Analytics and a Summary of Clutchfans Being Completely Right

Hi, I wanted to summarize and go into some more depth of conclusions that other posters have made that I think are spot-on and define where the Rockets currently stand. Credit to 82games, hoopdata, and all the thread-starters that brought these topics up. The GARM has a ton of high quality content lately.

1st statement: Rockets don't take "in-between" shots

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The Rockets shoot at or lower FG% or 3FG% than the league average YET our TS% (TrueShooting) is 54.3% top five (league average at 52.8%). The Rockets have a LEAGUE BEST XeFG% at 51.4% The Rockets' discipline to avoid the mid-range game and has produced the highest eFG% in the NBA. We're already shooting the lowest volume of 18-23ft shots in the league and could look to reduce that amount even more. Some posters complain about camping the three all day and while it isn't oldschool basketball, a lot of it is adapting to the "modern age" of NBA. Looking at the chart, the entire league should be avoiding these low FG% "inbetween" shots!

Adjusted statement and conclusion:
Rockets don't take "in-between" shots... and they should continue to avoid them. Shot-selection has produced the top XeFG% in the league.
(I primarily attribute most of our wins to this strategy and imo, this is a testament to Moreyball)

2nd statement: Defense is to blame

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Looking at the chart, it really is just bad all-around defense. One area that sticks out is our allowed 3FG%, a good 3% worse than the league average. Teams are comfortable shooting the three against our team as well, shooting a higher than league average 25.1% of the time.

This would make me suspect our guards... BUT!

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We're surprisingly good at limiting opponent PG production (PER is normalized at 15) while SG and SF are average. Surprisingly, our C spot is suffering and not surprisingly, Patpat just stinks which I will get into in the next segment. So apparently, while we are great at taking advantage of the paint and the 3, we give it up just as badly.

Adjusted statement and conclusion: Our defense is bad all-around but we're especially bad at defending the three, and at the PF and C positions. Surprisingly, PG defense is notbad.jpg.

3rd statement: Our weakest spots are PG and PF

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Yes, PG and PF are our worst positions but not by much. Even though our PGs are woeful on offense, they play decent defense and thus have good net value. What is really amazing how much Patpat stinks it up and how our C position has progressively gotten worse as the season progresses.

Adjusted statement and conclusion: Our worst position by far is the PF position and we should be talking about saying good bye to Patpat. The play of our PGs and C should all be a bit concerning.

4th statement: Douglas is better than Lin.

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When I was looking up how bad Patpat is, I came across the rotation analysis chart. In the words of DD, +/- is meaningless and that's somewhat true in this context. So clearly Douglas trumps Lin in the individual +/- department. But the net +/- production of Douglas is negative (and so is Delfino). At the same time Lin has an aPER of 12.7 and Douglas has an aPER of 8.7 so what gives?

Take a look at that first lineup. They play a lot and they are just so bad at starting off the game with a whopping -50 (needs to be taken into context of how many minutes played). If you take a look at all the bad lineups, it's Lin and Patterson, Lin and Patterson. Douglas doesn't really get playing time with Patpat or Lin and it's a big reason why his +/- performs better.

Am I making excuses for Lin? No. Both our point guards are horrible. They're just equally bad, but still better than Patpat. Some other concerns posters have mentioned also show up in these stats, such as Omer Asik's and our SF's production. Harden and our C's have an awful amount of TO's btw.

Adjusted statement and conclusion: Lin and Douglas are both bad, but what's disastrous is a lineup of Lin and Patterson on the floor together.

5th statement: Coaching is horribad

Well ****, I don't need analytics for this. It's just so ******* awful.


In summary:

• Rockets don't take "in-between" shots... and they should continue to avoid them. Shot-selection has produced the top XeFG% in the league.
• Our defense is bad all-around but we're especially bad at defending the three, and at the PF and C positions. Surprisingly, PG defense is notbad.jpg.
• Our worst position by far is the PF position and we should be talking about saying good bye to Patpat.
• Lin and Douglas are both bad, but what's disastrous is a lineup of Lin and Patterson on the floor together.
• Concerning downward trend for SF and C positions.
• Coaching is ******* awful.

 

Hi ERC, the data actually never refers to Douglas as a PG I believe. Also the data with Douglas when Lin and Harden aren't on the court is in one of the charts.

You are right and I was aware of this and similar mistakes when looking at the data. As the data isn't widely available and I didn't want to churn stats all night, I looked over it. I do think the points still stand however.