An outlook on the 2013-14 season through advanced stats

So I just signed up for Synergy Sports and have been combing through some statistics over the past few hours, and decided to post some thoughts on some interesting tidbits that I've found. I'll try to keep this organized and as concise as possible. Obviously none of this is ground-breaking, but thought some of you might find it an interesting summary.

Part I: The Dwight Howard Addition and its Defensive Impact

Asik vs. Howard
Obviously, Dwight Howard carries with him the reputation of being the league's premier defensive big man. Given that we have an elite defensive big man, on face value it seems like Dwight's addition would be primarily on the offensive end. While it's certainly true that Howard is going to be a massive offensive upgrade, Howard also gives us a clear defensive upgrade as well.



Specifically, on pick and roll defense, Howard is at an elite level, only allowing 0.76 PPP (points per possession), good for 31st in the league, while Asik allows 0.97 PPP (92nd in the league). In addition, Howard is absolutely dominant when it comes to one on one defense, allowing only an insane 0.58 PPP, while Asik allowed 0.85 PPP.

The above doesn't mean that Asik isn't valuable to the team. Morey has repeatedly said that having one of Howard or Asik on the floor for 48 minutes will help the Rockets immensely. When looking at RAPM (Regularized Adjusted Plus Minus), Asik posts the 6th best defensive number in the league behind only Duncan, Howard, M. Gasol, Garnett and Sanders at 5.4 per 100 possessions. This is especially valuable, given the subpar defense of the other Rockets bigs (Smith at -0.75, Motiejunas at -3.09 and T. Jones at -1.53). Having Asik, even only playing 15-20 minutes a night should help shore up some of the defensive problems the Rockets had last season.

By the way, injured-broken-down-Howard posted +6.3 DRAPM last year, and in 2012 he put up +7.4. This should give us a good reason to be excited.

Howard: Only a partial solution to a wider problem
While Howard is going to provide a large defensive boost to the Rockets, we probably shouldn't expect a total turnaround of the defense without substantial improvement from our perimeter players. Excluding Asik, the only players on the Rockets who posted a positive DRAPM last year were Parsons at a meager +0.12 and Garcia at a neutral 0.



Synergy provides some insight into the problems that we had last year. The Howard/Asik combo for 48 minutes will certainly help with the bad Post Up and Pick and Roll - Man numbers, but the Rockets tend to be pretty horrible at closing out on shooters. The NBA shot nearly 40% on 3 point spot up attempts against us last year, a number that will have to change next year. Lin allowed 0.96 PPP on spot ups, Parsons allowed 1 PPP and Harden allowed 1.07 PPP.

We saw this many times last year, and it remains one of the big defensive problems that the team has to overcome. Howard and Asik should allow the perimeter defenders to feel more comfortable about not crashing the paint to help, but they have to become even more disciplined in this respect and lower their tendency to float into the paint. Hopefully another year of experience for this young team will help in this respect.

A Silver Lining for Our Defensively Challenged Superstar?
It's no secret that James Harden was fairly defensively inept last year (though not much more so than his fellow perimeter starters Jeremy Lin and Chandler Parsons). He allowed a cringe-worthy 0.92 PPP this season and was the most egregious spot up non-defender on the team. That being said, Harden has always had the tools to be a good defender and has shown flashes before. In fact, this year he only allowed 0.72 PPP on isolation plays.

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The often used explanation for Harden's defensive shortcomings is that he is fatigued from carrying such a large offensive burden. His numbers in Oklahoma City may indicate that this is the case. In 2012 he allowed a much more respectable 0.85 PPP. While this certainly isn't above average defense, it does point to the potential for improvement. With the addition of Howard and the natural improvement of Lin and Parsons, Harden should have considerably more energy to dedicate to the defensive end. This is particularly important for effort plays, like closing out on spot up shooters.


Part II: Continuing the Offensive Dominance

Dwight Howard as a force in the middle
While no one doubts Asik's defensive prowess, his offensive game left much to be desired. Any basketball fan respects Asik's effort, but opting for reverse layups over dunks and missing gimme putbacks left much to be desired. Howard will undoubtedly help in these areas and should make the Rockets high powered offense even better than it was last year.


(Asik's numbers on top, Howard's on bottom)

Synergy gives us some interesting numbers to look at, both in relation to Howards strengths and shortcomings. First of all, Howard is one of the best pick and roll men in the league. He nets 1.29 PPP, which is a terrifying thought when you consider Harden's full 1 PPP as the pick and roll ball handler. Keep in mind, Harden posted that number (good for 5th in the league) with Asik has the pick and roll man, even though Asik was only 55th in the league at 1.02 PPP. The threat of Howard finishing at the rim (and the threat of Harden scoring) should make defenders feel dread in choosing their poison. GBRocket does an outstanding job of breaking this down here: http://rockets.clutchfans.net/4559/james-harden-dwight-howard-pick-and-roll/

In addition, Howard outperforms Asik when it comes to putbacks as well. He scores more efficiently at the rim and around it. According to hoopdata.com, Howard finishes at roughly 70% at the rim and 44% between 3 and 9 feet, while Asik only finishes at 60% and 27%, respectively, from those two locations.

If McHale can convince Howard to buy into his pick and roll heavy offensive system, then Howard will be a massive upgrade to this offense. The one thing that we should be concerned about is relying on his post-up game as a source of offense. He posted only 0.74 PPP in post-up plays last year (and Mike D'Antoni used him in that situation a whopping 45% of his plays). There's hope that an injury free Howard could be much more efficient in this respect. In 2012 and 2011, his numbers were 0.88 and 0.93 PPP, respectively, in post-ups. Those numbers still aren't great, so one would hope that Howard will be more open to pick and rolls in the upcoming season.


Lin vs. Beverly: Do we actually have a PG controversy?
Probably the most hot button issue on ClutchFans, the Lin-Beverly question is one that there are many passionate opinions on. The advanced statistics show that the two are pretty close in value. In terms of RAPM, Lin has a slight edge on defense compared to Beverley, -0.16 to -0.54. On offense, Beverly is the slightly better player, 0.97 to 0.56.

(Defense, then Offense, with Lin on top, Beverly on bottom)



Synergy shows us the same conclusion. Lin is the slightly better defender, allowing 0.87 PPP compared to Beverly's 0.89, and Beverly is the slightly better offensive player, 0.91 to 0.86. In terms of fit, they both run the pick and roll well, while Beverly spots up much better.

So is one a better fit than the other? At this point, it's hard to tell. Beverly's numbers come with a big asterisk because of the small sample size. At face value, it seems that Beverly's better spot up shooting would make him a better fit around an inside-out game, but it's worth noting that Lin shot 37.5% from beyond the arc in the 27 games after the all-star break. If Lin's shot continues to fall like that, then I think it's pretty clear that he'd still be the better player. In all honesty, the boring truth is probably that neither one is superior to the other, and that either one in the starting position would yield similar results for the team.



Final Thoughts
Any time you add the best big man in the league to your team outright, a massive improvement is expected. I think we have several good reasons to be optimistic about the upcoming years. Keep in mind that everything talked about above doesn't include the expected improvement of young players from season to season. Hopefully after an offseason of working out and refining their game, our young guys will come back even better than before. But even if everyone stayed exactly the same, and Howard didn't return to his pre-injury form, then the Rockets would still be in line for a massive improvement.

With the best pick and roll game in the league, explosive 3 point shooting and a good transition game, the Rockets offense should be poised to repeat a top 5 performance. And while the defense prevented the Rockets from being elite contenders last season, the addition of Howard (allowing the Rockets to maintain an elite defensive center for a full 48 minutes) will allow for a massive improvement on that side of the court. Howard won't solve the discipline issues we have in the perimeter, but he should shore up the problems we have in the middle and hopefully his presence will allow the perimeter guys who had to carry the offensive load to put more energy into defending.

It's a good time to be a Rockets fan.