At what point are we done playing with two hands tied behind our back?

Good one! Happy New Year.

 

Someone please @ me when OP makes a 3rd thread stating the same exact thing. That's what I'm waiting for.

 

How long is the FO gonna twiddle their thumbs?

 

What ever young guy on this team you want to replace Jalen Green touches with you will start hating in a few months because I bet my left nut they will be less efficient at what Green does. That goes for Amen, Cam and especially Reed Sheppard who seems to have the issue of being able to create a simple shot attempt for himself.

Whatever savior scoring guard you think exists out there keep in mind the environment they are leaving and going into? Lavine? Going from a Bulls team that couldn't give two craps about trying on defense to a Ime coached team where even the high usage offensive players are asked to exert all energy on defense. You'd be asking guys like Booker and Fox to play a level of defense they never have asked to play in their careers.

Any player asked to play a high usage self creation role on this team will be less efficient than optimal because of the level of defensive effort this coaching staff asks.

To think this offense can magically be competent if you replace Green with Amen in terms of roles or Reed or Cam or whoever, you are expressing your lack of understanding on why this offense struggles.

Guys like Sengun and Green becoming more conditioned over time to get used to this level of defensive effort and high usage offensive roles is what is going to eventually improve this offense. Just internal development.

 

The thing is last season... were you advocating for a Green centric offense when Cleaning the Glass suggested that Green had a more positive impact on offense than Sengun?

If we use on/off impact numbers lets use them consistently.

 

Another thing you made up in your head.

Last year's stats. We were better with Sengun on and Jalen off than the other way around then as well.

 

Apparently you have a simple issue of reading charts?

Yes the Rockets were better on offense when Sengun was of the court last season. The Rockets struggled on offense last season when Green was off the court.

 

Again, you are wrong (as always).

Firstly, it doesn't matter if you score 5 more points if you also give up 10 more points.

Secondly, even if you only look at offense, your statement is wrong. They scored 115.2 points with Sengun on the court and 114.8 point with Sengun off the court.

 

Pts? Pts per possession? What are you reading dude?

 

in statistics and science ecperiments -- when comparing things/numbers shouldn't there be a control group/number -- in order to collect a more accurate result..

like comparing two NBA players with on/off numbers -- why don't we start at both as having the same personnel/teammates they are playing with on the court..

 

They have the same teammates.

Now stop moving the goalposts - you claimed that "the center centric offense is holding Jalen back" or something like that.

I showed numbers from over 500 possessions without Sengun on the court and Jalen on the court that the team is actually performing significantly worse.

This does not support your claim.

If you want more detail, here you go:



The worst lineup actually seems to be the "small ball" lineup Ime likes to throw out there:

FVV-Jalen-Amen-Brooks-Jabari - 46 possessions, and a whopping -54.8 +/-

With a center on the court like Steven Adams, it looks slightly better.

 

never mentioned a name on my post -- so who's moving what goal post -- read again

 

Ah, now we are being disingenuous as well. Nice touch.

Are you claiming that we are playing a center-centric offense with Jock Landale and Steven Adams?

Stop embarrassing yourself.

Edit: But hey, let's look at how the team has been doing when Jalen doesn't have ANY center holding him back - no Sengun, no Adams, no Landale, no "center-centric offense". NO NAMES.



Oops.

Maybe the "center-centric offense" wasn't the problem?

 

the post is about the Rockets offensive system in relation to attracting Superstar shooters [would these Superstars be so ecstatic or over the moon excited to come running in Houston because of this System, the Rockets offense needs to expand] -- not everything in the GARM is all abouot a single person...

..but/or, maybe this spamming of center-centric offensive system is Ime's way to attract Front-court superstars, Coach is conditioning the team in preparation of landing his buddy Embiid or his fellow Nigerian Giannis or KD or maybe even Jokic and AD... who knows what position a superstar comes asking for Houston, all I know is that The Rockets need a SUPERSTAR right now to coincide with the cheap rookie deals we have -- if the youngsters come to the point they get their second contracts, acquiring a Certified Superstar could be too costly

 

A washed Conley would be an upgrade here

 

Sengun is already better/more valuable than Embiid who is injured all the time and disappears in the playoffs.

Also, you argued that Jalen Green is held back by an alleged center-centric offense.

The data shows the opposite. The team does worse when we try to play without a center and with Jalen Green.

 

My question is: are you done playing with your hands on your eyes?

Oh my gosh, if you have to get rid of one, unfortunately it would have to be our most productive player Sengun. Everyone else fits together. Here for example (let's say swap Sengun for JJJ):

JJJ/Adams
Jabari/Tari
Amen/Brooks
Green/Cam
FVV/Reed

This is not a recommendation, I'm just telling you if you have to move 1 chess piece to make the rest fit, it's Sengun. We immediately become by far the best defense in the NBA and the spacing for Amen/Green would be insane, no one is leaving JJJ/FVV/Jabari open. It's perfect as far as fit, but obviously less talented since you lose Sengun. Can get rid of Green for a shooter but that's not going to make Amen and Sengun fit because it's not 1980 and they're not good enough non-shooters to force changes to the game (yet), they're not Shaq. You can't trade Amen, his ceiling is just as high as Sengun's and so far a better bet to improve his jumper and expand his game.

Sengun has that classic problem many stars had - his game doesn't fit with other star players because he's negative value when he's not part of the play. His defender comes and harasses the playmakers constantly. There's two ways he can improve this: get a 3PT shot or set screens as good as Steven Adams - which Sengun does neither. The only team that has won a title in the past 15 years with 2 non-shooters on the floor are also the team that happened to have the all time best and also the 4th best shooter in NBA history around those 2 guys so no that's not viable and I don't want to try to be the first one by turning our 4-year rebuild into an abstract experiment.

Thankfully, Sengun and Udoka on my side. Has worked on his shooting 2 consecutive summers so they are keenly aware it's the only remaining avenue for a needle-moving growth in scoring volume (without reducing TS%). It would explode our offense way more than the 1-2 extra makes imply, all our wings would immediately improve their efficiency on drives. Sad that he's not ready yet, but I'd wait another 2 years for it because this player with a 3PT shot and assists is an undeniable 1A or 1B scorer on a title team. It's also why it would be absolute buffoonery to spend 1-3 years developing a midrange jumper when it takes exactly the same amount of time to develop a 3PT shot. No one has ever developed a midrange jumper fast, but casuals seem to think that because the distance is shorter it must be exactly proportionately easier to make that shot lol.

My frank assessment? Ultimately, here are the fits:

Play better slow and closed: Sengun, Brooks, FVV, Adams
Play better fast and open: Amen, Green, Cam, Tari
Neutral or unsure: Jabari, Reed, Holiday, Tate, Landale, Green, McVeigh

If you play slow, you're optimizing only Sengun from the core. 5 other core players are playing in an unideal system for them, whether they're playing good or bad.

If you play fast and open, only Sengun/FVV/Brooks are not optimized. Two of those guys won't be around in our future. Sengun CAN play fast and as his 3PT shooting improves he will go from 90% fit to 100%. What are we doing why are we running this now after we had a whole summer to look at how our offense did last season? We failed, you can't fail worse than bottom 3 lol. The solution coming into this season? "I can't think of any way to get you guys easier baskets so just grab your own rebounds if you want to win". Crazy enough, every coach demands this, but this roster is the first one we've had that actually went out and out-hustled the ENTIRE NBA.

I recognize that essentially Amen didn't exist and Green sucked at the start of last season, but I think what happened is Ime made an unwise impulsive decision and artificially installed a system that suited the guy who was playing best at the time. Sengun earned that, it's just the situation we were in. However, we went too far down that road. If you had told me Ime is going to make the FVV-Sengun the most executed play in the NBA, I would have told you before time it's going to be one of the worst TS% in the NBA. It's obvious. The only plays at that VOLUME that are successful are ones with way better overall players than those two. If you had to take just one thing away:

If it's going to be one of the worst TS% in the NBA anyway and you have to just grab all your own rebounds to go from 29th offense to 14th, then why the F are we holding on to this offense so tightly as though we found gold when we know full well they're going to rebound just as hard in any other system since rebounding is not system-dependent? What if in a new offense we can have the 23rd worst TS% and 10th offensive rating? Do you understand we are rebounding at a rate which we can no longer significantly exceed no matter how much we clap? Do you know there's only 1 more spot to climb in defensive rankings which won't move the needle? Do you understand the only remaining path to climbing the offensive rankings is a higher TS% with the same roster - not necessarily same rotation? Do you understand the basic idea that only a systemic change can result in a higher output with the same parts?

Writing this made me realize gosh Ime's ideas about offense are SO inefficient and antiquated, the initial instinct is reactive instead of being strategized. Man, it's really far. Ime is VERY egotistical so it will be hard the longer we let him do this. I think he does not want to admit that the kids had a higher TS% playing playground basketball under Silas because when he came in he talked some big game about how that's not good basketball and he's going to teach them good basketball. Maybe the casual fan doesn't know, but he knows full well that rebounding is the only difference he's been able to achieve with Silas even though he has a far more talented team than Silas. This is not unlike how much more efficient the Celtics offense was under both Brown and Mazzulla. We need to get him coaching help.

If anyone's hands are tied, it's the players.

 

Ime is starting to realize the limitations with spamming Zfred. You can tell over the past week with how much more he's allowing Green and Amen when he isnt suspended reign to control the ball and tempo a lot more recently.

I think most people realize that if we are going to be a low efficiency offense, might as well let the young guys lead it to get reps. No point in a vet managing a low efficiency offense though Ime might think our offensive ranking didn't near the bottom because of the possession game and Fred helps with that because of his ability to take care of the ball