[NYT] Whatever James Harden Needs, There's a Rockets Coach for That

Interesting article but I get the feeling most major league sports teams are now very coach heavy. There's so much investment in players and sports are so data heavy it seems natural that the staff would grow.

 

That is part of what makes this team so frustrating a times. You have so many coaches but they still allow the team to fall into bad habits.

 

it is mind numbing sometimes, to become championship caliber you have to be disciplined.

 

Lol never change Sam Fisher.

The amount of armchair coaches that can’t tell when a team makes adjustments is absolutely hilarious.

 

Talent? It's been a two year long lucky streak.

 

I don’t think you should be taking a lot of midrange. It’s stupid over the course of a game, you are much more likely to hit your mean when you increase possessions (your “n”) . However, when you have an open shot designed plays to make it easier, it’s a great weapon for getting open 3s. I mean, the best 3pt shooting team of all time doesn’t shoot them because they want to hamper themselves, it’s because they know the importance of offensive flow and how droughts can impact a team. It’s important for teams like the rockets that are already elite, but can really get themselves further by adding that little tweak.

 

They did, but they put JJ Watt in to run it.

 

Whoops replied to the wrong post

 

[edit] this is what I get posting from my phone with one good hand. This post is in reply SamFisher]
Ah yes classic absolutist straw man argument. If you criticize any part you’re criticizing everything.

If you want to celebrate the status quo and enjoy how these Rockets start looking like Minnesota Vikings of basketball that’s fine. I would rather emulate the New England Patriots. A team with phenomenal talent but understand to win at the highest level you need to be ready to changeyour strategy when the moment calls for it.

 

I did and said it was interesting. It still didn’t tell me why the Rockets revert to bad habits. Except for maybe that John Lucas doesn’t want to criticize some players and that some coaches are careful with what they say to D’Antoni

 

"They track statistics, tweak sets and (surprise!) argue personal fouls."

Sarcastic parenthetical "Surprise!" included because, you know, everyone knows that's all the Rockets do.

 

I don't think they make as many adjustments, as per the article itself they just inform Harden and let him improvise.

They just give Harden the data and say "hey X team is running X play to counter you" and then they let Harden do his thing. That's good because Harden is a genius, but thats bad because he is only a human and experiencing a lot of pressure and then you expect him to improvise a way to win. I guess thats why so many plays end up with Harden monopolizing the possession and then taking a stepback 3, he can't think of anything and has to launch a desperation shot.

Having a set of 15 predetermined plays to use ATO...that's not exactly a counter now is it? If what the opponent runs is countered by one of those 15 preselected plays then that's great. But if not then they have no counter. According to MDA he has 100 total plays so going from 100 to just 15 is that really effective?

And these 15 are just variations on 6 sets, that seems too basic to me. Thats why when Jalen Rose or some other player was talking about he asked MDA in PHX how they were gonna counter the Spurs MDA said they don't do any of that stuff because apparently they just have 6 sets.

 

Interesting and fairly detailed information on how the Rockets coaching staff works. I didn’t like that MDA is so limited on the offensive end with the play calling and moreso, on relying heavily on a predictive scheme rather than adjustments throughout the game.

Thankfully we have some of the smartest players in the game that can play in this players based coaching system and decision making.