Ime Udoka benches starters, criticizes lack of competitiveness in loss to Warriors 2/13/2025

My point was in my next post after the one you quoted. Basically, offensive rebounding is the saving grace of our poor offense. And I doubt that it is sustainable. If offensive rebounding was more important than shooting, then Steven Adams would be an offensive star.

The debate seems to be whether our bad shooting is due to the lack of good shooters or the lack of good offensive coaching. Personally, I think it is both.

On personnel, look at our top 5 scorers -- Jalen, Alpi, Fred, Amen, Dillon. Their career 3pt% are: 34, 27, 37, 20, 35. The league average is 36. So only Fred is above average. Jalen and Dillon are below average. Alpi and Amen are terrible. If Amen is going to be our permanent starter (whether he is replacing Jabari or Dillon) our starting lineup will be a very bad outside shooting team.

On coaching, I just don't believe there aren't better ways to increase our shooting efficiency, either by adjusting the rotation or by adjusting offensive sets. I'd give Ime some slack on the recent dip because of injuries. But even when we were healthy and winning, you seldom hear him talk about offensive execution. It's always "physicality" "competitiveness" "defensive mistakes" etc. As a young team, it's normal to have offensive mistakes, but you seldom hear him talk about those. That kind of tells me how he watches the game, what kind of things he pays most attention to.

You brought up Cleveland. They went from 15th last season to 2nd this season in ORtg with pretty much the same core rotation. One can say that Mobley's big leap on offense is the main reason for the improvement. But why did he suddenly drastically improve after basically having flatlined for his first 3 seasons?

 

"If Amen is going to be our permanent starter (whether replacing Jabari or Dillon) our starting lineup will be a very bad outside shooting team" assumes we do not make significant roster changes. Amen not shooting 3's is much less a problem than Sengun not shooting 3's or Jalen being inconsistent. I think Jalen's problem is more shot selection than form. He will improve with experience. I think Sengun is a post player and an offense centered around a post player does not work in this era of the NBA. We should have Amen, Jalen and 3&D players at every other position including center. If you are talking about just this year, you are correct.

 

Steven Adams has been a great offensive rebounder nearly every season.
Amen Thompson has been a great offensive rebound since mid 2024.
Tari Eason on one leg is a great offensive rebounder.

Leading up to the season, my concern with offensive rebounding was that Tari and Amen's offensive rebounding numbers would suffer when playing together. We've seen that their individual numbers aren't as good as previous. However, the team still benefits hugely as their individual numbers even suppressed are great (i.e., the vast majority of the offensive rebounds Amen gets aren't offensive rebounds Tari would get and vice versa).

Offensive rebounding being sustainable and its importance relative to shooting are two different things. Steven Adams has been a 80th percentile offensive player when healthy and a 0 percentile three point shooter for the prime of his career. So while not a star, he was a good offensive player.

So while I am very pro in adding a shooter, I don't expect Amen and Tari to stop getting on the offensive glass either. As long as the center for the Rockets isn't a complete loser on the offensive glass and they don't turn the ball over a lot, Rockets fans need to accept that the Rockets offensive rating is likely going to be a lot higher than the TS% rating.

 

It's fine for a 6th seed with no aspirations for a championship. We need multiple consistent 3 pointers surrounding Amen to become a champion.

 

Yes, I'm talking about this season. Maybe they'll make some roster changes this offseason.

 

I guess what I should have said was, relying on offensive rebounding to hold up our offense is unsustainable. Unlike shooting, there is simply no large scale correlation between offensive rebounding and offensive effectiveness. None of the top 3 offensive rebounding team is top 3 in ORtg. Only three top 10 offensive rebounding teams are also top 10 in ORtg. (I'm using OReb%, not raw offensive rebounds number to eliminate the number of missed shots as a factor.)

Simply put, offensive rebounding can only help your offense so much. If our shooting does not improve, I expect our offensive rating to slip.

 

I think that's a balanced view and you've convinced me to cut him a little more slack even. I can see that being the picture.

On Cleveland I looked up Mobley to check it: he's not improved anything offensively except that he's attempting one more 3 per game. His % is the same. In fact it's a perfect example. Mobley shot the same last season, JBB probably could have pulled him out of the paint more. Instead Atkinson pulled him out more and created space for Garland/Mitchell.

So is it really because of 1 extra 3PA by Mobley? Especially since he's slightly dipped in FG% and assists (I.e. no major offensive improvement)?

Barely I think. It's simply the fact that Mobley is spending less time in the way/paint and Allen doesn't clog the paint because he doesn't post up much and he can be pulled out as a PnR lob threat.
We're constituted a little differently, but the principle holds: of course different coaches can achieve different offensive efficiency with the same roster. Can't believe it's even contentious to be honest.

Thank you for the input!

 

Garland is a big reason they're so improved. He was bad last season because he had that really rough injury to his face where he couldn't eat for a long time and it completely ruined his season. They basically went from a poor starting PG to a borderline allstar starting PG, which made a massive improvement to their offense. It's the same core of players but one is very different because of health.

 

Yup definitely a factor but obviously wouldn't explain them being #1 in offensive rating. Better than teams with better superstars, the alleged differentiator.

Also has to do with:

- it's a whole new offensive system
- JBB will drag down most people's offensive efficiency
- They went from 22nd in pace to 7th, which means skinny Garland doesn't have to fight with set half court defenses all the time to collapse the defense
- more speed can take advantage of less space
- Mitchell and Mobley are spacing moving off ball better

It has to mean more than just him bouncing back because Garland is simply scoring much better than he was before his jaw injury.

These kinds of things can't be rationalized by individual actions when there's a pattern of improvement across the roster. You have to attribute at least partially to a larger thing.

That's the opposite of us. We have a 3PT shooting disease it seems ravaging most of the rotation but people want to blame 7 different players for shooting below expectations.

 

That normally describes second rate defense because of lack of transition. Very Silas like.

 

Mobley scores 3 more points by shifting some of his midrange to 3pt. His 3pt% improved a lot last season but at very low volume. I think they decided to let him stay outside more. HIs fg% is down slightly but TS% is up. Apart from shooting more 3s, he also gets more FTs. It seems cutting down the middies helps quite a bit.

 

Garland's improvement is definitely a factor. But don't forget that Garland was even better 2 seasons ago. They barely made the top 10 in offense.

I think Garland being healthy together with Mobley's improvement and better offensive coaching all factor in with their top of the league offense this year.

 

Garland is way better this year than any other year in his career, but ya Mobley being in his 4th year is gonna be much better than 2nd year.

 

@Hemingway tip of the cap to you, honored to be mentioned along with Clutch in
the positive.

Yes my stance is, teams that are true contenders have good 3-pt %.

And it's more than team 3-pt%, it can be broken down to top core players
or starters in the rotation, 3-pt percentage.
_________________

Teams will:
1) pack the paint
2) force us to be a jump shooting team
3) anticipate Amen cutting along the baseline.

____________

My summary: Rockets were bad at shooting 3's; but were top 10 in defense, top 10 in
ORebs, top 10 in second chance points, top 10 in fast break points.

Amen took Jabari Smiths place, not the 3-pt shooter Jabari is, but Amen cuts to the rim
and moves around. Jabari tends to be too stationary.

VanVleet went out which took away another 3-point shooter away and teams have learned
to anticipate Amen cutting to the rim.

Notice a pattern?

First 35 games [ opening night - 01/05/25 ]...........32.6% (team 3P%)
.........................(Jabari last played 01/01/25)

Next 12 games [ 01/07/25 - 01/30/25 ]...................39.9% (team 3P%)

Last 8 games [ 02/01/25 - 02/13/25 ]......................31.4% (team 3P%)
..........................(VanVleet last played 02/01/25)


Bringing in one or two decent 3-point shooters goes a long way.
Jabari returns and possibly the removal of VanVleet this summer?
My philosophy has us only with one sub-par 3-pt shooter on the
court at the same time during the playoffs. As a majority of teams
catch on to this, then we need to be at all 5 players on the court
being adequate 3-pt shooters.

Amen being that sub-par shooter next season that can be used
as Point Guard or Point SF. As a Point SF.....we need a 3&D guy
at PG. As a Point Guard....we need shooters at SF, PF, C..
To me Jalen just feels the burden and thinks he has to be the one
to shoot 3's. He can't shoulder the burden alone, but does well
when others contribute.

Getting a rim protecting Center that can shoot 3's allows
Sengun to be that guy on the court that is sub-par at shooting
3's. Buy the Rockets time until maybe Sengun or Amen
improve their 3-point shooting. At least that's what I'm hoping
for in the near future. Amen works at it.

 

Rockets will be better than a 6th seed as soon as long as FVV gets healthy soon. On needing more shooters, I said nothing against that. I'm just saying that the Rockets will likely be a great offensive rebounding team in the future (as long as Amen is on the team and not kept behind the arc), and that the offensive rating for the Rockets will likely be much better than the offensive rating of a team with a similar TS%.

I agree on the second to last last line.

Most teams win by shooting. Your methodology does not show whether offensive rebounding is sustainable or not because most teams offensive rebounding rates are close to the mean such that shooting washes away offensive rebounding.

To show offensive rebounding is not sustainable, you would either need to show offensive rebounding does not correlate with offensive rating when TS% is held constant (preferably TO% as well, but not enough data for this) or to show that teams that got a lot of rebounds aren't able to repeat that ability.

For a range of TS% between 58% and 60%...

That looks like offensive rebounding is really a factor in offensive ratings if a team has the personnel to get on the offensive glass. Most of the error in the above graph is based on TO% (the labels).

To me it comes down to personnel, as long as the Rockets have Tari and Amen, I expect the Rockets will get a lot of offensive boards, and as long as they get the boards and the TO% stays the same, they will score better than teams with similar TS% and probably above some with a better TS%.

 

The greater point is that this current roster doesn't just rely on "offensive rebounding" but other things to maximize total possessions like not turning it over... creating turnovers.... and yes rebounding (much more offensive rebounding). These alone are not attributes that make championship level or conference finals team but we are not that level of team this year. To echo what Nook said earlier:

 

Good post(s). Rockets going nowhere this year and likely for the next few years until those second round picks that Stone stole end up on the court in 2029. Stone has rarely traded for a non-draft pick other than the horrible Oladipo deal and somehow now we think he can acquire a superstar talent. He’s a lawyer with zero basketball acumen. He’s great at contracts, the luxury tax, etc. but this team will never win the Finals or much less even make it there with him at the helm. OKC and Spurs are the new powers in the West starting next year. Lakers and Nuggets will improve in the offseason. Rockets will still be behind T-Wolves and close with the Mavs, Grizzlies and Warriors. Best case scenario is 6-8th seed next year and with “zero moves”Stone and the everlasting hope that our young guys figure it out approach….the new mantra will be that we’re just a couple years away (heard that before). This is one of many businesses for Fertitta and not a true love and that’s exactly why he employs a clueless lawyer as his GM.

 

Rockets have been #1 in OREB all season. This is not an accident.

Two 2's is more than one 3, this could be next evolution of NBA. And Rockets can also improve TS% by improving FT% which is more realistic internal growth than 3P% improvement THIS season.

 

Not sure if I understand your reasoning. Offensive rebounding does not give you two 2s. It gives you another chance to make a basket after a miss.

Put backs are the best kind of offensive rebounds. It's 100% made. But the fg% for that possession is 50%, which is equivalent to 33% from 3. If rather you grab an offensive rebound and restart your offense, then it goes back to your normal percentage but the fg% of that possession will be cut in half. That's why relying on offensive rebounding for your offense is not an efficient way for scoring.

And as good as the Rockets in offensive rebounding, their OReb% is only 36%. So the efficiency of scoring on offensive rebounding is 18% of your normal fg%. It gives you a very good edge. But you can't rely on it as your offensive strategy.

 

It is a combination of both. Mobley is a career 30% three point shooter. This year he is 37%. It is easier to move him to the perimeter and be respected than it was prior to this. The Rockets have a similar situation. If Sengun could get to 37% 3 pt shooter next year, would Ime make the necessary adjustments to clear up the lane for Amen and Jalen? I'm not so sure.