Very short article on the Rockets, but I thought it was worth posting. link Rockets will be taking more of an analytical approach February 25, 2007 Around the Rockets front office last week, executives joked that if the team added Yao Ming at the trading deadline, it would have been big news. When Ming returns from his knee injury in March, the Rockets might feel as if they made the kind of acquisition that will push them closer to a championship. Ming was injured Dec. 23, disrupting his campaign for MVP but not slowing Houston's march toward the playoffs. The Rockets managed to recently surpass their win total from last season (34). Jeff Van Gundy deserves Coach of the Year consideration, especially since Yao and Tracy McGrady haven't played many games together. "When we get Yao back and with Tracy, we feel we've got all the pieces for a championship," said assistant general manager Daryl Morey, who will be promoted to GM in the offseason. "Obviously, we have a long road to get there, but when Yao comes back, we have two superstars, great role players, and a great coach who's playoff-proven." When Morey becomes the final decision-maker, the Rockets will be the first NBA team to employ a student of analytics in such a position. Analytics is the application of so-called "Moneyball principles," a growing trend in the NBA. But until Morey moved from the Celtics' ranks to the Rockets, devotees of analytics were employed only as advisers. Although Morey joked his main job would be "not screwing up what [current GM] Carroll [Dawson] put together," he'll take over at just the right time, as the team looks for the best pieces to complement Ming and McGrady. Analytics is best suited to finding role players, and Morey cites the Rockets' offseason acquisition of Shane Battier as an example. The Rockets looked at team rebounding numbers when Battier was on the floor, not his 5.3 rebounds per game with the Grizzlies last season. "Shane Battier is like the poster child for analytics in the NBA," said Morey. "The reason [the Rockets] brought me in was to give a different perspective on decision-making than in the past."
Good, so as long as T-Mac and Yao are healthy, we should have no problem finding the right role players for our team. I think our current roster can win a championship though.
so are they saying Morey takes the credit of the Battier trade? .. I didn't know that, interesting...
Some of us suspected that Morey's analytic approach was the main reason for the Gay-Battier trade since day 1-- while the rest of the BBS was frantically giving "credit" to JVG for forcing managment to make the move. Battier's +/- has been very positive 4 years running (maybe more, I don't quite remember), indicating that the fact that his teams play better with him on the court is not a fluke but a long-running trend. His salary is also very modest. Another thing analytics would tell you is that only roughly 20% of the lotto picks in the league ever become stars. It puts the value of the Rudy Gay pick in proper perspective.
Nice little write-up, but let's reserve judgement on Morey until seeing what he does in the offseason, his first as the man in charge. If he grabs the equivalent of Shane (in terms of upgrading our talent) at PF or PG, then I'll pat him on the back.
We got the 1996 draft picks, but we also got plenty of Kwames, Kandis, Griffins, Mileses, Araujos, Dunleavies, etc who are either total busts or simply average to decent players. It's just an overall estimate. If you think about it, it makes sense... there are 14 lotto picks coming into the league ever year, there really aren't enough room for 14 new All Stars in this league every year.
