the worrisome direction coach RA leads this team to

Morey revealed himself when he said he didn't expect The Rockets to be very good this year. The problem? They were. And there was his dilemma.

Landry broke out. Chuck Hayes was heading for the all defensive team. Adelman was heading for Coach of The Year. And Tracy McGrady wasn't even back yet. The Rockets were expected to fold but didn't. The exact opposite happened and now Morey had a big problem. Landry would command a much larger salary that he probably couldn't match next season. He also wanted a lottery pick THIS YEAR. He tried other means to get that pick other than tanking, but wasn't able to get teams to bite for McGrady's contract (The closest he could get was taking The Knicks future picks).

So, for Morey, he did what he knew would make all his dreams come true; He told Rick Adelman to cut Chuck Hayes' minutes. What Chuck was able to do at 6' 6" was simply amazing. His teammates knew it and it boosted their morale. They played harder because they knew Chuck was down their battling guys twice his size and winning most of the time. I mean, how can your stars not give it 110 percent if your undersized Power Forward is getting it done down there?

Adelman has was quoted many times early in the season that The Rockets were a different team with Chuck on the floor. There was all defensive team talk. And then all of a sudden in early December, Chuck goes from playing starter minutes to playing 14-16 mpg? This cannot be a coincidence. And then The Rockets start to slide defensively. Letting teams edge them in the 4th. Blowing leads in the 2nd quarter. Within a matter of weeks they fall out of the playoffs.

Just by making this one little change, it opened up all kinds of possibilities for Morey. I mean, think about it, if The Rockets had continued to play like they did and were sitting in the 5 or 6 spot of the playoffs, could Morey convince the fans that trading Carl Landry, arguably the teams best player for Kevin Martin was a good move? Or that dumping T-Mac for Jared friggin' Jeffries and a couple of future draft picks was better than just letting his contract expire? The answer is Hell No! But, after cutting Hayes' minutes and causing the team to fall out of playoff contention, he got exactly what he wanted. The fans were begging him for a trade and saluted him for making the deal.

 

Sounds like an episode of the X-Files! Conspiracy theorists unite!


The truth is out there! Trust no one!

 

I'm pretty sure that Buddinger couldn't have played defense well enough to practice on a Jeff Van Gundy team, let alone start. It's hard to say whether or not Ariza would fit in with Van Gundy or not.

 

Yet, you don't offer any other explanation as to why a guy's minutes would get cut when there was no mention of injury and The Rockets were in the playoffs...

 

Man honestly I just think RA was trying to get some different options on the floor. I like chuck and wish he was about 4 inches taller. He's a great passer and very good post defender. I just think he had a hard time getting minutes when Rick started playing Landry and Scola together more and more. But you know your theory is just as plausible as mine.

 

Chuck Hayes +/- started going down in December also. You are right. It cannot be a coincidence that his minutes started getting cut.

 

Chuck started getting abused. Many teams had figured out they can shoot over him and not to back him down. If you check the games where checked played 14-17 minutes, he had the most negative +/- numbers of all the players in those games. Rockets were letting the game slip away, so Adelman benched him.

 

Chuck consistently had the lowest or 2nd lowest +/- numbers in those games that he played under 20 minutes in December. Everytime he was in the game, the other team was going on a run. Chuck was figured out.


Chuck's 1st game under 20 minutes in December
-8(2nd lowest)
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=291203009

Chuck's 2nd game under 20 minutes in December
-7(lowest)
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=291211020

Chuck's 3rd game under 20 minutes in December
-14(2nd lowest)
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=291213028

Chuck's 4th game under 20 minutes in December
-6(2nd lowest)
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=291218006

Chuck's 5th game under 15 minutes in December
-8(lowest)
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=291222010

 

We are missing a 7'6 center and his back up defensive specialist from last season.

But more importantly besides that fact, Adelman already addressed this issue when he was first signed to the Houston Rockets in an interviewed. He said (if I remember correctly) that with this style of play the opposing team will score more than their usual average because there are more possessions per game. Adelmans offense typically scores quickly and rely a lot more on the transition game. Keep in mind that the transition game works for both teams.

With Shane and Yao out, Mutombo retired, a 6'6 starting center it's hard to stop a team like the Thunder.

 

Uh, we don't have Yao OR Deke this year...what do you think our defense was going to do? Oh and Yao is a very good post defender...I don't know where you are getting your opinions from...do you see what he does to Howard? Yao struggles against moblie big men(like everyone does) that pull him out to the elbow.

It's kind of funny that you think Yao won't solve a lot of defense problems...oh, wait it's Aldeman's fault that this team isn't as good as last year's. Have you been following the Rockets at all?

 

burnnotice - are you ToyCen?

 

Bob Sura started with the Rockets at a record of 6-10. They lost his first game starting to go to 6-11.

Between then and David Wesley's first game the Rockets went 7-4 to get to 13-15. In other words, they had already started to turn things around.

You also fail to tell us about how Wesley scored 2 points in his first game - big contribution. The real truth was that T-mac and Yao started clicking and guys started supporting them better - particularly Sura.

Yes, Wesley was an improvement over Jackson who was old, but that's not saying much. You could have plugged so many players into their to be an improvement upon Jackson.

Oh, and how did the Rockets do after Wesley joined them????

They went 7-4! In other words, the record was identical the previous 11 games as it was the next 11 games - suggesting David Wesley really didn't make all that much of a difference after all.

The team gelled for other reasons...of which David Wesley was a very tiny component.

 

Offense alone does not win in the playoffs. Aaron Brooks and Kevin Martin will get beat up. Can they take it? Can we get more physical bulldogs to counteract that?


People, the block shots are not what makes Yao/shotblocker valueable, it is the changed shots...

 

Wow, so much gnashing of teeth going on here. Sorry, I don’t have the energy to read all gazillion posts to this thread but I have to respond.

waih - Your OP is terribly flawed at best and lying with statistics at worst (by presuming a position and then cherry-picking data to fit it). Why?

a) Association does not imply causation
b) There are better team defense metrics
c) Lurking variables


BETTER METRICS FOR DEFENSE:
Let’s start with better metrics to begin with since it’s easier to discuss. There’s a better metric for defense than FG%. It’s Defensive Efficiency (sometimes referred to as DRtg) and usually described in points allowed per x possessions (usually 100 possessions). Why is this better than FG%? Because DRtg accounts also for the opposing team free throws made, the value of opposing team 3-ptrs, and defensive rebounds as well. FG% doesn’t. The bottom line is FG% doesn’t measure the most important indicator of team’s defense which is the number of points allowed by a team to their opponents which defensive efficiency does.

So for grins let’s look at the Rockets DRtg (points allowed per 100 possesions) the past few years shall we and see what that tells us?

Code:

Year	DRtg	Rank	Coach
0203	102.6	(14/29)	RT
0304	99	(5/29)	JVG
0405	101.7	(4/30)	JVG
0506	103.3	(6/30)	JVG
0607	100.7	(3/30)	JVG
0708	101.6	(2/30)	RA
0809	104	(4/30)	RA
0910	107.2	(16/30)	RA

Hmmm, a little bit different picture. Under JVG the Rockets were 5th, 4th, 6th, 3rd. Under RA they were 2nd, 4th, 16th. First the best DRtg rank of the Rockets at 2nd was under the Rick Adelman regime, not JVG. 2nd if we threw out this year’s DRtg RA’s Rockets defensive was on average better than JVG’s.

But of course doomsday prophets will immediately point to RA’s “trend” right? 2, 4, 16 – gasp!! The Rockets are on an exponential meltdown in defense by a factor of 2!!! At this rate we’ll be dead last at rank 30 next year (16^2 = 256 but there’s only 30 teams in the NBA).

Wow, by that logic we’ve also found the cure to world health, peace, and poverty my friends!!! Let’s give at least two TV’s to everyone in third world countries!! Why?? Because statistically did you know that nations with more TV’s have higher life expectancies??

Of course that’s ridiculous but it points out another major issue in the OP being….


…ASSOCIATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION
TV’s don’t extend life expectancy but if you believed association/correlation is the same as cause-and-effect then you would imply that. Rich countries have more money thus better nutrition and health care compared to poor ones thus higher life expectancies, not because they have more TV’s. Having more TV’s is probably a function of having more money.

Silly little example but one of the key principles in dealing with statistics is that even close correlation never implies that there is a cause and effect relationship between the variables. Why? Because of a host of things including the dreaded lurking variables.

The same applies to the FG% JVG vs. RA so called "trend" or my DRtg comparison "trend".


LURKING VARIABLES
So in the OP our regression equation is implied to be:

defense = coaching_scheme

In other words a team’s defense is a function of the coaching only. When we simplify it that way the whole premise becomes ridiculous. Why? Because we all intuitively know that there are other variables to that equation lurking than just coaching_scheme. For example it could include more stuff like...

Defense = coaching_scheme + players’_abilities + opponent_matchups + 5_man_units + …. +x +y +z

Anyway hopefully the point is made. There are other variables.

Let’s have a little more fun with this shall we and decompose the “players’_abilities” variable in our equation a bit …

Defense = coaching_scheme + (starters + bench + scrubs + Yao) + ……+x +y +z

Just how big of a lurking variable could Yao be in all of this? One way is to compare the defensive efficiency of the Rockets when Yao is playing vs. when he’s not. So taking a look at the 2008-09 season (per 82games.com) this is what we get…

Yao On Court: DRtg 103.1
Yao Off Court: DRtg 108.5

That’s a difference of 5.4 points more allowed per 100 possessions. What would this mean if we applied it to this season? Let’s assume Yao’s worth about 5 fewer points allowed per 100 in defense (a little worse than last year) and see what kind of effect that would have on our defense.

This year our DRtg is 107.2 so..

107.2 – 5 = 102.2

If the Rockets DRtg this year was at 102.2 that would put us at least in 2nd rank in defensive efficiency (just ahead of Boston who’s currently at 102.4). So heck ya, Yao would make a difference. Yes, yes there a bunch of other things that need to be accounted for. This is just a little example to demonstrate that lurking variables exist including a big one in the form of the Great Wall himself .

In summary, the OP is flawed because a) association doesn’t imply causation in statistics, b) there are better defense metrics that tell a different story, c) lurking variables exist including a big one named Yao Ming.

 

Tango!
You had me at "Association does not imply causation"! Great post and well written. Should be mandatory reading for any aspiring analyst.

 

There is nothing to worry about direction coach RA leads this team to this year. The team rosters have been changed so much this year, there is not much identity concerning on the team chemistry. Next year team will be much better with addition of a few defensive mind players.

 

Haha, Tango just demythologized the notion that Adelman is an offense-only coach.

 

I salute you. Please do post more often.