Honest question - since Daryl Morey left, how much do analytics still determine the Rockets' decision making? I know Eli Witus is still there. Supposedly, he convinced the Rockets to draft Sengun (good man). But how much do they even still look at this stuff? Because if they do, shouldn't they realize that Sengun and Tari are, at the very least, among the four best players, with Sengun having a strong case to be the Rockets' best player? @Derp McFlopsky Does Patrick Fertitta ("he does a lot. he really does a lot") believe in analytics? Or is it a case of "we use analytics until Tilman says 'shut up and listen' and does stupid **** like trading Chris Paul and picks for Westbrook"?
While I love Tari and consider him important to our future if he hones a few skills (making layups, please), there is no world in which Tari is a better player than Jalen Green or Jabari Smith, Jr. It's silly to even infer that. Many would even argue that Sengun is less important than Green. Me, for example. And I'm a big fan of both guys.
In what sense do you think that it is relevant that they realize this? You really don't need deep analytics to realize that Sengun and Tari are very good. Sengun, most of the time, is shouting 'I can do tons of things on offense, I know what I am doing and I am very good at it(and I am soo young)' and Tari is a 'I am on the court, you know that!' guy. With Sengun and Green being the two guys with the most upside (and sengun probably being the current best player), they should really be asking 'what type of a team do we want to construct around these guys?' But Sengun is an unorthodox player and some GMs or coaches may not want to go that way(I hope we fall into the right gm and coaches in that sense). And Sengun will be too good to keep as a non-essential piece. So in that perspective, I don't think it is an analytics question but rather a choice of how to move forward. Edit: If they need analytics to see how good tari and sengun are, and base their decisions on this, without having a proper vision, it probably won't end well.
I heard they let their subscription to basketball-reference.com expire and NBA.com is too complicated for them to navigate. But that's just what I heard from an insider who knows a guy who is the cousin of an employee in a restaurant next to the building the Rockets are headquartered in.
Everyone uses analytics now. It's just a matter of having the ability to properly interpret the data. My guess would be that Daryl Morey interprets the data better than Rafael Stone and Patrick Fertitta, if that's what you're wondering. I think the hope is that our current front office is seen as less cold to players (assets) and there is a slight edge in deal structuring and understanding of the CBA.
great post you have to know and understand what you are looking at . I’m also curious about the validity of any of our analytics of throwing out a bunch of young players with no discipline
This is on point I think. Using analytics and being Daryl Morey are not the same thing, but I'm sure we still use them just like everybody else does.
I'm just wondering what the point of having an analytics team is really if you have an owner who then makes impulsive decisions like with the Westbrook trade and tells everyone else they "got a little bit weak", and to shut up and listen.
Kinda. Guy I know was up for a position with the Wizards to establish their analytics dept but IIRC Sheppard couldn't get it approved/funded by Leonsis. I believe those conversations were happening during the '21-'22 season. I do believe the same guy told me there were two or three teams that were outliers on not using analytics. My sense is that Witus is a legit part of the institution w. the Rockets—he's been there 15 years now—and though I hadn't heard about him pushing for Sengun, I'm not surprised. On the other hand, there's no way he had anything to do with Green, who was all eye-test and garbage analytics; his NBADL stuff was all counting stats and, "He was playing against men!" hyperbole. Have to figure that was Fritatta. Most of the Stone trades have been analytics-friendly, but while Garuba was very much an analytics pick, Josh Christopher was definitely not. Athletic guards/wings with very few steals and blocks in college are exactly what analytics guys avoid—and an undersized one who didn't make threes or pass? Total eye-test pick. (Note: I guess either Sheppard knew he was garbage at draft projections and needed help or the picks were coming from above.)
The analytics department probably exists in the same way it did when Morey was here. But I doubt Stone or Silas know what to do with it. There was a point this year where Silas was asked about staggering Green and KPJ’s minutes and if the analytics suggested they should do it more. Silas’s response was that the analytics department said there wasn’t any difference and that they had a good chemistry, so he would continue to play them together. I’m going off memory, but at the time of the question, I believe each had played close to 1000 minutes. I think Green had played about 30 minutes without KPJ, and KPJ had played 0 minutes without Green. Thats really not enough time to determine whether they play well apart or not. So, there are a few options: 1) the analytics department didn’t adequately explain the low sample size to Silas, 2) Silas lied about what the analytics department told him, or 3) Silas didn’t understand what staggering minutes meant. I knew from that point that he was not cut out for the job. He is made for running drills, not being a head coach.
