As of late, things couldn't get much worse for Rafer Alston when it came to his ability to put the ball in the basket.
But somehow Monday night in Chicago, they did.
After missing his final 12 shots Sunday in Minnesota, Rafer extended his miss streak to a stunning 21 after clanging his first 9 against the Bulls en route to a 2-14 shooting night. His shooting percentage for the season dropped to an anemic 35.7%, which seemed to suggest a dose of pine could be on the horizon.
But Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy made it emphatically clear that wasn't about to happen.
"Rafer's our point guard," said Van Gundy boldly after the Rockets 84-77 win over the Bulls. "He's gonna be our point guard. If anybody has a problem with that, wants to see a change, it ain't gonna happen. Everybody can stop all the questions about who's next. There ain't no next right now."
Whether this was more a sign of real faith in his starter or complete lack of it in his backups was uncertain, but one thing was probably clear: Mike James never looked so good.
Over the last 6 games, Rafer is shooting an incredibly high 16.2 attempts and making an unbelievably low 25.8% of them. While this is clearly a bad stretch for him, the problem with saying Rafer is just in a "slump" is it's alot like saying Carrot Top is just having a "bad hair day".
Yeah, it may be worse than usual, but it's never really been good.
The 6-foot-3 guard, who is still on pace to threaten Vernon Maxwell's franchise record of 510 three-pointers launched in a season, shot very poorly from the field last season (37.9% from the field, 32.7% from three). He worked out hard in the offseason on his shooting ability and seemed to come in to camp with results, hitting 12 of 23 in the preseason and starting out the year hot from long range.
However, since that time, his percentages have been in steady decline.
 |
 |
| First 9 games |
38.4 |
41.1 |
10.0 |
71.4 |
41.5 |
5.9 |
3.7 |
1.67 |
4.9 |
2.8 |
1.8 |
12.9 |
| Next 20 games |
35.8 |
37.6 |
12.9 |
78.7 |
34.1 |
6.5 |
3.7 |
1.45 |
5.1 |
2.1 |
2.4 |
13.8 |
| Last 6 games |
36.5 |
25.8 |
16.2 |
50.0 |
28.6 |
5.8 |
2.5 |
1.83 |
5.2 |
2.2 |
2.4 |
11.0 |
|
When you consider that Rafer, over the last 26 games, is at 34.4% shooting and 32.9% from long range, it doesn't suggest much improvement from last year.
There is positive news. The Rockets have gone 5-1 during Rafer's deepest slide, and that includes wins over the Jazz and Bulls and all of it without Yao Ming. Granted much of that has to do with the elevated play of Tracy McGrady (34.3 points on 50% shooting and 44% from long range), Juwan Howard (16.5 points on over 48% shooting) and Dikembe Mutombo (an unreal 14.2 boards in 28.8 minutes), but it still shows that this is a strong team. And Rafer can't keep putting up 4 of 19 nights forever (God, can he?).
Nonetheless, and despite Van Gundy's vote of confidence, you get the feeling that, behind the scenes, the Rockets are looking at the point guard market with an eye towards acquiring an experienced, competent backup, at a minimum. The Rockets may be able to eek out home wins against the Grizzlies and Sonics with Rafer tossing Acme's, but they're not likely to be as competitive in a 7-game series over the Mavericks, Suns or Spurs.
