Call your shot on the Rockets offensive rating in 2019-20

Any team with James Harden will always be efficient offensive team with his scoring and playmaking

 

I am more concerned about Defense. Tucker is one year older.

Brodie goes for the Lebron chasing it back Blocks.

 

Leonard and PG13 have learned how to create though.

Wouldn't be surprised if they signed another PG for cheap.

Beverley has to use his playmaking haha. Once in his life.

 

OKC last 3 seasons O-rating ranks 16/7/15.

And that’s a team having the No. 6 pace in the league last year, while the pace of the Rox ranked 27.

OKC loves to run and that’s the most efficient part of Russ’ game.

The Rox loves to walk up the court and play half court iso, and that’s always been the worse part of Russ’ game.

So base on these well known facts, it’s hard to image how the o-rating of the Rox can still stay in the top 3.

 

Warriors, Bucks, Rockets.

Will be very close imo. Keep in mind I'm assuming all teams healthy. Warriors won't be top 5 before Klay returns.

 

Sweet Lou can create also. Sweet Lou to Harrell connection was more efficient and productive than Harden to Capela last year.
I think they lead the league in that category.

I think we will finish top 4 in offensive rating but I can't put a number on it.

 

Actually when OKC was 7th in offense they were only 17th in pace. Having the 7th offense with Carmelo in the rotation (and Roberson) is pretty impressive to me.

WB has QB’d #1 and #2 offenses without Harden and importantly without MDA so it’s hard to see the offense slipping too much if at all. His on paper inefficiency doesn’t seem to negatively impact his teams’ offensive output.

 

Westbrook averages 25/15/15 under D'antoni. Wins another MVP. Harden runner up dropping 30/7/7. #1 Ortg of all time.

Jokes aside, I honestly can see us winning 60 games this year with a #1 Ortg if we're healthy.

Kawhi's going to be load managing like 30 games this season and I wouldn't put it past Lebron or AD to get injured and miss 30 games themselves. Our real competition in the standings are the Nuggets or Jazz.

 

I hope our offensive rating goes down - because we put guys on the floor that can defend, box out and rebound...
Plus maybe then MDA wont feel the need to run our stars unnecessarily in pursuit of reg season statistical acolades... like James and his 30+ pt streak or whatever...

This org gets to caught up on stats - as though they are some kinda substitute for a championship...

...imo...

 

The logic is baffling.

You hope our offensive rating goes down? Check the roster again. I’m not optimistic but we need our offense to go up. As of right now our defense looks like it will be worse.

You do realize that the reason the Warriors, Bucks and Raptors were all considered “high end” contenders is because of some stats. Some stats that say that their offensive effiency plus their defensive efficiency equals the best in the league.

You act like these numbers don’t mean anything. They are a numerical representation of what literally happened on the court. The better your net rating the more likely you are to win a championship. They are very heavily connected.

Regular season Net rating rank of the champs starting with last year going back to 2000

3rd, 3rd, 1st, 4th, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 5th, 3rd, 1st, 1st, 6th, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 2nd, 8th, 1st

If you can’t see the strong correlation of regular season net rating and winning a title then I don’t know what to tell you. We are caught up in stats that point to a good chance at winning. Doesn’t mean you always will, but it clearly puts you in the conversation.

 

The offense will be really good.

Defense is the question.

If they can somehow be top 10 on D then the rockets will be right their with the clips for a chip next year.

I’m not sold on the lakers their going to be terrible on D and still have fit and shooting issues.

Not to mention Lebron keeps getting a pass for entering his 17th year and coming off injury.

He’s more likely to regress/injury than bounce back to how he played even 3 years ago.

And AD always gets hurt.

I expect us to play like we did MDA first season here with more pace and more cutting. Plus when Russ is in the game especially without harden it will non stop fastbreaks.

He’ll be playing with Gordon house possibly bennet and Tyson chandler so their will be a lot of space shooting and plenty of pick and rolls.

I think harden will go back to MR assist man this year while his scoring will dip back to 28-30ppg.

He’s to good to avg less than that even if he’s giving Russ the ball more than he gave it to cp3.

 

Like I always tell you, man - its a matter of balance... something we do very poorly...
it's about a balance between offense and defense...
a balance between 3s and inside points...
a balance between iso and ball movement...
a balance between small ball and a full sized front court...

many get too caught up in stupid trivial stats and accolades and miss the bigger picture...

I think Morey and MDA obviously likes to find what they believe to be a statistical advantages and hammer them to the nth degree - without accounting for repercussions...

its like isos... yeh, our greatest efficiency... but you got 4 guys standing around getting ice cold...

My point in my initial post was that we need to put guys on the court that can box out, rebound, play defense... not just worrying about our offensive rating - as MDA seems to do...
PJ is a guy who's on the court for defense... and we ask him to guard bigger pfs all game... so our 1 true defender and we give him a herculean task every night...
GG aint on the court for defense...
Nene was woefully underplayed during the GSW series...

I think we will have our usual high offensive efficiency year.... I just hope we are willing to concede a bit to put more focus on our defensive efforts - because that is a more significant point of differential...

 

And like I always tell you. Roster dictates how balanced we can be. 2017/2018 allowed that, 1st offense, 7th in defense, 1st in net rating. And it had nothing to do with playing differently than we always do. We played lots of small ball, we led the league in 3s and isolation plays, we were near the bottom in paint points. You play to your strengths.

Is your contention that with the roster we had in 2018/2019, all we had to do was play differently and we would have won? I don’t buy it.

The sooner you figure out that offensive rating, defensive rating and net rating aren’t stupid trivial stats, the better.

As of today with the roster we have I’d say we better pray our offense can explode, because we appeared to have taken a step back in defensive personnel. I don’t think playing Gary Clark or whoever we deem to be our “better” defenders is going to help us win more unless he has become a positive on offense as well.

 

5th the NBA

 

115.6

 

112.9. In the regular season, almost every team in the West got better with the exception of Minny OKC and of course GSW. There's nothing our team can do about that. Defensively too we might not be as good as 2017-2018, but the bar set by 2018-2019 I think was low enough to climb over. Our diffy will be better, and if Harden and Westbrook can gel together and play for each other both on offense and defense, then they have the potential to defy all the advanced stats which say that this will not work. In the playoffs, the boogieman is dead. All you have are teams with two superstars and then a variably good, likely spotty remainder of the rotation. Who knows what will happen. I wasn't a fan of this trade, but we're as much in the hunt this year as anybody else. I think we would have been even without the trade.

 

116.1 for number 1

 

Until the Rockets crush my optimism, I think we are going to be even better offensively.

 

#1 Rating, culminating in the Rockets 3rd championship.

That's how good I feel about this. Westbrook's endless energy and frantic pace is just what the doctor ordered. As great as Harden is, the slow pace drives me crazy at times.