why is rafer suddenly so loved by the fans? i used to see tons of posts with title like "GTFO of houston Rafer". all of a sudden he became our savior. he's getting old. he makes poor on court decision all the time but he has played well lately.
The thing people dont understand about this trade is that we NEEDED to get younger at this position. Kyle Lowry is a promising young talent and I wont take my hate out on Lowry because Rafer is gone. Im gonna support the guy and hope he does well.Good luck to Rafer we enjoyed having you here but you guys gotta understand we have to get younger. We need fresh legs. Rafer is 32 years old. Yeah it may be a big risk but thats what this business is all about.
I got to agree, when he rafer isnt playing in tmacs shadow he is a dribbling assist freak but im telling you this means tmac is bring his sorry butt back to play gimpy weak bootie
No this is not typical PR bullcrap answers. These are answers that hold no regard for Alston at all. Typically GM's would be a little more thoughtfull about there X players feelings and sugarcoate it a little.
I guess most people (including me) mad about trade rafer away is because the counterpart that we received. We were expecting names like B-Davis, or at least better than rafer. But reading through the posts and what GM said, I think what we received (still cannot spell his name) is a good deal. So calm down and trust your GM
Adelman and Artest are buddies. Rafer was the only one who stood up to Artest concerning locker room issues, coming late to practice, and missing meetings. Adelman wanted Rafer out of here, so Adelman got what Adelman wanted and now there is nobody who will stand up to Artest. Thats my theory. If your PG has an issue with a player on your team, that is a recipe for disaster, because, well the PG is the one who has to pass him the ball.
Rafer Alston is a decent player and a good person to have on any team. However his game had a number of shortcomings, which prevented our team developing more around Yao Ming. Rafer was one to look for his own shot potential before looking to see who was calling for the ball or who was in an open spot ready to shoot. A big negative for the Point Guard position. To be honest the only time Rafer played like he was expected to play was two games at the end of his Rockets career, you can tell by the number of assists he made. Also many times he was out of position on the defensive end of the court. I liked Rafer as a person but am glad that the Rockets are trying to improve the position. I hope Rafer has a great career with the Magic in Orlando, Rafer come back and visit with us any time you are in town, Yetti
Rafer has been improving over the last two seasons, he is still streaky with the scoring but as a consistent player, aside from being the obvious leader while on the court, he distributed and played defense well enough that we won a number of games. My thing is, that Rafer and Aaron Brooks are pretty different point guards. Rafer has more experience and body mass so that he can handle himself against most other PGs except for some of the speedsters. Brooks has shown growth in the areas of his defense and passing but you can't see him or the new guy successfully setting plays as well Alston could. Better individual scorers, no doubt but I personally think Brooks would have probably been better ready to take over the starting PG position some time next season. Right now, this move kind of puts our whole season in jeopardy, because now you really don't have a court general and we can still very much fall out of the top eight, with Utah getting better and Dallas and Phoenix playing well enough to still be in this race.
Rafer is just too bad a player. anyone in their right mind would see that most PGs are better than Rafer, even a backup 3rd string PG on the worst NBA team.
The truth is that there was too much confusion with 3 RA's running around. Artest's future with the Rockets doesn't look good.
Rafer gets in trouble with the law all the time and no one even mentions it. He's no Shane Battier, thats for sure. Rafer sucks and anyone that has any game what so ever should be better than him.
Once TMac decided to get surgery, all hopes of us being a contender vanished. So, getting something for Rafer before his value diminished, when Orlando had an immediate need, taking advantage of a surplus in Memphis, saving money when Cooks deal expires ... it all makes sense. This is building toward getting us back to contender status in another 2 or 3 years, and effective management of resources. ... but I cringed when I heard Morey say different things ... sounded like Morey has been frustrated with Rafer for awhile now, and he probably got on everyone's nerves in the last few weeks trying to "lead" the team. I think Rafer will do well in Orlando, though.
Alston is a good back up point guard... I doubt he would have liked it much to come off the bench behind AB. So that being the case, we brought in a decent back up. I feel AB has shown that he is more then capable of running the point on this team. The biggest thing is that he can shoot so the opposing pg will have to stay with AB instead of linger around Yao.. Alston was so disrespected around the league for his shooting that teams would leave him wide open as a defensive strategy... I don't understand why people still want him on this team?
yes, If they had Rafer, even without TMac, they still had chance to win it all. now they give up this season and build for future as DM mentioned before the trade (they would do minor deal to benefit to get a bigger fish in the future.) Now Houston may win one playoff seris but not legistic contender anymore. the west are much weak than two years ago and Houston upgraded a lot this two years. They should win a series even without Rafer and TMac. It's a sad day for fans that they trade Rafer.
A couple of years ago coach JVG thoughts that Rafer is one of the best defense PG if not the best one.
My guess is that Rafer talks too much in the public media, and coach and GM are not happy about that, plus that the team was playing better when Brook was a starter, so the rockets decided to go to the different direction with this trade which I do not know if it is a good one.
