FiveThirtyEight has a fascinating article on Moreyball during the McHale / D'A eras and how the league has responded: https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...ke-the-rockets-and-thats-hurting-the-rockets/ This chart is crazy: The media is wrongly attributing the Bucks rise in the standings this year to Giannis taking a huge step forward, but except for a moderate increase in rebounds and assists, his stats are largely unchanged from last year when the Bucks were a fairly easy out. What's really changed is that the Bucks are now playing more like the Rockets than the Rockets are. They are the first team in the Morey era to shoot more efficiently than the Rockets and they made the leap from a league average Moreyball team in 2017 / 18 to the top Moreyball (shooting 3s + Layups to the almost total exclusion of mid-range 2s) team in basketball in 2018 / 19. That's a HUGE change in play style which has catapulted them up the standings despite bringing back largely the same type of personnel around Giannis. It also explains the increase in GA's rebounding and assists - he's basically playing the Clint Capela roll and he's a greater offensive threat than Clint so he gets more kick-out opportunities for the dime. Distributing more shot opportunities from inside the lane leads to more rebounding opportunities. So GA hasn't upped his game as much as an increased reliance on Moreyball has upped GAs stats. The Rockets are losing their "Math" advantage as more and more teams move their playstyle towards Moreyball. Which means in order to create a winning differentiation, the Rockets will have to rely less on their system, and more on surrounding Harden with superior talent to fit the system. Of course that is going to be harder and harder as every other team begins to value the same abilities that the Rockets do.
Yeah it's slightly old but definitely deserves it's own thread. Great article and just a snack in the face to the mid range guys out there. Last year they were middle of the pack on moreyball and were a backend playoff team who sucked in the playoffs. This year? They are a top contending team.
Sadly, Greg Anthony mentioned this way back in early Nov in a players only nbatv broadcast. He was on it the earliest. Rockets have lost the philosophy advantage as more teams do this now, than they miss their depth. Bucks are an extreme example. Kidd would forbid 3s so it's polar opposite.
So Holic kinda had the right idea but wrong player. A more versatile offensive player at 5 spot could turn this team into its very best version. Instead of Thon Maker, AD at Clint’s spot could morph this offense from historically great to unstoppable. While AD is perfect offensively & defensively, there are still other offensively versatile options that could make the position more efficient for the Rockets like Aaron Gordon, Jayson Tatum, Jonathan Isaac, Brandon Ingram, Jarren Jackson, Jarred Vanderbuilt even dare I say it Kevin Durant. Some cheaper alternatives include Anthony Randolph, Perry Jones, Kostas Antetokounmpo even our own Bruno Caboclo and Marquise Chriss. Their problem is either in between the ears, in their chest, or both. But there is no denying that Capela while not perfect has become a demon rolling to basket, protecting rim, grabbing boards and most importantly running like a madman every second he’s on the court. That effort is an intangible that very few players possess, especially at Clint’s size.
he should because my 4d psycho-physical-holistic-statistical analysis proved it is relatively and occasionally the most efficient shot in 30 years majority of ppl will laugh at todays advanced statistical analysis seeing how limited it was, that it was really 2d- black- and- white- -on- a -level- of- todays- boxscores pseudoscientific delusion you may accept this today or wait 30 years for some authoritative article to tell you about it
30 years later People might laugh at the scientifc analysis today but they are gonna laugh even harder at people who want to go back to strategies 10 years ago. The entire league already admitted Morey was right. Even somebody as elite as James Harden can only hit mid range shots at 42-45% on average. That is equivalent or worse than somebody hitting 30% on 3s. You know how many NBa players can hit 30% or better at 3s? A lot. What Moreyball is saying is you can get an average player and have him shoot as well or better than some of the most elite players in NBA history because those guys didnt know better and just shot mid range Js all day long. Saying occasionally this or occassionally that like saying somebidy occassionaly wins the lottery doesnt mean you should mortgage your house to buy tickets. Based on data compiled over a long period of time, mid range Js are just the inferior shot and if you are spending all the effort to strategize why would your goal be to get the worst shot available?
If you are talking about at the end of the game and you are going to have a lot fewer shots remaining (sample size). As an extreme example, if you are down by one, it is the last shot and you are getting killed at the basket, are you better off taking a mid-range or three? Over many shots, the math favors the three. How about on that last one? Also, no way for me to know, but @hakeem94 other points feel right to me.
McHale was a couple tiers below MDA but he actually did carry out Moreyball quite well. The article said Moreyball essentially began with the appointment of Milk Hair.
Morey is a pioneer in this day and age of basketball. He has formed and changed the entire landscape of how this game is played and coached. Not just the nba but the entire sport. Although, I dont always agree on the radical extreme of all 3s and layups, it does have its merits. I still think in crucial games a simple pullup from the elbow is a higher percentage shot than a 3 and could stop a dry spell of scoring to sway momentum.
If you subscribed to Murray's approach to analytics, this reaction was inevitable. Even though folks could see and understand the philosophy,they weren't convinced that this would work in reality. It had to be demonstrated. It was just a mater of when not if this would happen. Last year happened so we're now entering a new era of basketball.
Yes, Amen to that. People act like it's all or nothing. Oh we want midrange shots? MIDRANGE BAD. One thing that really bothered me is Austin's quote that Dantoni basically told him "we don't practice with midrange". Yes, statistically over the long run shooting more 3's helps and is clearly a winning style of basketball. No, that doesn't mean that you should always only shoot 3's and layups and not have a midrange backup plan to go to. Anyone who has actually played and been a good 3 point shooter knows that it is hardest to launch late game 3's when your legs are dead. Anyone who has played also knows the refs generally "let them play" at the end so baiting for a foul (especially in the playoffs) is a dumb decision. I hate when we simply chalk up 0-27 as a statistical anomaly. Yes, that will probably never happen again, No, jacking up more threes by the time you are 0-14 is not the smartest thing to do. Especially stepback 3's. MDA is an awesome coach, miles better than Mchale. He's still stubborn to a fault (thankfully we have Bzdelik to balance him out). I also don't think it's a coincidence that our 3 point shooting seems to drop off over the course of the season. We looked unbeatable around this time last year as well. Just the sheer volume of 3's that we throw up has to be doing something (maybe to the hamstrings?) that could potentially be at fault for why we seem to fall off by the time the playoffs roll around. This could obviously be mitigated by running longer rotations. This is another staple of MDA's stubborness. I was incensed last year when we didn't sit our players on the run up into the playoffs. Yes, rust matters. Still, when you get that golden opportunity to rest up on the run up into the playoffs and the games don't matter, REST. Maybe, just maybe then we could've had a healthy Mbah a Moute. Maybe CP3 could've held up longer. Just think the short-sightedness of our team is maddening at times. Went way off topic, but bottomline, its not all black and white.
I didn't mind not resting players towards the end of the season. It's whatever. My problem is when DAntoni is not willing to acknowledge that his players need rest in the playoffs. It was asanine that he went to a 7 man rotation in that Golden State series. If something has been proven is that legs will die out playing so many minutes in a short span and having to play your hardest on both ends of the floor. DAntoni is so damn stubborn that he doesn't realize that just some minutes of rest here and there will make the difference. Look at Harden, when you play him the whole 2nd half he usually doesn't have any legs to finish the game, but when you do sit him about 6 minutes between end of 3rd and beginning of 4th, he seems to be a lot sharper and have the legs to finish a game. I get that our players our paid professionals but they are still human and will wear out. That 0-27 in game 7 was evidence that our players were gassed.
Do we really think that after all this yrs of coaching that he doesn't understand the benefits of a well rested player? We praise him for his brilliance in creating plays but somehow,he does not know this simple notion? Is it .more likely that he wants players to play more minutes just because or he thinks this is our best chance to win the game? Stubborn to me is somebody who knows this would be better and refuses to do it. Unless you define it as,he does not do it the way YOU want it, then i digress.
