I was a huge Skip supporter during the trade. After we got rid of him I only thought the trade went well for us, but after tonight's performance, I am beyond beyond beyond beyond glad we traded him.
The trade looks better every day. It's ok if Skip can't shoot. He needs to stop shooting and start passing. Dwight played 47 minutes and only got 10 attempts. Skip took 8 shots in 25 minutes. Pass the ball!
i said it before the series began...if Orlando has any chance of beating LA...Rafer has to have at least 3 good shooting games. I knew he was going to suck this series only cuz he was decent the last series. It is now that the Orlando fans are realizing what we realized with Rafer and his horrendous shooting. I love it lol, except for the fact that the Lakers are winning lol
OMG, I am shocked to see Rafer totally missed the rim and the board in one of his shot against LA. His shot is deteriorating fast and I have never seen him shooting this bad with us.
Not in terms of shooting efficiency. Lowry shot horribly this playoffs for a TS% of 45%. But including his last 2 games (basketball reference hasn't updated yet) Alston's TS% is 46%. This is because despite taking 185 more shots than Lowry in the playoffs, Alston has only taken 9 more FT attempts than Lowry. Their shooting efficiency has been equally bad. I think Alston has value in other things like defence, taking care of the ball etc, but Lowry also happens to be good at defence/rebounding. Lowry is as good as Alston NOW. (calculation for Alston's playoff TS%: 244 / (2 * (248 + (0.44 * 36))) = 0.462401455) Just for fun, their regular season career numbers: Lowry's FG%=43%, TS%=54% Alston's FG%=39%, TS%=49% I know which PG I want on the team for next year.
Alston's got a tough assignment of having to adjust to essentially a backup role in the most important series of his life. It shouldn't be an excuse, but OTOH for a guy who works better in a structured system, I doubt it's easy to do.
to be fair, only 4 guys made more than 1 shot. one of them was reddick with 2. so all magic (except big 3) shot badly today http://www.nba.com/games/20090607/ORLLAL/boxscore.html
Alston is the streakiest shooter in the NBA. You just can't count on him night in night out. If he had some kind of driving and finishing game going to the rim, his streakiness could be tolerable, but the fact is he has no midrange game and he is a horrible finisher around the basket. I'm so glad we unloaded him and got something of value in return.
Our HQ is in LA, and there are lots of Laker fans there. They were worried about Orlando and I just laughed and told them all they have to do is guard everyone else and leave Rafer wide open and they will kill the Magic. Well.....so far so good. DD
my bet on the series average for: Alston UNDER 17 (Pts + Asts) is looking pretty damn good right about now.. (that's the only bet i took for the finals)
You mean the Rox sent out Rafer to Orlando just for helping LA? Or Houston just wanted to revenge Orlando for giving us T-mac and taking away Lewis?
Streaky? I don't know ... all players have "hot" and "cold" streaks. In fact, if you flip a coin often enough, you'll see streaks of consecutive heads which, in isolation, might make you think that the coin is not fair. The key number is long term (adjusted) shooting percentage ... based on that, Airballston is a terrible scorer (whether it is jump shooting or finishing in the paint). I too am glad we got rid of him and can't believe there are people on the board that think we could have beaten LA with him.
LA did the same thing to us ... they left Chuck Hayes open and we couldn't make them pay. One wonders why Hayes never developed any sort of an offensive game in all these years in the league.
Yes, Rafer has a mechanic problem when he starts to shoot the ball. You look at good shooters in NBA, they all have good mechanic form to shot the ball, Rafer is not one of them, and he is too old to make a change too.
