier, Rafer avgs 40% from the 3 pt line in wins. Thats an incredibly high 3 pt shooting percentage! Also if you see how he ranks among players on the Rockets he is very high (lenovo stat). Just trying to show that as bad as we like to say Rafer is he has a hell of a job as a basketball player. Also shows the importance of acquiring another good shooting hard defensive point guard. (I'd love to see Francis back but unless Francis starts knocking 3s easily we have a problem.) For all the problems Rafer brings he really is the best that we got. Also, I completely agree with those that say this team lives and dies by how yao and tracy play.
That's why I'll never understand why people harp on Rafer's shooting. The man shoots 37% from 3. League average is 33-34, and with as many attempts as he shoots, it makes him even more valuable. I understand his 2-pt% sucks, but he's not here to drive and finish at the rim. He's here to run the offense (check), get the ball to scorers (check), defend (check), and hit the 3 (check).
Because McGrady is facilitating the offense, Rafer cannot possibly play to his strengths. I admire and respect him for being willing to do what he is asked to do, that is to say, spot up at the arc and knock down the 3 ball. I do not hold Rafer responsible for taking more 3 shots than having assists. Our offense doesn't call for a penetrating point guard with McGrady in the game. In my opinion, our offense would still be best suited to have the play initiated from the point position. I know this is radical because of how good McGrady is, but because we don't have another big scorer that can defend, and play perimeter defense on bigger perimeter players, we are basically limited to spot up shooters as our third scoring options. We are limiting ourselves to one dimensional players and this weakness shows up against the better teams in the league that can rotate around on the perimeter shooters. This is why I am in favor of playing McGrady off the ball and having the offense initiated at the top with picks set for a penetrating type point guard. And I think we will eventually get there. Not this year but possible within the next couple years. Now Rafer isn't the best finisher but he can be better than he has been this year. And VSpan is a fantastic finisher. I can see down the road McGrady setting up strong side with Yao, the pick comes from the top and you've got the defense staring down the barrel of VSpan heading to the rim for the finish, foul, or dish out to McGrady. He throws out to McGrady who is now playing against a single defender in rotation. McGrady will make mincemeat out of him. He either gets the jump shot, or he gets the fake and the drive to the rim. That gives you three great offensive options, a huge center that can score against anybody, a point guard that can penetrate and finish, and one of the top swingmen in the business. I'd rather see our offense evolve to this as opposed to McGrady constantly taking all the beating by handling the ball so much. It's just a matter of time before he goes cruising into the middle and knocked on his can again, and out for a month with his back screwed up. McGrady cannot continue to take all this pounding. And at the bottom of all this is the fact that McGrady's greatest strength is still his scoring. Sure, he's a great decision maker, one of the best decision makers in the league right now. But, he's one of the best scorers of the basketball of all time. And his decision making and effect is still going to be there even if he plays off the ball. Rafer can still be effective running the ball up, and playing around 20 mpg, but for this team to go to the next level, it is going to require our offense to evolve to this point. We shoot less free throws than any other team in the league. That simply means one thing, lack of aggression. It will show up in the playoffs.
Rafer really only has one glaring weakness: his midrange game. While his pick & roll defense leaves much to be desired, he makes up for it with his high steal average. Other than that, he's gravy. Above-average volume 3-pt shooter. Exceptional handles. Few mistakes. The guy is so valuable.
But isnt Rafers 37% shooting misleading? Thats what his average is but some games he shoots better than 37 and some games he shoots alot worse. And some games even though his shots are not falling he just keeps shooting. He seems to adjust well from game to game I just wish he could adjust within the game.He has done it before so I know he is capable.
Judging a PG solely by his scoring is terribly misleading. Matt Maloney was a great shooter his first couple of years with us, but he was incompetent as an actual PG. Rafer's the opposite. His piss-poor interior shooting aside, he has done a solid job in his role on the team and is a reason for our doing so well this year. Evan
I agree. So then to get Rafer in a position to be playing as efficiently as possible, we have to put him in a position where he isn't the 3rd scoring option. Rafer hitting "spot" 3ptrs and running the offense is good. Rafer playing the "3rd" scoring option (or even 2nd if Tmac or Yao are on the bench) and driving throwing up shots is bad. That is the key.
crazyguypete: Great to see another stat minded fan contributing! Looking forward to other analysis you compile! Vator has a good point about correlation of shooting pct with the other players too.
Sorry to bring up a semi-old thread. But I didn't think this deserved its own thread. Can you believe I had to go all the way to the 4th page to get an thread on Rafer? Anyways I found a nice article on Rafer in the Sports Edition, a free newspaper for sports in the Clear Lake area. It has some nice quotes from JVG and Alston. Talks about Rafer's upbringing, college, bouncing around the NBA, and his matuaration. The article is in pdf which is kind of a pain. Anyways, hope you enjoy. The article is on page 9. pdf link
I am fine with Rafer as long as he doesn't shot. He presses the action, gets the ball up quickly, great handles, good passer, low turnovers, average defense, can't shot. Unfortunately, in our system, the PG has wide up shots and needs to hit a high percemtage. So, from that perespective, he is a liability. He should not be the starting PG next season. Good reserve. We need a bigger, better shooter, that can effectively drive the lane and finish.
It seems like we lose for sure if both Rafer and Head shoot poorly. We were fortunate to win the game against the Pacers. But your right....if Rafer shoots well, its almost a sure win now imo
how about run a logistic model ? for prediction of win/lose the model would be something like logit(p)=alpha+betaXi; throw in some factors such as starting 5, shooting percentage, opponent winning percentage; you can't predict anything without adjusting for all factors attributing to a game. you have to think about why is rafer shooting poorly in those losses, is it possible the other team is a better team and so on. so in short, rafer's shooting may have something to do with win/lose, but there are tons of other factors.
