Not a complaint but an observation: Harden is still playing analytic ball aka MoreyBall

Look out everyone the chicken brother who balled out on his middle school B team squad is here to tell us what’s up about real life basketball.

You love to see it.

 

An open shot is only good if the shooter has a high likelyhood of hitting it.

We both agree that an open 3 is one of the most valuable shots in basketball. So do you think Ben Simmons shooting that same open 3 is still a good shot?

I'll say it again. We dont shoot that many contested 3s. 7.9 per game in last years playoffs. It's not a big problem.

When we did shoot contested threes, we were STILL more efficient at them then we were from midrange in those same playoffs.

We suck from midrange. Even our contested 3s are more efficient than our midrange shots.

Why are you focusing on something that doesnt occur that often and then suggesting that we replace it with something that we were even worse at?

It's not just the Rockets. Most everyone is bad at at. You cited Lebron, PG13, Leonard and Tatum as examples of guys that took midrange. Well, they were all terrible from midrange in those same playoffs. Why is that?

Teams will gladly give you all the midrange you want. Wouldnt you gladly give Lebron a two point shot that he's hitting 40% of the time? It's no different than leaving Simmons wide op ed n from behind the arc.

Yes, there will be times that a team passes up a midrange shot and runs pick and roll instead and it doesnt work. Nothing works every time but you still take the more efficient shot over the lesser one.

Wood shoots the midrange fairly well and he'll continue to shoot them. Harden, Wall and Gordon are bad from midrange and I expect them to take very few.

Silas is a smart guy. His Mavs offense was historically good last season and they shot very little midrange. The only Mav who shot much midrange was Portzingis and he was really bad at it (38.1%).

 

This reply is so bad it could be a modern day art masterpiece. First, you miss every shot you don't take. Why is this such a hard concept for you to understand? If taking just threes and layups worked, D'Antoni and Morey would still be here and we would have at least seen one Finals appearance. Yes analytically speaking threes and layups work well in the regular season when teams don't have days and days to prepare a thorough game plan. But the numbers don't account for defensive adjustments, playoff atmosphere, less fouls called, more minutes played because of limited rotations, and etc in the playoffs. You can pull all the advanced metrics out of your ass that you want, you have to be able analyze the data responsibly. Your status quo approach does not win games when they matter the most. And to answer your question, yes I would want Ben Simmons to shoot a wide open three if he was wide the freak open. Most of you guys never played organised basketball. It's not as easy to get a wide open shot as you may believe, once you generate an open shot you take it. No decent coach is going to ever tell you otherwise. That's the mindset of Dork Elvis and that other dunce in this thread that didn't even know how to explain the numbers he was using. You keep quoting that we took 7.9 contested shots a game in the playoffs last year. I'm sure that number came from NBA.com or some other similar site. But that contested shot number from that site and other sites have been notoriously wrong before. Do your OWN research brother. Question everything. I would challenge you to actually watch the games, count the contested shots, and breakdown every play yourself. Where was the ball supposed to go, who was supposed to cover the weak side, is the player in the spot he is supposed to be, etc? These are all the questions you need to be asking yourself and more when you watch the game. Not just casually watching and quoting stats that you can't definitively say are accurate. Let me let you in on a little secret, every organization has their own statistician/video guy. You would be amazed at how different their stats are as opposed to NBA.com for example. Cheers!

 

OP that's exactly what I said. It was just your observation. Nothing more nothing less.

 

When the lines

“it’s clear some of y’all have never played competitive ball”

“Have you ever played organized ball?”

comes out on a message board you know you have won the argument and the dude has nothing good left to say. It’s not even most the time, it’s every single time.

 

that only matters if all the stars are just scorers. klay and dray are two of the most portable/scalable players in the league. they have the exact skills you would be looking for in "key role players" except they do them at elite levels. klay with off-ball scoring and gravity with good/decent defense and draymond with the ability to be an elite passer to set up shooters while playing DPOY defense. i don't think anyone thought it was easier to score on draymond because his D didn't mean as much because steph and KD could shoot 3's.

we shot 7-17 on 3's not during that stretch. should we focus on those and conclude we should have shot even more 3's? or only focus on the ones we missed? you don't get to pick and choose when you use a strategy after you know the result. who says we're even in a series with 4 all-stars if we don't use a heavy amount of 3's? maybe we would have already lost in 5. taking more mid-range means being ok with losing games we would have won with more 3's. obviously anything is better than missing 27 straight. especially once you know you missed 27 straight. but you can't just take credit for the games that were won, the shots that were made, the series that made it to 7 games against superior talent, and then say it would be nice if we had changed the shots we missed.

 

Yes Klay and Draymond fit their roles perfectly. Who is arguing against that? This is a straw man fallacy you are making. Yes GSW had great team defense with KD, Draymond, Klay, and others. Draymond is a great facilitator and defender. This is basic knowledge that most casuals can tell you, no secrets here. But what made GSW so dangerous IMO is the fact you had Curry, KD, Klay on one team, all guys who are capable of getting red hot from the field (another basic take that most believe). What other posters are alluding to and my main contention is since GSW had basically three of the best shooters in the game, the Rockets were just way overmatched to win that series. That's just simply not true, the Rockets entire organization believe they should have won game 7 even without CP3. Many of the Rockets have said so themselves. Am I not supposed to hold the players and coaches to the same standard that they hold themselves too now? Any game that goes down to the wire is a winnable game. How is this such a hard concept to grasp? It's elementary to say the least. What do you mean you don't get to pick and choose a strategy after the result? This is the stupidest comment yet that I have ever read on CF and that is saying a lot. You are playing the freaking game, you are coaching the game, you can choose a better strategy in that moment. The thought never crossed the minds of Harden, the other players, and D'Antoni that our three point shots are not falling, let's make some adjustments to get some shots to fall in? Even after the game, are we not allowed to analyze how we won or lost said game? Unbelievable brain dead comment.

 

Regardless of the thread topic, let us NEVER mention Golden State without acknowledging the moving screens, clutching and grabbing, throat-punching and undercutting that they were allowed by the NBA to get away with from 2016-2019. That, plus everything else mentioned, is what made them a dynasty. Charmin soft stars with a group of mafia thugs that were in with the cops.

OK my work here is done. Carry on.

 

Even as a Morey supporter, there was a certain stubbornness/rigidness that left a bad taste and still lingers with Harden. It no doubt got us so close, but I think it held it us back right when we were so close from snatching it away from GSW.

 

lol everybody in the league is playing morey-ball have you seen the mavs or hawks play lol. morey and harden changed the game. and as we are seeing with the current iteration of the warriors a ball movement offense is only good if your entire team is stacked with high iq knock down shooters. Thats why i have never bought into the ball movement offense being the end all be all. The lakers are using ball movement..( BUT LOOK AT THEIR DAMN ROSTER FROM TOP TO BOTTOM)

also silas didnt seem to have a problem with how harden played. hardens usage for the blazers game was 32.9 according to bbreff. christian wood's usage was 28.7. basically a tie. look at trae young and luka doncics usage rate, also giannis as well.. now thats really morey ball. What harden did other night was make the right read almost everytime down the court, only had 7 points after the first quarter but 8 assists. in fact harden and wood had the same number of shot attempts in believe

 

Harden and his traveling gets away with it quite a bit too.

 

Saying that he got away with it a lot implies that he traveled a lot when he does it. I dont believe that to be the case.

 

Harden and traveling are synonymous. Just do a google image search of nba traveling and see how many pictures of Harden are there in the top 3 rows of results. He gets away with things just like any other star player/team in the league.

 

It's kinda sad Rockets are one of the analytics revolutionaries but some people still dont understand mid range shots are bad. I blame Jordan and Kobe.

 

Here's some basic logic reasons why Mid Range is bad:

1. Empirical Evidence. There are lots of smart people in the NBA who make millions and their job is to evaluate tactics and strats. These people spend their entire time working for an NBA team and they have collectively agreed with Moreyball. Just look at the trend mid range shots in the league have gone down, 3 pts have gone up. You gotta be some Einstein lvl genius to go up against the collective brain of the NBA and not just cuz you played organized bball or w/e.

2. Every player is good at diff things, some players are good at fts, some at post moves, some at mid range and some at 3s. So just because a shot is open doesnt mean a player should take it, it depends on player capability for example Shaq open at 3 pt line still shouldnt be taking 3s.

3. Given that analytics have established mid range shots are the worst shot in bball, the Rox have focused on players who are good at other things besides mid range shots. Sometimes we get a Patrick Patterson who is good at mid range, but most of the time we get 3nDs.

4. Put 2 and 3 together, you see why the Rox banned mid range shots. Its cuz their players suck at them. You dont want WB taking open mid range Js cuz he sucks at shooting. Look up Pat Bev's mid range and tell me if thats a good shot. Etc etc Harden and Cp3 the only ones I trust to make a good midrange and they took those from time to time.

5. Opposing defenses always leave mid range open. Thats cuz they want you to take the worst shot in bball. Teams defend the 3 pt line and paint aggresively, they want you to take the mid range over any other type of shot. If you always take what the defense gives you then you end up with a crap offense. In boxing its like Mike Tyson allowing the opponent to engage him in outboxing match.

6. Rox not taking the mid range isnt what made them unpredictable, the Harden ISo into stepback 3 made them predictable. There are lots of plays you can run that isnt a mid range. Just look at GSW and Dallas they took very little mid range and still broke offense records.

 

Lack of talent and coaching is what prevented Rox from winning.

You got 3-4 allstars vs 1-2. And then their best player is equal to your best player. You should see that as a triumph of analytics not a failure. Logically Rox shoulda been swept just like Lebron Cavs.

The last year vs GSW is the only winnable matchup but since we got Dumbtoni the Rox simply got outcoached and out executed due to lack of practice.

 

Sticky this on the top AND front page of the GARM.

 

what do refs and officials think?

 

so you're saying more long 2's instead of 3's would have overturned the results in that game 7 when cp3 was injured?