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Alston suspended indefinitely


Newman
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The Miami Heat announced tonight that Rafer Alston, while having made contact with the team via text message, has made himself otherwise unavailable to the team. As a result he has been suspended indefinitely.

 

Alston, who is in his 11th NBA season, was signed as a free agent by the HEAT on January 7, 2010. He has appeared in 52 games this season (38 starts) with the HEAT and New Jersey Nets and has averaged 8.2 points, 3.4 assists, 2.5 rebounds, 0.96 steals and 27.3 minutes. He started all 25 games in which he appeared for Miami this season and averaged 6.6 points, 2.9 assists, 2.2 rebounds, 0.92 steals and 26.2 minutes.

 

 

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This pretty much mean that he is out of the picture for the starting PG spot.

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Officially suspended for the rest of the season:

 

Rafer Alston's season with the Miami Heat is officially over.

 

Alston was moved to the suspended list by the Heat late Friday night, one week after he left the team without telling any member of the organization why.

 

Alston told ESPN earlier this week that his departure stemmed from a personal matter involving his sister. He still has not explained the absence to the team, Heat president Pat Riley said in a statement released Friday night after Miami beat Chicago.

 

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family during this time, but we are at the point where we must move forward with the rest of the season during our playoff push," Riley said.

 

 

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Apparently the Heat took him out late in a game and he was unhappy with that or something.

Alston's poor play led him to get only 7 minutes against the Warriors 11 days ago despite starting. The next game, Arroyo started in place of Alston and Chalmers came off the bench as usual, leaving no time remaining for Alston.

 

At this point in the season, Spoelstra is going to give minutes to the most productive players, and Arroyo has been the most consistently solid of all the point guards this year. Maybe Spoe could have used Alston in certain games against particular match ups if better perimeter defense was needed, but with him out now, he no longer has that option.

 

 

Perhaps he left because he was upset over his role change, or was simply too proud to ever come off the bench, instead of being a mature professional that's ready whenever he's called upon. Or maybe he felt he was no longer needed to the team, so he decided to tend to family issues. Either way, he didn't play well enough while he was here for it to matter too much. Arroyo has clearly been the best out of the three this year, and Chalmers needs to continue to be put in a position to earn playing time so that he can develop into a solid back up heading into next season.

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Does that mean Alston is free to leave and play for other contenders, or does he still belong to the Heat?

I think so. Thing is, I doubt any team is actually willing to pick him up at this point. Skip's career in the NBA is pretty much over.

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