You're grasping at straws here. You're leaving the part out about how NBA defenses are adjusting to the gimmick offense. Notice how Rocket shooters are now considering 3pt shots 5 ft behind the 3 pt line as 'open shots'. Jacking up 50 threes a game makes the offense predictable. Defenses prefer guarding that type of offense because it's easy to predict. You are completely ignoring the adjustment t part that NBA defenive coaching is capable of when you hedge our offense to be a one trick poney and we are seeing it right before our eyes. Teams let our players roam around in the mid range and just pack the paint and the three point line thus now a 'good shot' is a heave 5 ft behind the three point line? You think that's sustainable especially when you even admit this team doesn't have great three point t shooters... Something g that I hope would be a requirement for a team to jack up 50 threes a game.
That 10th best offense in history 'only' resulted in 55 wins and 2nd round exit in the playoffs. Our defense was league average, so we actually underperformed relative to our offensive efficiency, which MDA himself acknowledged. Why is that? You're also not taking into account the fact that our offense was not the same in the latter part of the season and in the playoffs as it was during the first two months. Teams have more or less figured out how to defend the Rockets (which is not that difficult, tbh), as evidenced by our meager 15-9 record post All-Star break and 6-5 in the playoffs. In terms of overall growth curve, this team is heading downwards since the beginning of 2017. If you still can't see that something is wrong with our 'system', you're just not paying attention or plain ignorant.
Mythology. Predict and know all they want, a close out takes too long to cover 20+ feet. There is rarely a reason to take a mid range shot - and when I say rarely I mean less than 82 times in a whole NBA season. I don't want anyone on this team taking those shots. If our personnel were different it would defy the stats, but it's not. Paul is the only outlier, and he will be taking mid range shots.
You are being irrational. A team that starts Anderson/Capela/Ariza/Bev with Anderson and Ego as the top offensive threats should never ever win 55. The offensive strategy carried us. To even impy that we could have done better is total fantasy. Heck, the 55 wins were fantasy.
If I'm being honest, you are correct. if you are not willing to acknowledge statistical realities in the context of the league and roster, then we are at an impasse.
By definition we could've done better because our offense was much better in the beginning, and went to **** only after other teams started to figure us out. We didn't have any countermeasures to that, hence our pathetic record post All-star break and in the playoffs. Also, you don't seem to get the concept of threshold which is very odd. Look, eating vegetables is supposed to good for you. Now, try ONLY eating vegetables and nothing else, and see how that nutrition program works out for you. There is always a point beyond which even a 'good' thing becomes toxic because it's just too much. This is one of the fundamental laws of the universe. Everyone here understands that three-point shooting is very important in modern NBA and ill-advised mid-range shots should be avoided if possible. That's not the issue; the issue is how far and extreme are you willing to go with that strategy.
You are looking at stats in a vacuum and comparing that new data to the past, i.e. those people who thought the earth was flat is just silly...things have changed sure, but there's more to it than you're assuming or thinking. Also your claims regarding stats are not equal to reality. There might be statistical facts, but without context they don't mean jack. A 3pt shot according to some formula being equivalent to 1.12 or whatever PPS and a mid-range 2 to 0.93 and close range 1.05 does not mean in all situations, with each roster, in every part of the game is always the best or better shot.
You are definitely objectively wrong. You are without question ignoring context, that's why the example you initially provided was anecdotal. Even if anecdotal evidence makes you question hard facts, it doesn't mean you should change your approach. The context is this: the teams who overachieve offensively with their level of talent are the teams taking the fewest mid range shots. The Warriors, in fact, are a statistical outlier. They will be offensively elite no matter what they do, but the fact that they reserve mid range for a historically elite mid range shooter to achieve an all-time great offense is an indication that mid range J's should not be taken by non elite mid range shooters. We have to make a strategic choice. I have yet to see a situation where someone is left to take a stroll in the mid range. There's always someone 2 feet away, no matter how lax their defense. Bottom bottom line: we have obliterated any realistic predictions of how this offensive talent should perform. It's absurd to question it. It's like if Canada became a global manufacturing powerhouse: there's no reason they should be that, it's absurd to apply archaic practices to the risky strategy that worked. It may seem unbelievable to you now, but the fact that we were in game 6 against the spurs last season was punching WAAAY above our talent level, and our defense SUUUUUUCKED. What do you think went well?
I'm done with this thread because of silly arguments like these. This is anecdotal. There is nothing to support it. What happened after all star break is teams had a deeper scouting report on our offense, yes. That doesn't mean it's not the best offense we can run. You are arguing nothing. How far and extreme are we willing to go: we are faced with the most talented team in NBA history. We will go FAR FAR, and so far it has resulted in us winning and scoring WAY more than we should. It would be crazy to go in reverse. The teams that are doing that are buried, the coaches that are coaching that are on their way out of the league.
You don't know how badly I want Rockets to take open two's. I swear EG and Harden will get pass their guy and just run right into the center of the other team to hopefully get a call or just get a turnover.
You come across as really arrogant if you think I am objectively wrong. How am I ignoring context when you bring up stats without any real arguments or evidence yet claim they are factual. Nothing what you’ve said are hard facts..you have a warped perception about how stats, science and context works. I’m not sure you’ve watched us play but we’ve had plenty of opportunities to take mid-to-long range twos, yet haven’t. Also your argument that defenders are somehow closer to get to a shooter inside the arc than outside of it is wrong. Plenty of our threes have been heavily contested, Ryan Gordon and Harden are just too good and hit them anyway at times. No reason they cannot hit twos contested. Harden has hit plenty of contested twos. Or are you denying all this? You are clearly underselling the team we had last year. And we could’ve been even better. All teams who win are better than the sum of their parts, but overachieving offensively only when you take the fewest mid-range shots?! I wonder where you get that idea from, but it’s a baseless notion. Statistically we might’ve have had a top 10 offense of all time, but we did not have an elite offense. It was skewed due to our threes and it won us games, but it will never get you far when your sets are simplistic and you ignore a part of the floor that some of our guys are elite at. Maybe you could win if you have a roster with 4-5 elite 3pt shooters but again you need to run more plays and use the mid-to-long range, like the Warriors do.
See here is why there is no argument. It's like trying to debate a a religious person. You are ignoring overwhelming indicators. We were the 10th best offense of all time, yet you say we were not an elite offense, and you still ignore that it was with mediocre offensive talent. It's the offensive system. That's the only reason we weren't battling for 8th seed. It's because we changed the game AND IT WORKED INSANELY WELL. Thanks for the debate. Let's see what the season brings us.
Do you even understand the distinction between the marginal and the average? What you're saying is that on average shooting more threes usually results in better offensive efficiency, which is true. That has nothing to do with whether going from shooting 50 threes in a game (which is already damn high) to 60 will yield the same amount of benefit, if there is one to begin with. You also don't have any proof for whether this magical benefit will continue to accrue even when pushed to the nth degree, which would practically mean that we should completely eliminate all other shots and ONLY take three-pointers from now on. Again, you just don't seem to get that there could be a point where too much is just too much, and any additional three-point attempt will yield no further benefit. I'm not saying this is definitively the case, but you don't have a good case against it either. And it certainly looks like there are moments during the game where our players don't take advantage of good mid-range opportunities because of this toxic mindset such as yours, which is just stupid because even by the standards of analytics those shots have higher PPS value than contested threes when there's less than 8 seconds left on the shot clock. If you think there is such a thing as infinite growth, then it's pretty clear that you don't even have a basic grasp of statistics (or mathematics, or physics, or biology, or just how the world works in general.) So, is this the model you have in your mind? You're basically saying there is no limit to this graph, which is fooking insane. You're the one being unscientific and irrational here; hope you understand that.
Again with the anecdotes. No one said that. Show us the data for why we SHOULD take mid range jump shots. None of you guys have done that, and there's a very good reason you haven't. Unless you're going to bring that, thanks for the conversation. Let's let the season unfold and see how our views play out.
What do you mean we should take mid-range shots? Nobody is saying we need to take them more than the three-pointers in general; all we're saying is that there are certain moments during the game where we should, such as this: and failing to capitalize on those opportunities could lead to a disastrous negative momentum swing. Sometimes you need a bucket just for its sake, to start get going after missing five consecutive shots, regardless of its value. You're just being dense if you don't understand that. Since you don's seem to agree with common sense, are you willing to listen to Kirk Goldberry, one of the founders of NBA Analytics movement? Morey has also implemented this extreme three-point heavy strategy with the Vipers in the D-League, to which Goldberry says:
Stats don’t tell the whole story. Just because we shot a lot of threes and made them, doesn’t mean we were this amazing offensive team. If you would argue we seriously ran one of the best 10 offensive systems, plays and strategy based on some rating then you don’t get it. Thanks for showing your arrogance and little evidence to prove your points while some of us have common sense, get context and don’t equate stats and science to facts. The fact you ask someone else to provide data is very telling. Despite your attitude that you know better, let’s indeed end it here because we have different views. Subjectively hope you get there’s no objectivity here. I look forward to have a better discussion in the future where we can maybe even convince one another. Respect for sticking to your guns, even if you won’t necessarily respect me and others who disagree
