[ClutchFans] Podcast: What in the world is wrong with the Houston Rockets?

to be blunt, your an idiot. j/k

if you don't think that the lead dog steers the pack then you are sadly mistaken.

i am not refusing to admit that the other players need to step up their games, but when Harden plays crap defense where is the incentive for the other players to play hard. when Harden is doing the iso ball and the other guys are just standing around it stalls the offense. when the players have to wait on Harden to bring the ball up the court instead of running a fast break it slows the tempo.

While its not all on Harden, being the lead dog means a lot of it does fall on his shoulders though...

Oh and never mind the fact that we have been down by 20+ points in almost every game this year....
Give me a Michael Jordan, Larry Bird or Magic Johnson who is not afraid to call his team mates out for half-assing it on the court any day over this "its all good, meet me at the club after the game" mentality the modern day players seem to have.

 

what's wrong with the rockets?

harden is playing too many minutes. according to the team leader.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="el"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Let's try that again with correctly labeled axis...THIS is silly. <a href="https://t.co/0O0GF4OuBe">pic.twitter.com/0O0GF4OuBe</a></p>&mdash; Seth Partnow (@SethPartnow) <a href="https://twitter.com/SethPartnow/status/672201729459417088">Δεκέμβριος 2, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" lang="el"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here's the same chart defensively <a href="https://twitter.com/DHorn7">@DHorn7</a> <a href="https://t.co/kMvV4GsZ9D">pic.twitter.com/kMvV4GsZ9D</a></p>&mdash; Seth Partnow (@SethPartnow) <a href="https://twitter.com/SethPartnow/status/672205249147375616">Δεκέμβριος 3, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Here is what's basically wrong with our season. Worst defence and worst offence. Look at GSW's offence how much better is than expected.
Also we haven't been unlucky with our defence. We ALLOW those shots. NOP is unlucky we are not.

 

Of course! In other words, how do you win a game? Decrease the opponents scoring and/or increase your own scoring.

The solutions are easy.

1. Defense.

2. Defense.

3. Defense.

4. Take easy shots. F-U-C-K 3-and-layup. Easy shots only, be it 3s, mid-range, or layups.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Lawson on if he knows his role now: &quot;Not really. Still trying to figure that out. Probably 5 or 6 more games &amp; it will probably be clear.&quot;</p>&mdash; ClutchFans (@clutchfans) <a href="https://twitter.com/clutchfans/status/672271249666539524">December 3, 2015</a></blockquote>
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It is troubling that Lawson still does not even know his role. What the hell did the Rockets do in pre-season? The failure to integrate Lawson and evolve the offense effectively cost McHale his job.

 

With so many injuries during preseason they pretty much didn't have a preseason and you could tell McHale was very troubled by it.

 

What is expected eFG%?

How is it calculated?

 

Appears to be what the league average eFG% is for type of shot and how contested the shot is based on SportsVU camera data analysis. If you go to nba.com stats and look at team tracking or player tracking, it will show you the % based on how far away the closest defender is.

Appears to be a lot of assumptions that have to be made with no ability to rate the shot quality other than how far the defender and the location of the shot (plus catch n shoot vs pullup or off the dribble) ... but nonetheless, it is based on league averages from video tracking data.

XeFG% is what a player shooting at league average rates on the player’s mix of close, mid-range and three-point attempts would expect to shoot based on the defense attention those shots received. eFG% represents the observed effective field goal percentage on those shots and DEFG is the amount a player is either exceeding or falling short of his “expected” shooting percentage. At this point, there isn’t a systematic way for determining the degree to which this differential represents skill, short term variance and luck, or a player getting shots that are systematically easier or harder than general shots from various locations.​

 

Interesting. So we're taking good shots but missing them.


And our defense is just giving up tons of good shots.

 

Yes it is based on shot selection (offence and defence). This in that instance was calculated by Paltnow based on the Sportvu data.
Pay attention to the defensive one in particular. Analysis has shown that % on 3pointer is much more correlated to NUMBER of 3s a team allows.Also transition offence as we all know allows the best fg%.
As you see in the sheme the Rockets allow the opponents offence to get what it wants basically. That's why we suck.
It's not because we have been "unlucky" with the opponents hitting the shots. It's because they find those shots and hit them.

Our offence on the other hand clearly demonstrates that it should be much better because our shot selection is perfect and that we can't hit the wide side of the barn.

These charts can predict a lot of times regression. So based on this the msot likely outcome is that our offence will improve drastically but our defence will remain bottom 3 in the league.

 

Perhaps the league has figured out how to guard anything other than elite three point happy shooting teams (i.e. G.S.):

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/stephen-curry-is-the-revolution/

Other than Daryl Morey, Curry is perhaps the figurehead in the NBA’s Three-Point Revolution™. It’s easy to get swept up in the narrative that 3-point shooting has been long-undervalued and that smart sharpshooters are finally taking over the NBA. Teams that shot the most and the best from beyond the arc last year dominated like never before. The correlation between a team’s rate of attempting threes and its winning percentage was the highest it has ever been (.47). In the playoffs, the top 3-point-shooting teams made up the entirety of the conference finals:

Despite this, I’ve been a tiny bit skeptical of the notion that the 3-point shot is inherently superior. I’m not anti-three the way Byron Scott is, but I’ve suggested that the midrange game — which has historically been a strong indicator of success in the NBA — might still be important once defenses adjust to the new offensive math and a new equilibrium is reached.

 

i think we'll be fine. we're one game out of the last spot in the palyoffs. All we need to do is make sure we stay in the top 8, and get our **** together before the playoffs. 82 games is plenty of time.

 

I watched every Rockets games this season, wondering why Harden stopped using the Euro step? It has been a very efficient weapon over the years.

 

This is why I don't understand criticism of Moreyball. Taking good shots should always be the goal.

Now if you want to complain about the lack of shooters that Morey has gotten to fit his philosophy....now that's something worth criticizing.

 

That still doesn't mean that McHale shouldn't have had a plan, how to integrate Lawson with Harden. Bickerstaff is also trying to figure that out as well. This is a matter of serious concern.

 

Watching the Spurs play the other day... The Rox aren't evening sniffing some the bottom tier teams level. It's not going work this year so be prepared for the worst.

 

Spurs just walked away from Memphis last night. Not even a contest. And they haven't peaked by a long stretch. That puts into perspective where we are at in the West.

 

I think this data deserves its own thread. I will start one and start a discussion.

 

I have just solved world's energy problem with Fission-Technology system". Now all I need is 50 or so Nobel prize winning nuclear physicist to work on my "system". But there are so few in the world. Having better physicist is something I'd love to have but they don't make them easy to acquire. I have hired few guys from Community colleges who took Physics 101 last semester but you know what, they will improve. By the way, I am a Sociology major.


You are free to worship me, I am very active on Social Media.:grin: