When you don't have a true point, your superstars suffer disfunctionality

The rockets need a real pg that can hold his own. Whether another guard who needs the ball in his hands can mesh next to JH still remains to be seen but they definitely need to upgrade the backcourt JH plays with. JH and a mediocre guard next to him does not stand a chance at winning a title anytime soon.

 

_holic

You can make this same point however which way you want and in as many threads as you want, but ultimately it is futile if Harden does not willingly move off the ball, come off screens, make back door cuts etc.

Part of this is on getting a coach with a system who can convince Harden to do this, Part of this is Mauri growing some balls and asking Harden to play the right way and part of it is on Harden himself to be less selfish and more team oriented. He can still get his stats and numbers while playing better D but he has to realize that.

 

Lol yesterday I was thinking what happened to b_allholic and all his posts full of his insight and behold, I go on clutchfans today and are blessed with his insight.

 

whoa. a reasonable, well thought out, balanced post. it's sad to see this team break up. hopefully these are the eggs that must be cracked to make an omelet. hopefully we are seeing the metamorphosis of Harden just like we saw with Jordan - it goes from a one man show to a multi-threat offensive powerhouse.

Now, how to "fix" the offense. Agree that the main stat to look at for a distributor is not the assist #'s but the assist/TO ratio. Harden's Assist/TO ratio this season was 7.5/4.6 regular season and 7.6/5.2 in the playoffs. 2:1 is what you're looking for and he stays well short of that, especially against good teams. Now how many assists would Harden have if he was kicking it out to league average 3 Pt shooters instead of the Houston Masons Union Local 843 ? How many more points a game did we leave on the floor by bricking 3's ? A bricked 3 acts much like a live-ball turnover and can create fast breaks for opponents. Morey gambled that Ariza, Terry, DMo, and Bev could be good enough 3pt shooters to justify our system. Not a crazy bet - but this year he was wrong.

We need better shooters. Harrison Barnes is about to get paid a lot of money for hitting open 3's. Maybe by us when we strike out on the big names.

i think what we need most of all is a real coach with a real offense. We saw a glimpse of that with Rick Adelman. Imagine Harden in the high post with cutters swarming around him. Imagine Harden cutting (i kno rite?!) or working hard off-ball. Imagine the other team not knowing what exactly what play we were going to run.

BBall - for sure another ball handler with court vision is important. Morey gambled it could be Lawson and, again, that wasn't a crazy gamble. Turns out he forgot how to play basketball sober. Sucks for him, sucks for us. But we could get Iggy, Rondo, Pippen himself - it wouldn't be anything more than "my turn/your turn" or "go stand in the corner" unless we get a real coach. And if we got a real coach, and competent shooters, Harden's assist/TO ratio might be 2:1.

 

Last thing the Rockets need is a point guard.

 

interesting. whether you want to call it a pg or whatever, they definitely need to upgrade the backcourt next to harden. especially the way the NBA is now. in no way are they winning with harden and some limited guard next to him as I stated in a previous post.

 

Evan Chris Paul wouldn't be able to fix Dwight's inability to catch...

 

Agree that we need upgrades in talent, no matter what the position.

Disagree that PG is some huge need and the lack there of is causing some huge issue.

 

i just automatically think of the pg position by default as i consider harden a sg. but either way that backcourt needs to be significantly upgraded, pg or not.

 

Lol. You say Horford and Durant won't fix the problem, but then point out how Jordan had Pippen.

You realize all your examples are basically star players having other at least decent players on their team, willing to pass them the ball....

... um, no ****???

It's a really f'ing long OP to basically say the Rockets need better offensive playmakers and a better system around Harden.

Everyone knows that. It's why they are in the market for new coaching and will be in the market for new players.

 

We're talking about the Rockets, right? If so, then your example has no relevance whatsoever. Why are you making a comparision to a team jacking up low efficiency shots when the Rockets are one of the league leaders in wide open 3 point attempts? We were the 8th most efficient shooting team in the league this season. We get tons of efficient shots. We have lots of issues but getting efficient shots isn't one of them.

You're now defining an elite distributor to be someone that you declare by unmeasurable criteria. To you it's basically anyone except James Harden.

Chancey Billups was never an elite distributor based on any criteria. That Detroit team was a mediocre offense at best. They won due to their defense.
Their offense was inefficient, they turned the ball over a lot and they weren't a great passing team.

Here's how they ranked :

FG% - 19th
AST - 15th
TOV - 18th
PTS - 24th
oRtg - 18th
eFg% - 20th
TS% - 20th

Of this year's teams, only the Lakers (50.9) had a worse TS% than that champion Detroit team (51.1 TS%).

That's your elite distributor? Where's all of those supposed hockey assists?

Based on your analogy above, you should actually flip the teams because that Detroit team turned the ball over more than our current Rockets team.

Despite playing at a slower pace (87.9), Detroit still turned the ball over 15.1 times per game. The current Rockets team plays a much faster pace (97.6) and turns the ball over 15.9 times per game.

The net result is that the Billups led Detroit offense turned the ball over 16.6 times per 100 possessions. The current Rockets turn the ball over 15.8 times per 100 possessions.

BTW everyone on the board is aware of what a hockey assist is, if for no reason other than the fact that the LOFs used to try to use that to justify Lin's greatness. You've resorted to stealing their material now?

Why can't I see Rondo's "glue-man" role? Because you've redefined glue man to be whatever you want it to mean and in a manner that is totally unmeasurable. Your definition of glue man only exists inside your head.

 

Here we go again.

Yes Wade had Williams and Payton delivering the ball to him. Yes Payton was a future hall of famer.

Payton was also pretty much done at that point in his career. He averaged 3..2 assists per game that season. Williams averaged 4.9.

If it makes you feel better then you can say that Harden had Beverley and Lawson to deliver the ball this season. They only averaged 1.3 fewer assists this year than Williams and Payton did in their championship season.

Did you also notice that Wade led that Heat team in assists (6.7) that year? Kind of like Harden.

Did you also realize that 2006 Dwayne Wayde was an iso monster? Even more so than Harden was this year.

Did you not watch the 2011 NBA Finals? It was give the ball to Wade and get out of the way. It was all about Wade attacking the rim. That's why he ended up attempting a whopping 16.2 free throw attempts per game in the finals.

I guess technically you're correct because usually someone was passing the ball to Wade before each iso but they certainly weren't the reason for him scoring.

And exactly why would it be difficult to convince Harden to accept a premier playmaker? You're a mindreader now too?

Harden consumes 32% of our possessions. Harden doesn't want anyone to pass the ball in the other 68% of the possessions? You're trying to convince us that Harden wants to dominate the ball all the time so shouldn't he want to play with somebody that can deliver the ball to him for additional scoring opportunities?

You seem to think that if we acquire a playmaking guard then it has to be either him or Harden handling the ball. That's simply ridiculous. There's plenty of possessions to go around. That playmaker would take that possessions that guys like Brewer, Ariza and Beverley were consuming this season. There's more of those possessions that what Harden consumed.

Harden's passing is based off of his scoring. He's going to attack and if he gets doubled then someone is open and he'll pass. If he's not doubled then he's going to score. That's not going to change. What do you think is going to happen, Harden will drive and get doubled and now he won't pass ? Of course not.

Harden is an elite offensive player and he's going to have the ball a high number of plays. Passing is always going to be an option based on how the defense reacts. You can't separate his passing from his scoring as they are related.

Don't assume that just because Ty Lawson wasn't successful here then that means that Harden can't play with another playmaker. In Lawson's final season in Denver when he averaged 9.6 ast/game, his useage was only 20.6.

There was absolutely nothing preventing Lawson from getting that type of usage here. Lawson had other issues for his poor play which has carried over to Indy. If Beasley can have a useage of 29% and Thornton a useage of 24% and DMo a useage of 21.7% and Josh Smith a useage of 21.3% and even Brewer a useage of 17.6% then you don't think that Lawson could have achieved his normal useage? Of course he could have.

 

I have pointed out this issue many times before. I say pg even though basketballholic clearly is not limiting it to PGs.

Problem here is that I don't think everyone understands what role a point guard or the point plays on the floor. It's not just about scoring. It's about keeping your opponent honest, ball movement, spacing, putting people in the right spot on the floor so that they can be effective. No better example of this than the Spurs. The reason I pick them over Golden State is because they have been title contenders since 1998. Look at the Spurs today there best players aren't out top with ball in hand. Many of times the best decision maker/play maker on the floor for Spurs has been Boris Diaw. Your stars job is to just knockdown shots. It's great when you have a players that can create there own shots but when you run that iso play or player 75 to 80 percent of the time in a game the other team will adjust and your iso player or iso plays will become less effective over time. Thus the Rockets regression this season. You have to have team ball 75 to 80 percent of the time and pull out the iso ball the other 15 to 25 percent. Iso ball is a nicety not a necessity.

The system is what creates the shots, The distributor is who runs the systems, the stars just knockdown shots when they receive the ball from the distributor in the system. When your players trust your system, and you have a player or players you trust running your system, and stars thriving in your system. That is when championships are won.

The Rockets are lacking 2 of the 3 things in this formula. No winning System, No distributor, Just James and Dwight running around like a chickens with there heads cut off.

 

You don't need a point, Kobe had Fisher, Bird had Ainge and Johnson, what you need are unselfish players who can create for each other by moving their bodies and the ball.

DD