I'll toss a Star Wars analogy at you... How is it the SW prequels with a stellar cast (on paper) turned out so mediocre? And how do well respected AWARD winning actors look so WOODEN and bad in their roles? Was it some kind of simultaneous regression from ALL of them all of a sudden? Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor can't act good? Or could it be they're only as good as the source material and the producers directing them? There aren't any stats to show a lack of organization and direction from the front office. Player performances and stats can be a trailing indicator of a broken system. Where is a stat that says "George Lucas sucks" or "Daryl Morey has a misguided approach". Yes at least you do have supporting data to back up your point. Also can't be too dismissive of non-stats judgment calls either. I say the Rockets talent is there to be BETTER than they've shown, though not actual title contenders. The Spurs core players are old as dirt and they haven't had sharp declines
RPM doesn't have to be perfect to be considered more accurate than npi RPAM, which is full of high standard error and irrelevant noises. I've given you more precise version of the data, which you have refuted with less accurate one. That is absurd, and by your own metric Draymond Greene should be the MVP, not Curry;. As to Dwight, Ariza, Beverly not doing their job properly, http://www.rednationhoops.com/2016/03/rockets-defense-is-collective-issue-not.html Harden should not be the sole offensive anchor of this team, since that is way too much burden for any player could possibly take. Do you expect Dwight to rescue the team's defense just by himself? BTW, Dwight greatly contributed to this bizarre one-man-offense situation by completing sucking on the offensive side of the ball. His post up game has been painful to watch, and can no longer function as our 2nd scoring option. So of course, Harden had to take much more load offensively, and literally played the most minutes in the league, which has lead to some regression in terms of efficiency, but he is still one of the best offensive players out there, unlike Dwight who's not particularly good at anything at this point. I didn't say that Harden's D has not gotten worse this year, but it's just not the main reason for the decline in our team defense. If you're going to blame Harden when our offense is stagnant because he is our offensive focal point, then direct your attention to elsewhere besides Harden when it comes to defensive issue because he ain't our defensive anchor.
That doesn't negate my point at all. Why did these guys play better for Kerr than they did for Jackson? I'm not saying these numbers are meaningless, but they tell at the most only half of the story. Basketball is more than math and numbers, I hope the Rockets learned that this season. It's also about strategy, chemistry, and execution.
This team basically replaced Parsons with Ariza - and somehow managed to make it to the WCF. It was a fluke. This team is a not a WCF team. It's not an 8th seed, but probably should have been a 6th seed - but definitely not a great team.
As you anticipated in your OP, their low ranking could be because they are underperforming. The team is dysfunctional and the players are not able to leverage their talent to produce results on the floor. If you produced these same rankings for last season, how would it look?
Last year, Dwight and Ariza were top 20 players in each of their position. This year, they are barely top 30. Now, you can associate that with whatever trouble we are going through at this moment, but it's just as likely that their game has fallen off due to their age and playing time. Dwight's game mostly revolves around his athletic ability and once that's gone, so will his elite status as a center. Ariza has played a lot of minutes lately, and maybe some of it has finally caught up to him. We will never know for sure, but even if you don't take this position, we were never that talented team to begin with. If you look at the stats, Terrence Jones was basically our 2nd best player during the 2014-2015 regular season. We had the best SG, but other than that not a single player would have been considered top 10 in their respective position. We overachieved last year due to Harden balling out of his mind + bunch of role players stepping up at the right time + enjoying some lucky breaks along the way. Obviously, this was unsustainable since our success was not grounded on something that is more fundamental, such as having good offensive/defensive system in place or just being stacked with individually talented players.
Well, McHale got 56 wins last year out of that group, and 54 wins the year before that. So something doesn't add up. If McHale was a horrible coach, and the roster has no talent, then how did we win so many games? Something doesn't add up.
This has been another installment of Mr. Clutch's "micro-cherry pick the advanced stats to make it seem like Harden is having turrble year", or as he laughably claimed earlier, one of the most significant declines in sports history. I do like the "judge for yourself" line....the good ol' DD "EYE TEST". This argument have been true in October and November but as the season went on frankly it's hard to detect much difference in his game...certain stats he's slightly better, certain he's slightly worse, for the lasts 40 games he was clearly at MVP level - probably outdoing or matching even Curry over that span. RPM heavily weights winning teams over losing teams, so guys like Boban Marjanovic are ranked the same as John Wall. I'm sure it's a useful stat but you wouldn't pick it alone, in teh absense of all the contary indicators...unless you had an agenda (btw, Jimmy Butler's and Klay Thompson's, Mr. Clutch's choice for "best SG in the league" are worse than Harden's)
You're missing the point. I'm saying Dwight this year is not the same player he was last year, let alone 2 years ago. Dwight is not a skillful player; as his body deteriorates, his game will decline rapidly. Ariza is playing a lot of minutes 2 years in a row now, and he's not that young either. Maybe that caused some of the drop-off in his performance. Harden has finally come down to earth after having MVP caliber season, and Brewer has reverted to the mean as expected. 2 years ago, we were relatively young team with healthy Dwight, Harden, Parsons and Jeremy Lin. Totally different situation. Last year, we overachieved relative to our talent pool and team performance, and I presented ample evidence of that above. Players don't stay the same for 15 years before they completely break down and retire. They will go through steady decline as they age, and if that happens simultaneously to the core pieces, then the team can suffer a lot even if there is no great chemistry issue. I think it's not a stretch to say that Dwight, Ariza, Brewer and Terry are past their primes and time is not on their side. Our PF spot is a mess and Harden has come down to earth after performing like a MVP. A little regression here and there could accumulate and effect the team very negatively.
Some have really let Harden's first month or so of the season flood over into their opinion of the entirety of the season. Obviously that first month matters, but so do the rest of the months.
There's no doubt this roster is far less talented than I and many others thought going into the season. In large part because a lot of players had bad years: T-Jones - Even based on our already low standards for the guy, he was almost a complete non-factor. Which is a surprise given this was a contract year. D-Mo - Never really recovered from the back surgery. Whether he ever will remains to be seen, but it's doubtful he'll be a Rocket if/when that happens. Hell, he wouldn't be a Rocket right now had Detroit not bailed on that midseason trade. Dwight - He's played most of the season which is a welcome sign after all those B2B DNPs early on(and late last year). But he's simply not the same player anymore. I thought he had another 2-3 years in him before his waning athleticism took its toll, but it looks like it's already happened. Perhaps the back and knee injuries accelerated the decline. Ariza - He's always been streaky shooting the ball aside from in contract years, but even his defense is not what it once was. And don't get me started on the rest of his offensive game. Plus he looks like he's not happy to be here compared to last season when he left it all out there on the court. Lawson - I still think a more competent coach could've better integrated him into the offense, but it doesn't change the fact that he simply wasn't very good when he was here. This was supposed to be the acquisition that vaulted the Rockets to title contention. Instead, the team had a better record when Lawson didn't play. And now he's not even here anymore. Brewer - Probably the biggest disappointment this season aside from Lawson. Brewer had an up-and-down season last year shooting the ball, but his hustle and ability to finish were consistently good. This year, he's a scrub. I can't think of anything he's good at anymore. And even worse, he's a dumb player now constantly trying to do too much on offense and always gambling on defense. Smith - He's actually been ok in the postseason so far, but there's no denying he's just not a very good NBA player anymore. Just like Dwight, his early career success was heavily reliant on his freakish athleticism. Now that that's gone, there ain't much left in his game. Harden - Had a strong finish to the season after an awful start. But he still plays little-to-no defense and he's not as good of a shooter as he was a year ago. That midrange game he was developing so well has taken a step back(no pun intended) and his 3-point shooting is down as well. Plus he's not getting calls as frequently as he used to. Bev - Still a streaky shooter, but his defense is nowhere close to what it was 3 years ago. He did play most of the season injury-free though, so that's an improvement. Too bad he picked the one year to stay healthy when it really didn't matter in the postseason. If only he had been at 100% in 2014 or 2015. Terry - Not much left in the tank. Frankly I wasn't expecting much out of him this season. But I also never thought the Rockets would be depending on him as the backup PG. The failed Lawson experiment has made Terry's shortcomings a major weakness for this team's bench. Beasley - He's been a pleasant surprise given how cheap the Rockets got him for. But the fact that they're depending on him to the degree they do tells you all you need to know about how bad their situation at the 4 is. McDaniels - There's definitely talent there. But until we get a coach here who's willing to play him over the likes of Brewer, I'm almost tempted to give KJ an incomplete grade. He does obviously need to continue to work on his shooting though. Capela - Had an ok season, but kind of disappointing to be honest after all the promise we witnessed in last year's playoffs. His free throw shooting continues to be awful. And he needs to get stronger and build stamina to withstand the grind of an 82-game NBA season. Especially given the likelihood of Dwight bolting this summer. The good news is Clint is a month shy of his 22nd birthday, so there's so much untapped potential there. Dekker - A generous incomplete due to his back injury, but I have a feeling this will be another wasted first rounder by Morey. Harrell - An incomplete since he didn't play much in the NBA. Like McDaniels, there's a lot of physical talent there. Whether that ever amounts to anything remains to be seen. Thornton - Was a streaky shooter while he was here, but he never got a fair shake by this team. He deserved playing time over a disaster like Brewer. It's a shame the Rockets went out of their way to ditch him, first in the cancelled D-Mo deal and then cutting him in order to save money. Bottom line, this roster will look very different come training camp next October. And Morey has a lot of work to do reloading after this season. It doesn't help that we don't have a first rounder anymore.
Getting by all the blowhardiness, you've made only 2 real points. 1) that Harden has played at an MVP level the last 40 games. That's laughably false. By plus/minus or ORtg or whatever decent non volume stat you want to use, it's not true. He's far behind Curry, Kawhi, LeBron and cp3 for starters 2) that rpm weights winning over losing players. False. Wins aren't in the formula. There are problems with rpm but that's not a good critique. Harden is going from the #2 in MVP voting to maybe making 3rd all NBA team. Thats a huge drop and that's not a guy who played at an MVP level half the year.
Yup. About 29/10/6. Didn't shoot the 3 pointer well. High turnovers. Better defense post-All Star Break than before. Still a pretty great month overall. Not peak-James Harden, but I'm not one who demands perfection from James Harden.
I'm not saying RAPM or rpm is the whole truth. I'm agreeing with soemthing You posted "the truth is in between." Yes Harden is #1 SG in rpm, but he's also dropped to #15 overall when he was #3 last year. When a guy drops like that maybe a stat with a prior isnt the best. So I'm just looking at single year npi RAPM (which Harden was top 10 at previous 2 years) to show that Harden is probably playing worse. This is backed up by either one you want to use, single year showing the more dramatic drop, sure maybe because of noise or maybe because Harden hasn't played as well. I'm not blaming Harden for being the sole focal point. That's how our team was designed. Have him carry the offense then surround him with defenders who can run and shoot decent enough from 3. Yes no one else can create, that was the case last year too. So the question is what changed? Harden hasn't been as good at carrying the offensive load this year, that's my point, that's why whether you use single or multiple year plus minus, Harden is down from last year.
His March net rating was +7 and ORtg 115. He shot 31% and had over 5 tos per game. Let's not talk defense. He hasn't had metrics that low since he was a rookie. Those would be great numbers for Ariza but they aren't for the MVBeard. Note that I disagree with the posters wh now say that Harden has always been overrated. He was legit last year
Well, he shot 31% from 3. 44% overall, which is about standard for him, and still scored at a very efficient rate when you count his usual free throws. Otherworldly James Harden normal efficiency? No, maybe not. Still more efficient than all but a hand full in the league, and still one of the best offensive players in the league. Harden's career ORtg and DRtg are 117 and 106, respectively. During his MVP year, 118 and 103. This year, 115 and 108. I think it's fair to say that Harden has had a slightly disappointing statistical year by his standards while also noting that it largely falls within his relative averages, therefore not worthy of huge levels of concern. And regardless what anybody thinks of Harden, nobody can say that he's had the performance from the supporting cast that he had last year. That matters. You're going to get a better Harden if you get better supporting performances. And no...I never thought you to be one of those posters. You're pretty fair, in my opinion, even if we disagree in certain aspects. That's fine. I hope you'd feel the same.
