Tango

Terse and a few others mentioned in another thread some interest regarding comparing Juwan Howard and Stromile Swift. I thought I would contribute to the discussion by preparing the following.

Bear in mind that this is just a look at one set of data namely season averages so the intent is not to do an exhaustive comparison but to get things started.

Here's data available from www.82games.com presented here:

FLOOR TIME STATS COMPARISON:


Looking at the floor time stats there doesn't seem a whole lot of difference between the two. Juwan Howard seems to have a slight edge in offensive production while Stromile seems to have a slight edge in shooting %.

Defensively they are about the same with Stromile having a slight edge in defensive points allowed.

The Net48 +/- points rating is interesting in that it demonstrates that while they are in the game we are about -4 pts production against opponents. Nothing new here about the production of our PF's compared to opposing PF's.

So the million dollar question is why does JVG like to play JH over SS if they are seemingly comparable? I'm sure the answer is multifaceted but the following comparison might yield some new information.

SHOT SELECTION COMPARISON:


This is an interesting chart. I've highlighted some key differences. Notice how Juwan Howard takes most of his shots as jumpshots while Stromile takes most of his shots close to the basket or as dunk attempts.

Could it be that JVG prefers having Juwan Howard in the game over Stromile to attempt to stretch the defenses giving Yao more room to operate? Maybe nothing really new to the concept but interesting that the data shows what it shows.

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topfive

Great to see Stro hitting nearly 85% of his DUNK ATTEMPTS.

apostolic3

The playing time has to do with what JVG sees happening out on the court. When Stro's head is in the game and he plays well, he gets more time. When he plays like Goofy, JVG yanks him outta there and goes right back to JH. It usually doesn't take very long to see which Stro shows up. Other times matchups dictate who gets on the floor. IMO, the playing time between them doesn't have much to do with spacing on offense.

durvasa

But look at the win-loss record of both players in the floor time stats. A win corresponds to the number of games in which the Rockets scored more than the opponent with that player on the floor, and a loss means Rockets scored less with that player on the court. It's interesting that Howard actually has a lot more "losses" than Swift, while only having one more "win." His win-loss record of 35% is really terrible. Compare that to Chuck Hayes, who leads the team with a 71.4% win-loss record (15-6).

Apparently Van Gundy is comfortable with the way Howard plays, even though the team as a whole underperforms with him on the court. I can't figure it out.

hooroo

Foul trouble.

hnjjz

Even more interesting is this table:

http://www.82games.com/0506/0506HOU.HTM

Not surprisingly, of all our rotation players, Yao and T-Mac have the highest ratings (I'm not counting Lampe, because he haven't played enough to make his stats significant). What is surprising is that Chuck Hayes is third on that list and the 2 guys that JVG likes the most, Juwon Howard and Ryan Bowen, are dead last among current Rockets.

apostolic3

Wasn't Stro MIA (injured) during much of the time Yao & Tracy were injured? I'm sure this accounts for some or all of this.

jopatmc

http://www.82games.com/0506/0506HOUP.HTM

If you want to see something even more interesting look at these player pair charts for our team.

Take a look at Yao's chart. He's positive with every member of the team but ...............??????

Take a look at McGrady's chart.

Then take a look at Howard's chart.

Then look at Hayes and Swift's charts.

Nuff said.

Howard is the only player on the whole team who is negative with both Yao and McGrady.

JoeBarelyCares

Look at the amazing production for Boki!!:

http://www.82games.com/0506/0506NJN.HTM

m_cable

****. He's even better than Lampe, our secret weapon. So secret that even JVG doesn't know about him.

chinesetaco

Juwan is hitting 87% of his dunk attempts.

wireonfire

I hope Yao will take Stro under his wings next season. Stro needs someone to show him the way. It is sad to see so much talent getting wasted.

Tango

Per-minute production becomes less and less reliable the fewer minutes a player plays as demonstrated by the Boki & Lampe numbers.

Chuck Hayes was a little bit of an enigma and I wasn't sure if the numbers for him mean anything or not because of the uncertainty related to enough minutes being played for the data to make sense.

Joe Joe

I like the following pages on 82games.com:

http://www.82games.com/0506/05HOU16C.HTM

http://www.82games.com/0506/05HOU15C.HTM

You can see how they do at PF and C. Stromile's numbers suggest he is playing much better individually as a PF than as a center or JHo at PF. He's putting up good numbers as a PF. I'm not saying this should justify starting Swift at PF, but that he should get more minutes there. Despite his numbers not being great at center, there is a definite need for him to play there at times.

One thing to point out, Jho starts...thus, he most likely plays more minutes against better PFs/units than Swift.

krosfyah

Howard plays better defense. Let me rephrase it, Stro makes a lot more mistakes on defensive rotations than Howard. Everybody bashes Juwan for lack of defense but he just doesn't make many mistakes. Maybe Juwan doesn't cover as much ground, but he makes the effort. Stro often just outright misses a rotation while Juwan might be a little slow but at least remembers to rotate.

Also, Stro sometimes goes on a turnover frenzy since he often has to dribble to get his shots off. Juwan rarely dribbles to get his shots.

Bottom line, JVG hates mistakes. Stro makes a lot of mistakes in between his highlights.

anitasri

I agree with your point- Juwan is more cerebral. The bottomline we have a veteran who does not make mistakes but gets owned because of him being slow and we have younger body who is athletic but makes boneheaded decisions.

There is just one solution- either give Stro more time consistently to correct what he is doing wrong or Ship him out. That is what is the cause of the anxiety- All we are doing is exposing our weakness for everyone to exploit.

Compare our PF position to the competition- we have to contend with the likes of Tim Duncan, Dirk, Shawn Marion, KG ( to mention just a few)

durvasa

Perhaps.

But I did do a comparison of Howard and Hayes since 1/18 in another thread, and it's clear that since that date we've been much better with Hayes on the floor than Howard.

durvasa

I think this is exactly right, and to a lesser degree it explains why Hayes hasn't gotten much time either (though Hayes doesn't make as many mistakes on defense than Swift).

But, by the same token, Yao also makes more mistakes than Howard. A coach can't just put guys on the floor who makes the least mistakes, regardless of ability. The time they get should be proportional to their overall effectiveness. Is Howard more effective than Swift and Hayes? Honestly, it doesn't appear that way. He certainly hasn't been more effective than Hayes.

m_cable

To be honest I haven't seen Stro make that many mistakes on the defensive end lately. He'll still stumble through the offense at times, not knowing where to go, but I don't recall him doing anything noticeably bad on defense in a while.