or maybe they realized that Francis can't run the offense, Mike James will immediately go one on five and Brooks is too small to defend. who knows?
NOOO, sky is falling, sky is falling, FIRE!!! LIGHTNING!!! RAFER!!! EARTHQUAKE!!! Nooooooooooooooooooooo
And to your horror the head coach stands up and unzips his Rick Adelman costume (Halloween) and it's JVG under the disguise. Q the Michael Myers music: and then you see Bonzi faint and V-span begins to cry and suck his thumb in a fetal position in front of his TV in Greece.
I agree with the spotlighting for trade purposes thing, but they wouldn't have brought in 2 other FA PGs (and drafted another) had the Rockets not had benching him in mind from the start. Had Skip not been arrested twice in 3 weeks over the summer, he would've been traded a long time ago IMO. Maybe we would have won 63 games last year instead then, maybe we would have got out of the first round too, who knows... If you took a poll on this BBS on who the Rox starting PG should be out of the obvious 4 on the roster, the votes for Skip would be the in vast minority. Not saying that that means those people are wrong, just saying that the vast majority of people here do not share your same sentiment on Skip... But, if "starting" him now lands us something of value by the trade deadline, I'm all for it!
If that's the mentality, why replace Chuck and not Rafer? Chuck was part of the starting lineup that won 52 games, too. The idea is that we can do better than that 52 win team. We can start by moving Rafer to the bench.
This is a weird offseason nobody on this board knows who is going to start, all we're doing is speculating. Like I'm speculating Mike James has outplayed all the point guards. Speculating that Steve took a paycut to come to the Rockets because he was promised either starters minutes or a starting spot. However, so far he hasn't picked up the system well. I'm speculating if Rafer starts it would be to showcase him to other teams. Speculating that RA really loves Aaron Brooks and wants to give him atleast 10-15 minutes a game.
Just telling you bro. I know how this site is so I'll leave it at that. If you don't reveal how you know certain things then you get destroyed and that's cool. I'm fine with it. Rafer was supposed to be traded. You are correct on that point. The Rockets shopped him all summer and they didn't get what they felt was adequate value for him. Then the off the court stuff happened and he ended up back with us. That made him a Rocket with a chance to make the team because they weren't cutting him. If you've read how well he's played (probably the best Rocket at camp, I'm pretty sure even Clutch who is pretty clear in his feeling on Rafer would tell you that). It also just so happens that he ended up being a perfect fit in our offense along with Scola under Adelman. He just fit better with the starting five. When we brought those guys in we had no idea that would happen and were looking to move him. Let's be honest here. James and Francis are both sg's in a pg's body. Both can play the point but it's not their specialty. Francis hasn't had a great camp and we still have to worry about chronic injuries with him and James is best served as a spark plug off the bench. Who finishes, that's a different story. My guess would be it depends on whom we're playing, what we need and who's playing well. I can tell you this, we aren't starting him to spotlight him for a trade. For one, that makes no sense. He's already been shopped and has been in the NBA for quite a while now. Teams know what to expect. Secondly, we're starting with a brand new team here. Chemistry is what we will be working on building not spotlighting a pg for a minor trade for someone we'd most likely cut. That would be ignorant. You may see James get a shot in there as well as SF because they could very well be closing games or best out Rafer in the remaining time but as of now that's your starting pg like it or not.
James hasn't outplayed all of the pg's. You can read this site's report, the Chronicle's report and any other place you choose to look. James played very well, but played second best at the pg position. Steve wasn't promised anything more then a chance. He got like 30 million dollars for free. He didn't take a paycut. He has wanted to come back to Houston since the day he was traded. Look how depressed and unmotivated he was with other teams and now look at him laughing, joking and smiling now. He always came back to Houston in the off season and also went home to Tacoma. he's happy to be here.
dont forget 52 wins with next to no depth and tmac/yao combo missing significant amounts of time. maybe he shouldnt be replaced...maybe he wont, maybe chuck does start. But the starting 5 was not particularly the problem last year. It was the lack of bench depth, scoring and all around versatility.
Exactly. Plus, Chuck is more valuable off the bench in most cases. He has a tendency to get in foul trouble early and is an undersized PF in the West. My guess is Scola will have foul problems too because of his style of play but we'll see. I'm sure if we need to start Chuck in certain instances we will
Are any of the Pre Season games going to be on cable or sat? I remember they showed some Pre Season games back in the past. I dont see anything on the schedule.
That's the worst nightmare for some posters here (you know who...). Seriously, this is preseason folks, not to mention the very first game. Adelman already said that it didn't matter who play with who. So it really doesn't matter who start or who finish. It won't surprise me if Rafer starts. He's the incumbent starting PG. Since there is still not a clear picture who is going to be the regular starter, might as well be Rafer. Hayes is a different story. He was never a full-time starter anyway. And everybody knows that Scola is projected to be our future starter with Hayes plays a lot of minutes.
That may or may not be true. It's a completely different system as you'll soon see so many of the people who disliked Rafer (and mainly his detractors were because of his shooting) may turn the page once they see what his role is. From everything I've read people hated the fact that he shot too much and didn't hit at what they deemed an acceptable clip. That was JVG's offense. While that's a fair criticism you do what you're told by the coach and that's part of why JVG is no longer employed with the Rockets. Rafer won't be shooting at all like that so you may want to see our new team before passing judgement. Just a suggestion though. True, this is the preseason. However, it is important to build chemistry on a team with so many new faces. So it does matter who plays with who sans the guys trying to make the roster. I have no doubt you will see both SF3 and James get to run with the starting unit as well. It's to help them learn how to play with each other. The last part of your statement is true if you are talking about regular season games Rafer is starting because he has earned the job so far. Whether or not he holds on to it, we'll see. My guess is he does. He just fits perfectly in Adelman's system and i have already outlined the other reasons above. Everybody didn't know that. They do now but that was far from the case early on. We were shopping for a veteran PF, hadn't resigned Hayes and were very pleased by the aquisition of Scola but still had to see him play with the team. That's just what some people assumed
