The problem with the Rockets has always been obvious --

The role players for the Rockets seem broken offensively and defensively in the James Harden system. James, coaches, "Where are you?"

MDA has become a lame duck coach bereft of ideas, play options, rotation management etc. DM is hamstrung by owner interference and luxury tax savings. To be fair to DM, the Chris Paul trade was the "championship or bust" move which in most years would have paid off. It just goes to show how fleeting and brutal the championship window can be. C'est la vie!

 

Telegraph passes or not he is getting them WIDE OPEN looks and they are bricking them

 

You forgot one....None of them can shoot well

 

Double Team

The First Pass in to the Middle of the Floor
Clint - He has no idea what to do most time
PJ - Hesitant and every knows he not going to shoot
Westbrook - this will be decent
Ego - decent
Anyone else - just find the next person to pass it too

Rocket River

 

We have a system not a coach. He is an offensive coordinator not a head coach —> Bill O’Brian.
How long did you think Harden can play at an historic level.
MDA acts like he protecting Hartenstien when his skill set is what the team lacks.
This what a team of minimal contracts looks like, less four players.
We went all in for championship or bust a few years back and busted; then we doubled up to catch up. So here we are still at the big boy table with an ace and a face card waiting on the last card to fall. All the while knowing we can’t afford to set at the table.

 

You missed a step where Harden just stands there allowing the help defender on Harden to easily recover to the open man when Harden passes out.

 

This article is really dumb. He came up with a stat that is completely derived from 3 point percentage and 3pt attempts. Then compares it to the league average of 1.06 points per possession. He completely ignores free throws and turnovers which are a big factor in points per possession so he is comparing apples to oranges. There are already better player efficiency stats.

In addition it is really easy to compare field goal percentage to points per possession directly all other things not considered. 1.06 / 2 = .53, so you have to shoot 53% on twos to be above 1.06 points per possession. 1.06 / 3 = 35.3, so you need to shoot 35.5% on threes to generate 1.06 points per possession.

This is Morey's hack. You don't have to shoot threes extremely well to beat the league average points per possession. And it is not all about jacking up threes. Get to the free throw line, shoot high percentage at twos, shoot high volume at threes, low turnovers and you can score more than everyone else per possession.

This year turnovers have gone up and 3PT% has gone down. Although the Rockets are still 3rd in efficiency https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/offensive-efficiency.

 

If it takes the shooter 3 seconds to decide to shoot. . . THAT IS NOT ON HARDEN!

Rocket River

 

The point of the article is not to say that you should not shoot a lot of 3s. It is just comparing who (players, teams) are really good at 3pt shooting.

Anyone or any team that has a positive 3NG is doing the right thing in shooting 3s. It does not predict whether a player or a team would be better off shooting more or shooting less 3 pointers.

Using this metric, a good 3pt shooter can be better shooting more. But shooting less may also increase a player's 3NG if a lot of his shots are contested. In other words, you still have to look deeper to judge a player or a team. Does that make sense?

 

The problem is. . . other teams are doing the same but shooting better
which is why it is not working
We were ahead and it made up for alot of deficiencies
now. . . .everyone is doing it . . .so has to be refined

Rocket RIver

 

More like 1 second. NBA players can cover a few meters quicker than 3 seconds. Also since Harden is so slow with bringing the ball up, defenses are set and know exactly how to set up where the initial pass out of the double team is around the mid range area because they refuse to guard that area and they know they won't shoot from there. This leads to someone like House or Capela being the one responsible to play make.

 

Other teams are shooting a lot of threes but they are doing it in different ways.

The proportion of Rockets threes that are wide open is middle of the pack. Our offense doesn't generate as many open threes as posters here think.

We still take a lot more threes than the average NBA team. But the ones who do take almost as many have a different offensive system where one person isn't dribbling on one spot of the floor for half a offensive possession. There is far more motion involved.

And guys who do dominate the ball as much as Harden like Trae Young or Luka Donic don't dribble on one spot of the court. They continuesly move with the ball and probe the defense forcing their teammates to move off ball in sync with the primary ball handler.

 

By reading through this thread it appears that No the problem is not obvious.

Because All I’m reading is continued dissection of our amazing offense and zero talk of our dog **** defense.

I’m not sure why after all these years some of y’all still don’t get it.

Our offense is a point producing machine. Input Harden and a bunch of average to mediocre offensive talent and the output for years has been at worst a top 5 producing offense. Often it creeps into best ever offense territory. A 5 game hiccup doesn’t change that.

Hell we swapped an unbelievably efficient scorer for the highest volume, low efficiency scorer in the entire NBA and were STILL a top 3 offense.

And yet here we are again talking about the complete opposite of our teams problem.

 

You've got Harden and Westbrook in the backcourt....Better to discuss things that can be fixed.

 

Sure. Typically you have to take more difficult shots when you shoot a higher volume. Kyle Korver would not shoot over 40% if he took 10 3s a game. Anyway this is a bad metric because it does not take into consideration turnovers and free throws. There are better efficiency stats.

Too many people are judging the Rockets bad three point shooting based on old misconceptions. Its better to shoot 20 3s at 36% a game than 20 2s at 50% a game. Since they don't separate out 2s and 3s in FG% one of those shooters/teams statistically looks worse than the other even though they are scoring more points.

 

Right. In fact, I think Morey has lost his edge beyond just the 3pt shooting thing.

Morey is one of the few innovators using math as the main tool to choose players and playing strategies. Now everyone is using it. So criticizing the methodology is just ignorant, like people who criticize the use of computer when everyone already knows the advantage of using it.

Precisely because the method is now widely used, using it is no longer an advantage. (Not using it is a disadvantage.) That's how Morey lost his edge.

I have been saying this for a long time. Morey is great at picking up undervalued players, mostly by trading and by signing FAs, and by drafting in the second round. Before the popularization of analytics, other GMs were blind to some gems. But he has never been better than other GMs in drafting first rounders. This is because data for college and foreign players are just not as good as NBA players. The one thing Morey is not as good as most other GMs is that he has no basketball experience. He does not have the instinct in recognizing potential talents when there is no solid data. I am sure he knows that and that's why he uses draft picks mostly as trade assets and not as opportunities to get young talents. Even when he drafted, he often let go of young players before they had time to develop.

But now the league has smarted up. Teams no longer undervalue good players. Morey has lost the advantage in trades and FA market.

That, in addition to a boss who doesn't want to spend, results in picking up "potential" talents from signing min-contract guys and g-league guys. I guess the hope is that if 1 out of 10 of these guys worked out, it would be worth it. But the problem is, getting those barrel bottom players has an opportunity cost. When you have a roster full of those, you don't have space to get real talents. When was the last time we sign a full MLE player?

To complicate the matter, Morey made a huge mistake in signing Ryan Anderson to that 4-year 80M contract. It took a lot of assets just to unload it. Then he made it worse in signing Chris Paul to that 4-year 160M contract. We are eating the consequences of those two contracts, and will still be eating it years down the road.

A lot of it might not be just Morey's fault. He works for his boss and I am sure some of it, or maybe most of it, is forced on him by the ownership. Either way that's the reality the Rockets are facing.

The saving grace is that Harden trade. OKC made a mistake trading the wrong guard. But that happened before the above said loss of edge. That kind of deal will be extremely unlikely to happen again.

 

It's not a bad metric if you are just talking about 3pt shooting. If fact, I think the point of that metric is that you might be better off shooting more even if your percentage is down a bit. But again, it's not a predictor. It's just a tool to measure the results.

Turnover and FTs are of course important. But they have little to do with whether one should shoot 3s unless you can show that 3pt shooting affects the rates of TOs and FTs.

 

Having a bunch of min-contract guys is part of the strategy. With the salary cap, the top tier players are underpaid and mid level players are typically overpaid. In an era of super teams where you need 2 or 3 all stars to win a championship, you can't overpay for mid-tier talent. You need to save the cap space for exceptional players. It is very difficult to accomplish, especially when you have an owner that limits your flexibility.

 

In my honest opinion problem lies with harden bringing up the ball. We simply can’t let him bring it up 50% of the time with Russ bringing it
Up 50% of the time. Because u know teams will triple team harden. What we gotta do is, let Russ or Gordon bring up the ball. 60-75% of the time. And let harden play off ball and work off screens and make back door plays. At the same time we can get harden more assists from alley oops to clints getting Gordon/Tucker/Ben for 3s from the off ball position

 

It's not rocket science. Every one of the top guys on the list should be shooting more threes. You can tell that just by their 3 point percentage. You don't need to make up another stat to tell you that. According to this stat, if your 3PT% is below 35.5% shoot less, if it is above, shoot more. He just designed a convoluted way of saying it.