So you googled a defitinion but still have no clue what you're saying. Analytics dictated Morey's philosophy toward basketball - layups/dunks and 3-pointers - the most efficient shots in the game.
Okay so what you're trying to tell me is that the Houston Rockets *should* be the most efficient team in the NBA because our dictator GM believes the layup and the 3 pointer are the most efficient shots, and the only shots we will take. So tell me why were #1 in 3PA "the most efficient shot in the game" and near dead last in 3PM How is San Antonio and Golden State beating us? By your logic they are obviously less efficent!!
The thing that people don't quite understand about Morey's Moneyball Philosophy is that most people think that it preaches taking 3-pointers. That is not quite correct. The Moneyball Philosophy wants paint shots, free throws and three pointers. In that order. There's a balance between them, with paint shots and free throws being more important than 3 point shots. In past years, even McHale was quoted for saying that he wanted the offense to get a good game for them offensively would be 50 points in the paint made, at least 25 free throws made and 25 3 pointers attempted. This season there has been such an over reliance on the 3 point shot, especially in our losses. Our last lost to the Kings in an example. We took around 80 shots in the game and over 50% of them were 3-pointers. That isn't Moneyball at all, and just plain dumb. When poor shooters like Brewer and Jones are lining up multiple three pointers per game instead of cutting to the basket/getting hustle baskets then that is a really bad decision. This team needs to prioritize paint shots being their first mode of scoring. That is the key to success with this team, other than defense.
What many people need to understand is the WAY teams get the layups and the 3pters is the most ***IMPORTANT*** part in being successful The Rockets are chucking 3's and ISOing layups which are very inefficient ways to score. Teams like SAS and GSW have the best offenses in the league because they worked and worked to make a system that lets their players always find an efficent and high % shot for all of their players Now is high % shots analytics? If so even the analytic geek himself can't do his own philosophy right
Now you're confusing different things. Analytics isn't a basketball "philosophy". It's just analysis of data (as you quote earlier). More simply put, it's just a tool to come up with different conclusions, whether it's forming a basketball philosophy, reviewing players' impact etc.
I agree with this. What haters like to call "Moreyball" is not even so much of an offensive system, but rather an offensive philosophy based on two actually very common believes or ideas; the best result of an offensive sequence is where one takes the most efficient shot and the most efficient shot after countless of data are free throws, close ranged shots (post play, layups, dunks, ect), and three point shots, specifically from the corners where the distance is the shortest. A lot of people feel this eschews the midrange jumper, specifically long ones, and to an extent, that is very true though there are conditions there. Here is the thing, on one hand, wide open threes that Brewer, Ariza, T-Jones, and really everyone outside of Thornton and/or Terry, those are generally speaking, very high efficiency shots. We made those same shots last year a lot more frequently and even though we weren't very great at it last year either, it was and still is a good shot. However, a miss is a miss and no one can argue the results. This is due to lack of proper personnel, which can be argued to be Morey's fault. We should have tried to do more to pry away shooters. That said, again... 3pt shots are simply one aspect of taking the most efficient shots. People get lost on the sheer quantity of 3's that they do not realize the bigger problem; why are we not taking more of the other shots; free throws and closed range buckets? Well for one, penetrating the paint in the NBA is NOT easy. The ability to single handily scoring consistently in the paint or creating a shot in the paint is what separates a great scorer from an OK scorer, though there are special cases like Curry and Durant who have the ability to consistently generate points from anywhere on the court. Harden is getting close offensively, but he still is too streaky and average of a shooter to get there. Simply said, shooting closer to the basket always has a higher chance of making the shot, but the opportunity to get off a shot the closer you are to the basket also greatly decreases. This is where offensive systems and schemes are so important and I personally believe a large part of that is coaching. Personally, I feel we need a coach who can bring discipline to our team, on both the defensive and offensive end. The point of a system is at heart, to generate or prevent points, depending on if we are talking about defense or offense and it does this through schemes. Whether this is through the triangle, in-out based on post play with kick outs, pick and rolls, iso scoring and kick outs, transition, ect... it does not matter. It is simply an accumulation of schemes working to get the same goals accomplished. Currently, we don't really have too many schemes we can run, most if not nearly all are variations of pick and rolls and occasional flare screens when we are not ramming Harden down their throats or trying to do the failed play of forcing the ball late to Howard when opposing D is already set. As for the D, well the D is a mess and a lot of that starts and ends with effort. Honestly, I believe the best way going forward is to try and develop small sets designed to free up players like Lawson, Brewer, T-Jones, and Ariza going and unfortunately, a lot of those will involve things like midrange curls off screens early in the shot clock when the D is not set to a LOT more slashing off ball from all our wings, starting with Harden. Harden is great enough of a scorer that we can generally find a way to score, assuming the refs don't swallow their whistles on a day where he is ice cold. D-Mo, once he shakes off the rust, can consistently get his inside one on one. Dwight PnR is still devastating when it's ran. Thornton and The problem is always the other 4-5 members of our team that insist on building houses for downtown Houston game in and game out.
another lesson learned - pass the ball to dwight more than 2 or 3 times, good things will eventually happen - when dwight has the ball and he doesnt go full r****d, good things tend to happen amazing complicated rocket science-esque philosophy. here's another one - when the three ball isnt going down, STEP INSIDE THE ****IN LINE AND SHOOT A TWO! who the hell convinced these guys its better to go 5/30 from three, then 15/30 from two?
....well 10/30 is equal to 15/30. I get what you are saying, but the issue has been quality of shoots. Stepping inside the line to take a long 2 isn't a better solution than making an extra pass.
I agree that Morey's (and most of the NBA nowdays) philosophy is to get efficient shots. If I'm understanding your point, I also agree that most of the time the 3's are the easiest shots to get. What I think you left out, though I'm sure you know, is that the 3pt percentage doesn't need to be as high as the 2pt percentage. Many times on this board I'll see someone post that Morey has implemented a system based on 3 point shots but didn't get the elite 3 point shooters that the system required. That is completely incorrect and just demonstrates that those posters don't really understand the idea of our offensive system. Our offense doesn't require elite 3 point shooters. Even with average 3 point shooters it's still a very efficient offense. We have the personel for this offense it's just that everyone is shooting below their normal level, all at the same time. Even if we shoot 33% (slightly below average) from the arc that still equates to 50% on 2pt shots. Sure if we had a lineup of 40% 3pt shooters who could also do something else then we'd be even better but that's easier said than done. If our shooters just shot their normal percentages then we'd be fine. Fact is it isn't as easy to go get a 40%+ guy that is going to come in and get minutes with our team. There's a limited number of those guys and some of them are untouchable, others are expensive and many of them can't do anything other than shoot open jumpers. That makes it much more difficult to aquire a player and that's not even considering whether or not they'd see the floor for us. Most of the elite 3 point shooters are 2 guards and small forwards. For our team Harden and Ariza are going to play big minutes so if you find a shooter that plays their position then there won't be many minutes for them. Offensively, we just need most of our shooters to start shooting up to their normal rates. Otherwise, we'll continue to see most teams pack the paint and that helps negate drives to the hoop and pick and rolls. The most simplistic explanation of our offense is that it's a "pick your poison". We force you to decide whether to try and stop Harden from driving to the hoop or preventing our shooters from getting open looks from behind the arc. The premise is that you can't do both, you have to pick one or the other. The problem so far this year is that we've sucked from 3 point range so it's a no-brainer for the defenses to decide what to do. They simply pack the paint and we haven't been able to shoot the ball well enough to make them pay for doing that. Sorry for going off on a tangent here and I realize that all of this reply isn't related to your post. Your post just got me going in that direction.
Not quite, because the percentage of defensive rebounds is higher than that of offensive rebounds (about 75 % to 25 %), so out of the 5 extra rebounds, more likely than not 3 to 4 go to the defending team, which increases their possession.
A couple of points: - All season Dwight has been in the top 3 in the league for both post touches and paint touches. It seems to be popular for people to pretend that he never sees the ball but that simply isn't true. - What makes you think that we'd shoot 50% if we just stepped inside the line? Nobody in the league shoots 50% from midrange, so why do you think that we would? Golden State shoots 43.4% from midrange. That equates to 29.8% from behind the arc which is way less efficient that our 3pt shooting this season. If our shooting is off some nights to where we'd shoot 5/30, then why would you believe that we'd immediately be the best midrange shooting team in the league just by stepping inside the arc? More likely, if we're shooting that badly from behind the arc, we'll continue to shoot badly on midrange.
Very true. There are certainly many moving parts and I should have qualified it with "in a vacuum", but I really wasn't interested in so much an academic reply. My main point was to concur with the notion that the quality of shot matters more than just looking at the volume of shoots.
If the whole teams shooting is off then how likely are they to hit a midrange shot ? Are we 150% more likely to make a midrange shot over a 3? If not, then the 3 is more efficient.
As currently built, that's tough. We need that guard who can create and score, it's unfortunate Lawson has fallen so drastically short.
