[Chron] Rockets win with Adelman's defense

See, that what I don't agree with. The subjectivity with the myopic usage of the word "talent". Geez, basketball isn't a game about just talent. It's not a paper game. The dream team has the best talent in the world they still lost to much less talented teams.

 

"chemistry is there"

 

No doubt JVG has his legacy here with his defensive intensity. My thought is, if only JVG would have offensive assistants like Adelman has defensive assistants...

 

Without JVG, this team is nowhere near where it is... same as Parcells in Dallas. It's almost like a boot camp, but in a good way.

I said it before, whoever was gonna take this team over was going to be the luckiest person in the world. JVG left them a gift... a with a full clip, silencer, and the INFRAred beam. All Adelman had to do was figure out how to pull the trigger.

 

lol, DD, you are the man. Who said the defense is JVG's defense? How ridiculous is it ? Anyway, let me give some credits to JVG, as I said last month, he deserves some credits. He is a hard worker, he did his best to coach the Rox, but he is just not good enough. He did waste the Rox 4 years, but it wasn't all his fault, it was CD and Les's fault to hire him to coach the Rox. Bye bye Mr. JVG.
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durvasa, nice chart, it is interesting. As I said earlier, there are huge system errors (now I guess, maybe more than 5%) in these kind of rating systems, but I don't want to debate with you on these topics again. If I understand your ideas correctly, there is an obvious mistake in your current calculation, 106.5*[100/105] should be 105*[100/106.5]. By your calculation, the higher score the lower offensive rating, it doesn't sound right. All I want to know is the truth. I'm confused, please excuse me if I'm wrong.
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07 Rockets 08 Rockets
fg% - .445 .449
PPG - 97 96.1

07 Rocket opponents 08 Rocket Opp
fg% - .429 .436
PPG - 92.1 92.5

So why didnt the title be more accurate and say : "rockets win with adelmans defense, which happens to be worse than JVGs

Or better yet; "rockets win with Adelmans offense, which is shooting .004% better and scoring .9 pts/game"

DD, you should write for national news with your incomplete misleading story titles.

Wake up or just pull your head out people. You win with the people that actually touch the ball on the court, i.e. the players. yes coaching is a factor, however the "talents" of JVG and Adelman are negligable while the talents of their respective rosters are significant.

here is a nice and simple way to put it:

JVG vs Adelman (in terms of ability) = marginal in either direction.

Both are very good and if you put aside your personal preference and "opinion" for analytical purposes, then i think thats a perfectly objective statement.

07 roster vs 08 roster = the 08 roster is better. I don't really think there is a debate.

 

that's a funny and pretty good analogy. The rockets were in the yellow zone when he took over. Sure they had yao, francis and mobley and... ...

again, the "offense" isnt necessarily better. I don't know why this is automatically assumed.

Once again, I think it's best and most objective to take the lowest common denominator (i.e. the players). The backup PG position is improved over last year. Guard/Forward position is much better (including a healthly and motivated bonzi and MJ). Center position is the same.

The biggest improvement is PF, imo. Instead of hayes/howard combo, you have hayes/scola/landry trio.

 

You know, the game of basketball isn't just about whether or not they are scoring at a better clip or not. It's about beating the other teams. If you do it scoring less or more so what. I have always been a fan of motion offenses. Standing around passing the ball around is reminiscent of basketball from the 1950's. Several college coaches instilled the motion offense and those teams became unstoppable and racked up National Championships. The innovator of the motion offense was John Wooden at UCLA and we all know how he did. Bobby Knight at IU won championships by using motion. Pete Carrill did it at Princeton with subpar athletes and did it so well that he was hired on at Sacremento to teach those backdoor cuts.

Bottom line. Motion creates scoring opportunities. The other team cannot defense motion, backdoor cuts, cutters and screeners. They try to double team a player that leaves another player wide open and in a motion offense, not just a 3 ptr but probably a layup. The Hornets tried to defend by leaving Yao alone in the paint and got killed for it. When they doubled Yao they left Landry or Scola open and got killed again.

Knight once said that the game of basketball isn't about watching where the ball is. It's about watching the other players and the motion. Watching the ball alone is boring and is what most fans do. However, watching the cutters, motion and the defensive sets is much more interestesting.

At the end of the season if you're gonna compare coaches do it this way. Who won more games. Who got them farther. Who got the most out of the talent they were given.

 

i'd say the bolded part is the best way to evaluate, however it is also the most ambiguous...go figure

 

Isn't this arguing about who should get credit a bit silly, other than satisfying certain poster's ego?

 

The rationale you use for saying there are "huge system errors" would apply for any stats, including PPG, FG%, rebounding, or turnovers. The difference is offensive and defensive rating are better at capturing the offense and defense than those stats. But, yes, this is approximate.

In the example I mentioned, a team scores 100 points against a team that we would expect would give up 105 points (or 95.2% of what the opponent would usually give up). So, adjusting to league average of what teams allow (106.5), you get .952*106.5 or 101.4.

 

I don't think people are saying it's JVG schemes at all, I think we were saying that the mentality that JVG instilled about the importance of defense has stuck with this group and the adjustments defensively and offensively that Adelman has made are reasons for our success

 

I fully agree with this.

You simply cant dismiss the mindset that VG instilled that defense is important.

Especially so when the players themselves admit to still hearing his voice in their heads.

There is no need to tear down VG to make Adelman look better, they both have had a hand in this team's success.

 

It sounds much better. Originally, you said "For instance, if opponents faced over 5 games has an average DRTG (for the season) of 100, and the Rockets score at 105 over those 5 games, then the offensive rating plotted below would be 106.5*[100/105] (where 106.5 is league average efficiency for last 2 seasons).". So, do you want to swap 100 and 105 here? Now, actually, I do see your point.
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Remember, we were not this good defensively at the start of the season. Defense only started to pick up when we went on the winning streak. And look what happens when you play good defense, you win games!!

 

yes it is silly and a bit sad too.