[Wall Street Journal] The Rockets Shoot From Outer Space

The extended three makes the geometry impossible for the human body to guard the paint and recover in time to affect the open 3.

 

except when Anderson hesitates ...

 

Everyone seemed to think it was Leslie who forced the Rockets to hire MDA, but is that actually true? Anything out there to suggest that Daryl had MDA as his first priority for HC?

 

I'm now beginning to think that Morey interviewing others and saying defense was a priority was just a negotiating ruse to keep D'Antoni's salary down, since Les still owed McHale money. Everything since points to Morey was always highly intrigued with MDA. He just had to keep the salary down.

MDAs salary is one of the lowest in the league, especially for coaches signing with a playoff team. Even Luke Walton signed for $1m/yr more.

 

The only real challenge to the theory in my opinion is that I think you could also correlate a reduced mid-range % with practicing and taking the longer three due to the variance in arc/angles necessary to maximize accuracy at a closer distance. And at some point that may factor into the equation. Though I hope it never does. It probably doesn't impact high arc shooters like Purvis Short, Glen Rice, or even Larry Bird, but I would think most players would see decreased accuracy over time from inside the arc.

 

Everything points to the closer shot is the easier shot, but worth 1pt less.

Let's not confuse accuracy with pts per shot efficiency. That said, it is easier for defenses to guard you when you are 15-20' away from the basket. It's harder to get an open look, but 2ptrs do prove to have higher FG% still, just not PPS.

 

True, but don't confuse the higher 2 pt FG% compared to 3 pt %, with decreased 2 pt FG% compared to your previous 2 pt FG %, which I think you would find with the long distance 3 pt shooting players over time that don't shoot with the same arc.

For example; Curry's 2 pt FG % has dropped from .567 to .537, and I think you could correlate that to increased distance shooting.

 

Well MDA failed in his last two stops so he really had no reason to command a high salary. I'm also not sure how a low salary for a coach affects Morey's ability to operate in any way. Your theory is rather conspiratorial.

 

I am so glad Les stepped in and took control of the coaching situation by firing McFail and hiring Mike AntoniO

I had enough of Maury using the Rockets as his experimentation tool and hiring puppet coaches like Milk Hair

 

lol well the money comes from somewhere. It wouldn't affect morey's ability to operate but morey works for les and les is already paying mchale still so he wouldn't want to have to pay more than he has to for another coach.

that being said I agree with you that is probably not how it went down and is just a conspiracy theory, but it makes perfect sense to see why morey would be motivated to pay as little as possible. He works for Les and the money comes out of Les' pocket.

I agree with you though that he just has a low salary because he didn't look good in new york or la

 

If a player shoots the longer 3 more accurately than the shorter 3, that's because that particular player gains more from the extra space (distance from the defender, or likelihood that the defender was able to get close enough to guard effectively) than he loses from the increased difficulty of the longer shot.

It's entirely possible that Morey has been able to analyze potential roster additions based on long-3 percentage, and has used it in constructing this team.

If so, and if he's been unusual in doing this, his competitive advantage will diminish as more teams adopt the strategy and draft and bid for players accordingly.

 

Well then, forget salary. my thoughts are everything Morey and MDA have said since the signing points to Morey wanting him all along. Is that more or less conspiratorial than saying Les picked MDA when Morey wanted someone else. lulz

But to answer your question,,,there is nothing out there of Morey saying MDA was is first, second or third choice.

Still say it's natural for Morey to say we need to address defense vs doubling down on shooters, to avoid tipping his hand on both coaches and free agents. I mean, he still would want to talk to everyone. Point is, I think many of us read too much into his statement about defense, and didn't want MDA, so concocted a story that Les must have forced it to excite the fans with offense for the fun of it.

 

The stats in the article were for the entire team. So since Brewer and Dekker only shoot at the line, and our most elite shooters are the only extreme distance shooters, makes sense that's why as a team it looks like we shoot better from further out, per your theory.

I have always thought that what they came upon (and Ryan did say it wasn't really planned, so no Morey analytics, but "serendipity") is the only way to keep shooting 40-50 threes after our December success was to step further back and let percentage slip for more shots. That is, Voulme is more important than %. I don't think our % went up by theoretically being more open.

I mean, we can say shooting a contested three from the line is harder than stepping back for a more open look,,,sure...but more to the point is we are not supposed to even shoot it, but rather pass it, or even more accurately put, Harden will drive and alley oop vs passing it to you. I don't think we will find anywhere that our contested threes went up, so we stepped back, if that's what you're implying. But I do think we'll find that our volume went down, so we needed to get it back up...by Ryno and EGo stepping back. I think Harden had been doing it for awhile already.

Don't get me wrong, I do agree that uncontested from further is better than contested from close, as that holds true for any shot, as well. just wanted to chime in to say several of us have been tracking our contested vs uncontested threes, and it doesn't really change much per game. The key change based on defenses is volume of 3s vs Harden attacking the rim instead,,,pick your poison.

 

biggest takeaway from this article is that harden and morey have a relationship. If you listen to harden's comments closely you can see that he has a good relationship with dantoni, morey, and les. Dude isn't going anywhere. He's gonna get that 220 mil super max eventually and be here for the long haul

 

Media conspiracy as its finest.

 

Now imagine if we had a center in the paint who could actually punish his guy down low without help defense. That's why we need a low post threat like Cousins.

 

It's always an open shot if you take it from outer space. Genius!

 

More proof that the NBA would be so much more fun with the 4 pt line

 

Some fans that complain about teams taking too many threes nowadays think that pushing the line back a few feet would revive the midrange game. This article proves that it wouldn't, the floor would likely just be spaced out even further. You could push the line back to 30 feet and we'd still be chucking them up. The midrange is dead and isn't coming back.