Talk about oversimplification... It's easy to put all your effort into D when you play less than 15 minutes every other game and are expected to do literally nothing on offense beyond the occasional put back bucket or roll to the rim. Case in point, Nene is NOT a better defender than Capela, but is ranked higher. CP3 may have lost a couple of steps on D, but he is still a much better perimeter and help defender than Harden. The reason why Harden spends so much time in the post on D (outside of him being actually good at it) is because CP3 and Ego / Tucker / House / Shump is picking up the slack on the perimeter so we can hide Harden on D.
You can not try to convince people by saying "because statistically" but not explaining what statistics you are using.
That twitter handle just posted this: I don't where they are pulling their numbers from. The whole handle seems sketchy.
I am always skeptical about using one number to rank individual defense. I don't think that number exists. Heck, I don't even think a single number for ranking individual offense exists.
Ariza has stopped trying and is now about getting paid the big bucks. If he were playing on the Rockets I'm sure he would be giving more effort.
Lol all that research n it's as easily as luc was hurt this year so that one was right.....n no matter what ariza did this year he wasnt worth 15 mil a year. We knew this much as soon as they left it was the right move
I've always thought that as soon as Ariza left, especially for 15M per season, that it was the right decision. This is a perfect example of "buy low, sell high" in markets. In this case, you get a guy for cheap and get max value for 4 seasons. Then while everyone else jumps on board...you "sell" by not re-signing him and move on to the next value pick. You have to beat the market, similar to how we did with James Harden, and to a certain extent PJ Tucker, not overpay for a player exiting his prime after another team has already discovered his value. I was always confused that James Ennis was considered a good defender, at least on the Rockets I thought that he was good at deflecting passes but he seemed really slow and borderline statuesque. Maybe it's injuries, age, who knows...but ya definitely didn't love him on the defensive end in his brief stint on the Rockets. Harden has been great on post defense, which over inflates any kind of metrics because he's still pretty bad/lazy on the perimeter. And as others mentioned, we have to design an entire scheme to "hide" him on defense which will generally undervalue other players in the system.
If Morey hadn't been such a dumbass, our bad defense could have benefited from a full season with the league's 2nd-worst defender and 4 full games of Luc M'Bad Knee&shoulder.
I think the answer is more complex than Ariza/LRMM being the answer or not. Its more about a conversation about the organization's value they place on 3/4 three & D type of role players & how they have a view that they are replaceable on the cheap. This year... .they got damn lucky with House. They aren't 3 & D players, but they also got lucky with Faried & Rivers. So yes... I think THIS YEAR, Morey did make the right move to not overpay to keep Ariza & LRMM but there is a glaring sign that next year we could be in a tough spot when House inevitably leaves & the Rockets get cocky again that NBA rotation caliber 3/4's are just going to fall out of the sky and save the day once again. We could again have a rough start to the season when we figure out PJ Tucker can't do everything & that Gary Clark & Vince Edwards didn't make the giant leap forward the team was touting they made in the offseason.
Of course, you can. (Incredibly popular book first written in 1954. Reprinted dozens of times. Mentioned in every intro statistics course.)
