Those stats encompass everything from playmaking to shooting to overall performance to value added... Stats aren't everything but those are a ton of stats showing Rafer among the worst in every category. Is it possible that Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis are the main reasons that the Magic have gotten this far and that you could substitute Rafer's production with that of about 90% of the other PGs that played in the postseason and get the same or better results? What has Rafer done that most other PGs around the league couldn't have done? His statistics are truly horrible. Steve Blake may have even been an upgrade. A healthy Jameer blows Rafer out of the water.
And again, you're not going to find Alston's true value in any sort of statistic. Look at Battier's PER, not too good, especially when you consider the players that have a better PER than him. Rafer's no "no-stats all-star", but the concept remains the same. Whatever new stats Hollinger pulls out of his butt won't change that they are subjective in of itself.
If you just look at a simple statistic like shooting percentage, that isn't subjective, he's been awful. The bottom line is I respect your opinion, Artesticles. I just disagree with you. I don't think Rafer has been a critical component for them. I think he is barely not hurting them and there are a lot of PGs that can do that. His shooting has been awful much like his career norm and Hedo is doing most of the playmaking. There have been a number of games this postseason where Rafer isn't even in the game down the stretch. Hedo is leading the team in assists and it's obvious from watching the games that he is the primary guy running PnRs and setting up his teammates. Like with Houston, Rafer's job is primarily to dribble the ball up the court, hand it off to Hedo and become a spot up shooter. He'll mix in a small handful of good passes to Howard and their shooters but for the most part, he just hands the ball off on the perimeter, cuts across the lane and camps out on the 3pt line. He isn't good enough of a shooter to play that kind of role.
No doubt Alston's been up and down this postseason, but in the first two Finals games, Alston played as badly as I've seen him play this playoffs. In previous series, I thought he had spurts where he helped his team make a run or make good defensive plays, but Games 1 and 2 of the Finals were real stinkers. He just looked uncomfortable and lost out there. I don't know much about stats, but looking over your links, his ranking is where I'd expect him to be - in the bottom half among playoff PGs. No surprises there given his skill level and the Magic system in which Turkoglu does so much of the playmaking. However, I still say he's been Orlando's best option, better than Johnson or Lue. (Can't tell about Nelson yet.) In fact, I don't see Johnson appearing anywhere in Hollinger's stats, and I'd be interested to see how Alston and Johnson compare.
^^^^^ Also, I disagree that you could substitute Alston with almost any PG and still get the same results. Not every PG would be as familar playing in a system with a playmaking wing and a dominant big, and also play pretty good defense.
Even with rafer stats being among the worst in this yr playoffs, SVG still continues to start rafer and play him 30 + minutes a game. I guess he like bad stats guys like rafer than his relatively healthy all-star PG in nelson.
Well, I'll acknowledge that much. That is a good point. Even though he isn't doing anything special, he is familiar with that type of offense which made the transition more seamless than it would have been with many other PGs that are better indvidual players.
Actually, Alston's minutes dropped to below 30 in the first two games after Nelson returned, only going back up in Game 3. Jameer Nelson's minutes have decreased from around 23 minutes his first game back, to 11 in Game 3. BTW here's a nice AP article on Alston and Game 3, with references to Rafer's minutes. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_y...aB4?slug=ap-nbafinals-magic&prov=ap&type=lgns
C'mon, man. Everybody knows Jameer is a shell of his normal self right now, coming off a serious injury and months of not playing in a real game. You're right right though, he is an all-star. Rafer never had a season anywhere near as good as the one Jameer was having before the injury. In fact, Rafer's best season wasn't as good as any of Jameer's 5 seasons as a pro other than Jameer's rookie season. Apparently, you regret the loss of Alston, unlike Daryl Morey and many others. I'm sorry you'll have to live with the fact that he'll never be wearing a Rockets uniform again.
Here's a simple question for anybody that regrets the Alston trade: Why did Daryl Morey do it? Did he think the mini SG, Aaron Brooks, would take us to the Promised Land? No. Did he think Lowry would come in more than halfway through the season, having never played with this group before, and lead us to the Promised Land? No. He obviously didn't think Alston would lead us there or he never would have made the deal. In my opinion, Morey has been looking to upgrade Rafer since he took over as GM. How else do you explain the influx of PGs through the draft and free agency that occurred on his watch. Even if those efforts didn't work out, it's clear that Morey was never satisfied with the status quo, i.e., Rafer Alston. This season, out of nowhere, he found a team in Orlando that desperately needed a stopgap solution at PG. He was able to take advantage of that situation in order to obtain a superior player that he had coveted for several years. Remember, Morey has watched and analyzed Rafer more closely than any of us. He knows Rafer's strengths and weaknesses better than any of us. With all that information, he jumped on this deal and was glowing with satisfaction after getting it done. Even with Rafer playing deep into this postseason, I have little doubt that Morey has no regrets. He knows this is the Howard/Hedo/Rashard show and that Rafer is just tagging along. Everything is going according to plan. He still has more work to do to achieve his ultimate goal but moving Rafer for Lowry was a step in the right direction.
Agree with Brooksball, Rafer is a horrible shooter, but is a low turnover defense guy. He fits in with the Magic because they have a plethora of shooters, but overall he is a below average PG.
Rafer's a classic 33% player. Every 3 games some moron will start/bump a thread on how awesome he is when he has a non-awful or mediocre night. That's good in baseball...but.....man, you guys really really really lower the bar for him.
posted this in another thread, when mcgrady went down you needed scoring from the pg position. its quite simple. do you want both battier and rafer on the court contributing major minutes on the offensive end together? its that simple
If your referring to last night's game, i'd say 20 points on 67% shooting in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, setting the tempo and providing the spark your team needed to get back into the series qualifies as more than a "non-awful" or "mediocre" night There's been enough Rafer hate on this board for the past 3 years, what's the harm in supporting him and giving him props when he does well. Geezus it's the off-season for us, and he is starting in the finals...not much else to talk about
Rafer is garbage plain and simple, he becomes Casper on the road and can't knock down a shot with any consistency. Sure he'll have a good game from time to time but the man is awful at passing the ball like that ridiculous swoop around trebuchet he sent to the third row last night. Also he missed Howard on multiple occassions when Dwight had established position down low. No PG is going to last very long if he can't feed the bigman on his team. Skip just dribbled around for 15-20 seconds and then handed over the hot patatoe to Turkoglu. Even on that Rashard 2 pointer from the line, Alston dribbled around like a fool before giving up the ball to the shooter.
A lot of people seem to completely dismiss Rafer's positive points because of his lower then average shooting percentage. But the fact is that, Rafer is all about the ball handling and defense. You would think that it is something any point guard can do, but the truth is that isn't the case. Of all the point guards out there, their are few not considered elites or rising young talents that are better players then Rafer Alston. He isn't a consistent player outside of his ball handling skills, that I can agree with, but this talk of him being below average or garbage is off base. Who is average if Rafer isn't up there?
You can support a player and realizes that he sucks. I mean, I used to support V-Span to death, but that didn't prevent me from realizing how bad he looked on the court when he played.
As did JVG. As did Rick Adelman. And as we saw in the 2008 playoffs, the team did well when Rafer was healthy, and didn't when he wasn't. For whatever reason, right or wrong, coaches seem to consistently feel their teams run better when he's on the floor than not.
