are the Rockets the most selfish team in the league?

We are 0.4 passes from League Average, and 0.9 passes from leading the league.

Ignoring that one extra pass is going to Kill Us.

You know, busted plays probably produce the most passes. Fastbreaks probably the least. Willing to bet Stockton and Malone's teams had less passes that MDA teams.

Fun graphic, though.

 

If anything that graphic doesn't show any kind of correlations between # of passes and efficiency - making it a stupid graphic. You might as well graph the population of mice to cheese production. If anything it actually shows a slight negative correlation.

The rockets don't pass the ball around because they have CP3 and Harden getting past their guys for layups or free throws or they are hitting pull-up threes and they are such good passers their passes lead to points versus weak passes that lead to a guy trying to find another guy to pass to.

 

Yep, it actually kinda shows the teams who are hunting for an efficient shot, and having trouble finding it.

7 out of the top 8 passing teams are at or below league average efficiency. 1 is barely over.

 

I saw that too - you have another cluster at the low efficiency end.

Seems to me that this is just unrelated. I think a lot of it has to do with factors not captured on here.

Does a team have a superstar? Then it probably will need less passes per possession. Look at all the top teams - Cle, Tor, Min - all below league average and yet all very good efficiency and of course record. Could it be that they have super-star talent that makes everyone else more efficient because those stars generate more space? And on bad teams you don't have as much spacing from the magnetic pull of stars so you have to move the ball around a lot more. That's your cluster

But you also have teams with ball hogs like OKC with super stars and they sit at the other extreme - low efficiency and low passing. The spurs efficiency probably suffers from Leonard being out and them not having many stars to create space.

 

This just dismantles the old basketball narrative that you play the basketball "the right way" by having beautiful complex motion offenses and that is how you produce the most points.

Nope, keep it simple, use math, draw fouls, shoot threes.

 

Joel Embiid late in the game and in OT vs. OKC went against this big time. He looked like a fool.

Overall though, less passing should lead to less TOs.

 

The Mavs won a championship as a low passing team. It can work.

 

Rockets are in the habit of shooting whenever they are open, regardless of what the shot clock is. With Harden and CP3 on the team, we get a lot of open looks so the graph makes perfect sense. It's when our role players PASS UP open looks that I get angry.

 

yup, that's the point he (Haralabob) was making. i didn't read any other posts in this thread so i don't know what's up with the long paragraphs.

our offense is basically defying the rules. the type of players (namely elite playmakers like CP3 and Harden) we have on this team, we just apply the KISS method (keep it simple, stupid), and it has worked glowingly.

#analytics

 

PJ & Luc are still in the process of learning not to hesitate when getting a pass for an open 3. When they (and others) pass up an open shot, it gets us out of rhythm and allows rotating defenses to reset. Then we have to expend more energy to attack the defense a 2nd time to get another open shot.

Or worse, it seems like 40% of the time we end up with a TO that often leads to points at the other end.

So if we can take those shots, even if they are lower percentage shots, we still get to set up on defense and not give up transition points.

Lots of benefits to having a quick trigger on those 3s.

 

As has probably been pointed out by now, we have two incredible, ball-dominant, creative point-guards. One (or zero) passes is all they need on most plays to get us points.

 

Norman Dale faints

 

I don't see how 0.4 passes per possession is very little. 0.5 is the difference between OKC and Golden State, the two representative teams for great and terrible ball movement. A basketball game generally have 100ish possessions that's 40 less passes than average over an entire game.

 

So Houston, Golden State, Cleveland, Toronto and Minnesota are the most efficient teams in terms of Points per possession.

I wonder what the average number of turnovers per possession are for these 5 teams.

 

W = PGod X 2

 

because cp3 is a pointgod. He almost always delivers the correct pass leading to an assist.

 

The x-axis for the graph starts at 2.7 , significantly skewing the visual perception.

But yes, we do pass less, but the offense is designed as such and we're getting results.

And if anything, passing less likely decreases our turnover rate, GS leads the league in fastbreak points, this potentially can help take mitigate one of their greatest strengths

 

Our top shooters both bring the ball up the court, I think that is all there is to it? Teams with a PG that likes to shoot have less passes, Houston has two on the floor for most of the game. Warriors have Curry, but they also have efficient guys on the wing so they need more passes to get it to them.

We also have two plays we run different versions of, either a PG screen with a big with the PG shooting, or the PG maneuvering the defense to one side and finding someone for a layup with one pass from the PG who brought the ball up.

 

A team in a league of its own right now.