Re-visiting the effects of the Brewer for Williams trade

Again, Maury needs to trade Lou Williams and a late 1st for Corey Brewer

git er dun Morray

 

Teams are not leaving Lou Williams sitting by himself at the 3 point line like they were doing Brewer. As long as Lou Williams is being respected as a shooter by opposing teams, we shouldn't care about percentages. He opens up the floor for Harden, which helps the MDA offense and spacing. His shots will start falling soon.

 

don't see why that really matters when it comes to the team. I don't think there's a rule about him having to shoot more shots then williams. whoever has the better shot just needs to take it. EG is not shy about putting up shots on this team

 

exactly. he actually has to be guarded which is something you don't see on a box score.

Seeing harden being able to go at a mismatch a the top, while the other 4 guys on the perimeter all have to be guarded is just great to see. something you didn't see the last couple years

 

Gotta find the right balance with the second unit. Bev is slowly letting Lou take over the reigns methinks. Should be clicking hard by playoffs. Lou needs to drive, when Gordon does it I pray to the gods he doesn't get hurt. I like my Gordon shooting threes and playing underrated defense, my bev scrapping hard for some hustle plays and my Lou doing harden like things when harden is on the bench.

 

Ha ha

 

Good, he's getting all his bad shots out of the way before the playoffs. 80% shooting for playoffs confirmed.

 

I'm not too concerned. Williams is a streaky shooter, but he's shown throughout his career that he has more nights where he's on rather than off. I think he's probably feeling a little bit of the pressure of being thrown into a playoff run, and he's second guessing himself a little. I felt like he forced a couple of shots last night that didn't seem to come naturally to him. I think MDA will use the next couple of days to coach the team up a little bit on some of the things they've been lagging on lately, including getting Williams acclimated to the new offense.

 

not worried either.. the good thing about our shooting is we dont need all of them going offf.... we can have 2-3 shoorters have bad to mediocre nights and still do well if 2 shooters are on.. If you look by percentage if rockets who average about 50 three's if they are shooting between 35-40% which is strictly decent, they are usually blowing teams away.. if they are between 30-35 they have a lead in a close game and below 30 we dont do too well. But we have too good a shooters to be in that position. The brilliance of MDA offense is we typically generate 6-9 freethrows of three point fouls, that adds to the overall efficiency. Ryno had a cold spell before but Lou, Harden and Gordon to a degree carried us, Now Lou is cold but Bev and Ryan have caught fire with Harden still being respectable.. We have a damn good team which is fun to watch, enjoy the ride.. I am calling going off for 35 against his former team Lakers..

 

This hints at what I believe is happening to our offense right now...

First, integrating a point guard is difficult. It's one thing to go from one team to another as a cutter or spot up shooter. But as a ball handler, Lou is trying to figure out how all the pieces (including himself) fit. I think he will figure it out by the end of the regular season, and hopefully our final 10 games are relatively pointless so we can focus on and experiment with him.

Second, I'm concerned with the spacing of our bench unit. It's not just Harden being on the bench....it has something to do with Anderson as well. When Anderson sits and Dekker comes in, we go from a guy that can launch 3s from 5 feet behind the arc at a 40% clip to someone that basically only takes open 3s at the arc and hits 32% of them. Lou and Gordon are good at driving the lane, but they can't do it at the level Harden can, which means spacing is even more important for the bench unit.

IMO, one of two things needs to be done. Either Anderson needs to start the beginning of the 2nd quarter with Bev/Lou/Gordon, or we need to find someone that can space the floor better than Dekker (Casspi). I would rather keep Anderson's minutes as they are for health reasons and bring in Casspi, who is probably a better fit with that 2nd unit anyway (better defender and cutter than Anderson).

 

I thought Lou was brought in as insurance, not liking how he is being used over others at the moment especially when we go to micro ball.

DD

 

This point can't be overstated. The stats to follow are TEAM offensive stats. The Rockets have taken off since the all-star break, and that's generally been against tougher competition thus far.

 

Great points @phantoman - underrated thread.

I would like to know how many pump fake shots has Lou taken since arriving? Is Dekker the white Brewer & does he own a goat? Is Gordons 6th man award race really bothering him vs his own teammate? Why does Bev continue to dribble the ball when Lou / Gordon are in the game with him?

 

I think this is just due to a small sample size, don't the Rox just have like 4 games since ASB? Lou Will is undergoing a massive slump, I don't know why except maybe he has been joining Harden in partying hard everynight and his body can't take it (he's like 31 already right?).

I actually think it's good that Gordon is deferring to Lou Will and becoming more of an off the ball guy, having him try to score on the bounce instead of stand still spot up shooting is a better use of his skills. The main issue here is Lou Will has been shooting like crap after the first game, once he starts playing well again we are gonna take off. I remember this si basically the same thing Ryan Anderson went through, he started out hot in preseason then started stinking it up the first 10 games of the regular season before he became consistent and upped his scoring to 15 pts a game.

 

Some things OP overlooked by using totals/per game over usage:

Brew Off Rtg: 102
Lou Off Rtg: 112

Brew Def Rtg: 110
Lou Def Rtg: 110

Brew TO%: 12.7
Lou TO%: 8.7

Brew Ast%: 9.2
Lou Ast%: 14.0


What these tell is that Lou is creating for others more than Brew ever did, the defense has not dropped off significantly (or at all really), we have less turnovers coming from that position, and the overall offense with Lou out there is 10 points better over each 100 possessions.

He and Eric obviously have to continue learning how to play together, but there has already been a dramatic improvement offensively and nearly no regression defensively. Once they really gel other teams need to be really worried

 

I kinda think one needs to be moved into the starting line-up either Lou or Gordon so the roles are more clearly defined. I think Bev and Lou running the 2nd unit would work fine.

 

Too small a sample of games. Lets wait a bit to reach a preliminary conclusion. You don't just drop a guy in the lineup and expect him to produce prolifically. He is still finding his sweet spot.