this board keeps trying to pretend that Ime sucks, but I think at worst he’s a top 10 coach in the NBA and can definitely be a championship level coach
Our offense doesn't look like a championship offense. We're in dire need of a point guard to run more off-ball action for Amen...he's at his best when he's slashing and playing off-ball
Top Trios in Net Rating (Min 10 minutes) Common themes. Amen, Durant, and Sengun are the best 3 players and are all over this. Sengun and Adams is working. Amen, Okogie, and Eason are the best three POA perimeter defenders. With as big as the Rockets are playing, it should be expected that the better perimeter defenders would end up mixed in trios with the stars on the Top Net Rating Lineups. Still way too small for the data to be really useful. That said, Okogie is really the only surprise for me on this list player wise. I was worried he wouldn't shoot well enough to play with Amen and Sengun. As long as he keeps up the shooting, he should be fine. A non-player wise surprise is the offensive numbers are wow! The defensive numbers are what I would expect from Reed-less lineups.
JSJ has been fine. The Rockets easily would lead Net Rating if the Reed was playing better. I still hope on Reed's upside. he shows flashes, but he really needs to make shots to be valuable.
So far we’ve been brute forcing our offense with our talent advantage. I would say we’re having same problem as Magic where both were known for locked down defense but with new line-up defense became a problem and both got lazy thinking new additional offense will prevail but difference is KD league better than Desmond Bane
But how is this possible? I keep hearing about how our big lineup doesnt work and how clunky our offense is.... lol Folks dont understand that as much as we look disjointed and lack flow - our style affects the other team even more... We are a team that will thrive in chaos! If games get reduced to a frenzied scrum we are most often going to win! We're still figuring some stuff out... but if we dominate the boards and force the other team into constant fouls we will be very successful! It aint always pretty - its smash mouth basketball! As we just saw, this construct can withstand the other team shooting 50%+ and dropping 20+ 3s on us! THIS is what we should have done instead of that small ball nonsense... we were never going to outshoot GSW, if we had flipped the script we'd have had a better chance... Sidenote... THIS is what I've been talking about while others have wanted to lecture me on 'what it takes to be successful in today's NBA.' lol! It's a copycat league and most folks are doing the same thing - until somebody builds a better mouse trap...
If we are Top 3 in Offense after 82 games, kudos.....not before then....anything can happen. Udoka is at his best when trying to go to extremes, but usually he can't maintain it over 80 games. Traditional powerhouses like the Thunder and Celtics have lost their shooting mojo, and struggle with injuries early on. The Heat have by far the Most Point Scored tally, due to their Drive and Kick Offense.
Hes struggling on offense right now but hes getting there. Reed is as well. People assume all they can he judged by is making shots but they are both incredibly talented passers. Amen is obviously a talented defender and I think we are doing this despite him straight up not playing well on either side of the ball. I think Sengun-Jabari-KD have been incredibly difficult to match up with. Especially because you will always end up with a mismatch. 3 6-11 dudes that can score whenever is too much for most, if not all, teams.
I dont think we even need to be top 3 offense... give me top 10 offense and a dominant defense - and thats the recipe for success! I LOVE this style of play! Very old school... back to the realization that the scoring happens on both ends of the court! The game is a balance... which is why i always hated MDA and his limited focus!
I followed it with the Heat as example and their drive and kick Offense......they were not known for it. Norman Powell is doing major work there in spurts.
I much prefer to rely on maintaining our ability to rack up points in the paint - rather than the ability to consistently drop the 3ball... cause, well, 0-27 happens! lol
Three observations: Jalen Green's inefficiency hurt the offense way more than we thought it did. It's not simply that KD is far more efficient than JG, it's that the rest of the team doesn't have to wonder why they aren't getting more shots on the frequent nights when JG was shooting like trash and still putting up 15+ shots. Reed, getting valid criticism, is still shooting a higher percentage of 3 pointers on volume than JG or FVV did last year. JG and FVV's inability to even look for Jabari hurt his production numbers more the past two years than any lack of talent or effort on his part did. KD, Sengun, Amen, Reed are all finding Jabari Smith because it's hard to miss the 6'11" guy when you're not hell-bent on dumping it to Sengun or shooting a low percentage 3 at the end of the shot clock because you took ages to bring the ball up the floor. I want to say that FVV's court vision was actually a bit lacking, because I'm seeing better ball movement from almost everyone this year, and I wonder if it has something to do with so many tall guys able to see better angles than FVV could.
Did anyone actually thought KD/Jabari/Sengun wouldn't work? The issue was that they put out Adams as a starter in the first two games. And those were not productive. Despite all the offseason talk about not needing guards in the offseason, The Rockets went with a traditional SG in Okogie in games 3 and 4. Despite him being a minimum sigining this offseason brought in to be a 10th man type. Stone and Udoka thought they were extra smart in loading up on centers, but in reality the team still work best when it puts out a normal lineup.
This team is middle of the pack in Offensive Rating if FVV was here. Dude grinds the game to a halt and ends up looking for a bailout instead of taking the opportunities that are there even if it's early in the shot clock. JG/FVV is one of the most inefficient, chuckery backcourts this game has ever seen.
