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[Poll] Paradoxical Desires & Strength of Schedule

Discussion in 'Houston Rockets: Game Action & Roster Moves' started by Sweet Lou 4 2, Dec 1, 2022.

?

How many games do you WANT the Rockets to ideally win this year?

  1. 20 or less

    19.3%
  2. 21 - 25

    30.1%
  3. 26 - 30

    25.3%
  4. 31 - 35

    8.4%
  5. 35+

    16.9%
  1. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Contributing Member
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    Thus far this season, the reactions to it has been overwhelmingly negative. The coaching, the players, the defense certainly are all deserving of criticism and I am not here to debate that. Instead, what I find interesting are expectations. Many people are suggesting extreme changes - that we need a veteran pg, to jettison certain players, or that certain players should not be doing certain things, and of course #fireSilas.

    I think most fans hope for two things ideally: Improvement, and a top 5 lottery pick. Nevermind that those two things are paradoxical to some degree. Improve the team too much, and you end up out of contention for Wemby or Scoot. Play too poorly and you fret about this team always being terrible and the nightmare scenario of giving OKC a top 5 pick in 2024.

    Using last year's standings as a guide:
    Win 20 games --> Worst record and top 5 pick guaranteed, 27% chance at Wemby/Scoot
    Win 28 games --> 6th worst record and top 8 pick guaranteed, 18% chance at Wemby/Scoot
    Win 36 games --> 11th worst record and mostly likely the 11th pick, 3% chance at Wemby/Scoot

    I think most fans look at 28 games as ideal - you get your improvement of +8 games over last years which is a significant improvement, while still having a decent shot at Wemby or Scoot. I think most fans could live with that.

    Right now the team has 5 wins after a 1/4 of the season on pace to win 20 again. Great for odds, bad for direction. But is it really a 20 game win pace?

    Divide the NBA into 3 groups based on current record (excluding the Rockets):

    Tier 1: Above 55% winning percentage: 9 teams
    Tier 2: 45% - 55% winning percentage: 13 teams
    Tier 3: Below 45% winning percentage: 7 teams


    Thus far the Rockets season looks like this

    Overall: 5 - 16
    Tier 1: 0 - 9
    Tier 2: 3 - 6
    Tier 3: 2 - 0

    That's an incredibly brutal schedule for a bunch of 19-22 year olds: 18 games against teams competing for the playoffs compared to just 2 below 45% winning percentage.

    With the rest of the season:
    Tier 1: 18 games
    Tier 2: 27 games
    Tier 3: 17 games

    That's a lot softer. If you projected the above record onto the rest of the season, the Rockets would win 26 more games and finish with 31 wins. More realistically, let's say the Rockets win 10% of the Tier 1 games and 2/3 of their Tier 3 games while maintaining their record against Tier 2.

    In that scenario they still finish with 27 wins, still a +7 game improvement.

    The Rockets are a really bad team to be sure, but what's hard to take into account is how incredibly brutal the schedule has been, and how much easier it gets after Dec 15th. Point being, in most scenarios, the Rockets are still going to top 25 wins and show improvement over last year, and they look better than last year, it's just that they are playing against better competition so far. In other words, it's way too early to hit the panic button.
     
  2. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    It’s never too early to hit the panic button
     
  3. YOLO

    YOLO Member

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    Rockets aren't topping 25 wins

    crying about the schedule does nothing
     
  4. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    fify
     
  5. harold bingo

    harold bingo Udoka Only Fan
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    Really nice post and appreciate you breaking our win rate down into opponent tiers. The projected record if our pace continues is a lot better than I would have expected, and that's probably true for most. I think everyone knows our schedule was really hard to start but probably underestimated how hard, at least I did. It's nice to have it put into context in such a concrete way. Obviously our 100% win rate against bottom tier teams won't hold, but still, it is cool to see all this stuff laid out. Again, really enjoyed the post.
     
    j@amc, Y2JT and Sweet Lou 4 2 like this.
  6. Shark44

    Shark44 71er
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    Lou,
    Thanks for starting this thread and the analysis you put into your W/L assessment. It's interesting and seems to meet my eyeball test from watching the games.

    With that said, there are some variables that factor into the final W/L record beyond just our level of competition that you aware of. Things like--coaching/rotations, injuries, trades (hopefully), etc. I won't go into all of those, because I believe the point you're trying to drive home is what are realistic expectations given where we're at and the difficulty of schedule we've faced?

    While W/L is the most tangible way to visualize improvement and the one I hope we begin to measure ourselves with in 2023-24, for my expectations I just want to see our players grow and improve their individual and team games. We've gotten a few glimpses in the last few weeks of the potential that Green, Sengun, Bari, Tari, KPJ, KMJ and Garuba can bring to our team's overall development. Some of those have been awesome, the Alpi vs Joker battle the last two games are enjoyable for me too watch and what kept be turned in when we didn't look that great (esp last night).

    In sum, for me I want to see more of the ball movement and intense defense that we've seen in spurts so far in this first qtr be executed in the next 60+ games. Losing is never good for a young team, but if they can learn and keep getting a little better than this season will be a success from a long-term perspective. I'm hoping we get a top pick (1-2) and a new coach to start 2023-24 that can help drive us into the 30+ win column. Have a great day!
     
    Rashmon, aaquaa and Sweet Lou 4 2 like this.
  7. daywalker02

    daywalker02 Member

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    I think there was a Stockholm syndrome so that you get taken for a ride by your team and you are supposed to like everything about the rebuild.

    No more, folks can think for themselves.
     
    DaDakota likes this.
  8. Corrosion

    Corrosion Member

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    That tough schedule is Silas fault, Fire Silas.


    Did I do that right?
     
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  9. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Contributing Member
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    I wrote this without any analysis of Silas, rotations, or players because I don't feel that I know enough to truly comment on those things, and so stick to the numbers in this take.

    Silas gets a lot of criticism, and I can't even say how much is fair or not. How much of what he is doing is because of inexperience or because he is trying to balance getting a few more wins while developing players. Maybe he is making players do things they are uncomfortable with so they grow,a nd that makes for ugly basketball in the short run. Maybe he is just a terrible coach. I don't know. The rotations don't make sense to me, but again, I don't have all the information to truly understand WHY he is doing what he is doing. So without the full picture, I don't say much.

    But I do think things are not nearly as bad as people feel. And that was the purpose of this post. That we're still better than last year and this team is improving despite losing Christian Wood and replacing him with a 19 year old talented but very raw rookie. We want this team to get better, but not so fast that we miss out on a great draft pick...and I still think we are on that trajectory.
     
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  10. xaos

    xaos Member

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    Too late to add a poll? I'm genuinely interested
     
    gfab-babyboi likes this.
  11. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Contributing Member
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    Done, just for you
     
  12. conquistador#11

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    Agree with every word written. I can't get over the title.
    Paradoxical Desires, a time travel love triangle.
    [​IMG]
     
  13. xaos

    xaos Member

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    Thanks!!

    Btw great thread
     
  14. Mathloom

    Mathloom Contributing Member

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    Great thread!

    This sentence right here is exactly why I'm saying we are out of the running for high lottery odds. We have done every single thing to overtly tank and there's hardly anything else the organization can do to tank more in my opinion.

    But there's one thing the projection of 31 wins is not taking into account which is that out of the 30 teams in the NBA we will improve by far the most out of all teams within the season. We have the second youngest team and easily the youngest rotation and they are getting a lot of minutes relative to players this age. Further they are compounding each others' problems by all playing simultaneously. That improvement is good for at least 3-4 more wins.

    Take Jabari for example. You can safely say out of those getting a lot of minutes, he contributed least to winning thus far. He was probably a negative rather than neutral despite the defense. You can see sparks in the past couple of weeks. He's almost certainly going to be a vastly different player in the second half of this season. That's going to give us a lot of wins.

    Another positive thing that can happen is that the beginning of the season functioned as a real boot camp that jump starts these guys' development. Since they're young, fatigue won't be an issue so we might reap only the positive benefits out of this type of start.

    I think expectations have caused way more frustration on the board than is necessary. I knew we would look horrid for the first quarter of the season the moment I saw the schedule. Team with no chemistry, bunch of 20-21 yr olds, never had to learn competitive NBA team defense or offense, starting off with one of the roughest schedules in the NBA. What other expectation did you have than they would look far worse than every other team for that first quarter of games? Did you think it would be that rough but they would look organized or the individual development would look linear? That's a silly thing to have expected.

    We're going to win 30+ games easily this season and two clear stars will emerge on the roster. I really don't want to miss out on Wemby, but I really don't think it's possible for us to have one of the best odds at getting him. That's why I'm not even giving myself a glimmer of hope that we're getting him, therefore I'm not bothered by how many we're going to start winning starting in a week.
     
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  15. Rolliepollie

    Rolliepollie Member

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    But I read on clutchfans that it's all kevin porters fault?
     
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  16. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    that doesn't seem to stop anyone else. go ahead, dive in . . . the water's fine :D
     
  17. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    nonsense, to paraphrase Hall of Famer and Rockets Legend™ Kevin McHale . . . Tank harder!! clap, clap
     
    Mathloom likes this.
  18. Rokman

    Rokman Member

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    I think sports should be thought of in terms of winning only. With the rebuild in full swing losing is inevitable short of drafting Hakeem Olajuwon and Michael Jordan in back to back years (or simultaneously with respect to win they got drafted) immediate winning isn't going to happen. The only goal a fan should have is for the team to win a Championship. That's really it. Championship or bust. Getting close doesn't count. The Rockets want to win championships. In my view the best way to win a championship is to collect the best and most players possible. There is no point in trying to compete RIGHT NOW for a Championship, they just don't have the talent, period, their odds of winning it are like 1:1,00,000 (queue Jim Carrey from Dumb and Dumber). The best thing the Rockets can do is get Top Tier talent in the draft which is cheap and young. If they want to win long-term, they need to lose now to gather enough talent cause frankly, they aint all gonna pan out to be winners and it takes a few years to figure out who is going to be good and who's a bust.

    I say, tank baby, tank. You had no chance to win a Championship so get that Top 3 Pick. So far they're 2 for 2. 1 more Top 3 pick and they should be ready to move forward.
     
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  19. kjayp

    kjayp Contributing Member

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    I appreciate any thread with 'paradoxical' in the title... lol!

    Personally, I think we can get in some good work and improvement - and still tank for that draft pick... if we do it intelligently... which we're not - which i find so frustrating... lol

    You can still work on proper ball movement and getting the ball to the open shooter... whether or not the shot falls in immaterial.... show me some good crisp passes around the perimeter to eventually getting it to the open man...

    Personally, I would be running plays like pick n roll ad nauseam... to the degree that the d knows its coming - thats when u improve... if they didnt expect something - and it works - so what... the next guy may be expecting it and throw yer crap into the stands... lol!
    Thats why Earl Campbell was such a stud - everybody knew he was getting the ball - good luck stopping him... thats how we should be running things... thats where true improvement takes place...

    We SHOULD have sooooo much focus on our defense right now... this is where tendencies and process needs to be ingrained - NOW! Your legs are too tired that u cant get good lift on your shot - fine. Your arms are tired from having em up on d and its hurting your shot - cool. I'd be hammering these guys on their defense! Everybody loves to score... you're not gonna have a prob finding guys willing to shoot... so lets make d the priority for everyone... there's only 1 ball - but there are 5 players that need to be defended/screened/whatever - so everybodys got something to do the whole time...

    edit... like rebounding... just make 'tonight is all about rebounding - thats our primary focus... i wanna see us out rebound the other team by 10 boards tonight..." Unlike MDA who just wanted to see 30 or 40 or 50 3 pt attempts on any given night (ie green light to chucking) - make our night to night focuses other fundamentals that these kids need ingrained... "KPJ - yer not allowed to shoot tonight - i only want you focusing on setting up your teammates.... " We have the luxury of not worrying about wins - so lets prioritize tendencies and desired areas of improvement...
     
    #19 kjayp, Dec 1, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 1, 2022
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  20. daywalker02

    daywalker02 Member

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    I feel this season you couldn't even say with a 28 win record for certain what went right and what went wrong.

    For all I care they could go on a hot shooting streak like last year and end up with a 26 wins and I wouldn't be any wiser.

    The sophomore players are more improved, that was all.
     

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