Even "Moreyball" Basic Formulas Show Chucking Is Bad

Consistently fails the Rockets in the playoffs....

Since Harden joined Houston only the Warriors dynasty, the Spurs dynasty and LeBron’s Cavs have more playoff wins.

The Spurs and Warriors dynasties being the two teams who have sent us home in the playoffs.

I’m dumbfounded by the idea/belief that our system is flawed.

You would have to ignore just about every proven indicator of a strong team with deep playoff run possibilities to come to the conclusion that what we are doing CANT/WONT work.

Results based thinking at its finest. We were not the team to hold the trophy at the end of any of these years = what we are doing is flawed and will never work. Not the wisest way to analyze things.

 

^ this mentality is the problem and Morey and D'Antoni probably have the same issue. They only care about offense.

Why is the goal here to maximize offensive efficiency and not NET efficiency (i.e. points scored minus given up)? Nobody cares enough about defense to realize the harmful consequences spamming threes has on the defense, especially in terms of fast break points (we give up the 3rd most), and how it's the main reason we blow so many leads.

 

The guys we have shoot 3s 35% of the time. That is good enough, that is also the stat we had when we had the best record in the league and were a hamstring away.

The problem here is coaching brings 0 enhancement to player ability, there aren't any ways to increase that percentage via plays and tactics cuz our coach doesnt know any of that. We are all 100% dependent on player talent and James Harden. You always have to hope someone is "lucky" this game cuz the players dont know how to score if they aren't hot. We dont have any game plan and there seems to be no sets players can run that will effectively get shots thats why MDA doesnt bother calling timeouts.

Tonight it was EG who made 6/8 of his 3s. If he is cold next game good luck we need somebody else.

 

Exactly man, I can tell you from a scientific perspective that the more strength you need for something, the more you lose in terms of precision/accuracy (muscle fibers/motor units you recruit). That’s why you have more variance and you see % from shots from a greater distance dip more with fatigue. This website is the only place where people ignore actual results and play for years for their failed understanding of math. The math isn’t wrong, it’s just more complex/more variables in play than 2> 3

 

Our best playing player rn is the one that doesnt play within system

 

certainly loved harden's approach last night. it was a major difference compared to what we've seen as of late. he started the game just going to the hole over and over and trying to get himself going early, especially with a not so great rim protector. it's not going to be like this all the time obviously but it's good how he's finding other ways, rather than just spamming 3s over and over.

 

What gives you the idea we don’t try to maximize net efficiency?

Net efficiency rank under MDA

16/17 : 3rd
17/18: 1st
18/19 : 5th
19/20 : 8th

 

Somebody from the organization got to westbrook and told him to lower his 3 point attempts, and he did it, and his game took off from it.

Someone needs to get to harden about hus volume chucking when his shot is clearly not on. No way should he constantly be missing 10+ 3's in a game.

 

So Harden should drive drive drive
and leave the 3 ball to everyone else .. . . play like Russ

Rocket River

 

Been saying this since late December, I get that James is a volume shooter and I also get the “shooters shoot” mentality, i also get that he is stubborn with confidence to a fault, but there should be a fine line with situational basketball realization with him that he just confoundingly doesn’t seem to have a lot of the time. Is that Morey or Danroni’s job to instill, one would think yes... If you are up by 8-10 pts and you've got a half or 8 mins to go in the game why when you've not been shooting that well all game not take the higher percentage shot by going to the hole where you were shooting well and hope at worst you get a foul called in your favor. He does this a lot stubbornly.

I get if you are down 8-10 trying to get the lead back but he just does dumb stuff like this a lot this season, specifically the last 6 weeks. I realize he is NOT the reason we lost last night, but his dumb shot choices with the 3s, absolutely affected the outcomes of that game and this isn’t the first game he’s played like this so far this year or he gets a hard pass. He did end up with a very nice stat line save the horrible 3 point shooting, and sure if he makes just one more of those we don’t lose, but that’s how slim the margins are for this team this year, he can’t afford to be so low IQ out there in a close playoff seeding type game, yet again.

 

Maybe stop taking so many tough, step back 3s...to add insult to injury, harden is terrible at getting back on defense

 

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I am ok with those shots when he is in a good shooting rhythm but when he isn't that chucking he does is like a turnover