Early statistical comparison between last season and this one

It's VERY early in the thread, but I think this number is very interesting nevertheless.

Thread Outcome: 20% Fail

EDIT: Revised value for "Thread Outcome".

 

I think I know why our offensive rebounds are higher. Last year Yao takes quite a bit of shots. If he does miss, its not likely he will get his own offensive rebound. He often likes to post up which does not leave him in ideal rebounding position.

 

Our blocks are so high because the strips that Hayes and Co get down the lane sometimes are marked as blocks instead of steals.

 

Excellent post. Thanks

 

Did someone spit in your coffee today?

 

I want to take a crap your lawn...

 

I don't drink coffee.

I don't have a lawn.

This.

 

Shortly after Carl Herrera cast his 'Mystique Of The Morey' spell on this thread, he put on his wizard hat and robe.





...
Interesting and fun way to look at this season. It'll be real interesting for the number crunchers to study how this team performed (after the season) as compared to how they were expected to perform. I'll be looking for this thread after the season ends to see how things panned out.

 

That, combined with opponents attack rim a lot more nowadays, and more possesions due to faster paced game.

 

I guess the improved eFG% have a lot to do with how many fast breaks we run this season. Our half court offense is a little worse without Yao, but fastbreaks improved so much with the addition of Ariza and Buddinger.

 

Some fast break numbers ...

Rockets are averaging 18 fast break points per game (giving up 13) over the first 8 games of this season. Don't have the full numbers for last year, but just for comparison, over the 8 games after the Alston-Lowry trade last year, we scored 10.5 fast break points and gave up 9.3 per game.

Also, here's the fast break info for the 06/07 season, for reference:

Code:

   tm          fb      fb-opp  diff    w-l
 Golden State   20.4    13.4    7.1     42-40
 Phoenix        17.0    10.5    6.5     61-21
 Denver         18.6    14.6    4.0     45-37
 New Jersey     13.3    11.1    2.2     41-41
 Philadelphia   14.0    11.9    2.0     35-47
 Washington     15.3    13.3    2.0     41-41
 Cleveland      12.2    10.7    1.6     50-32
 Chicago        12.3    10.7    1.6     49-33
 Orlando        14.0    13.0    1.0     40-42
 Toronto        12.6    11.7    0.9     47-35
 San Antonio    11.6    10.8    0.8     58-24
 Dallas         13.4    12.7    0.7     67-15
 New Orleans    12.3    11.9    0.4     39-43
 Milwaukee      13.0    12.9    0.1     28-54
 Memphis        14.3    14.6    -0.3    22-60
 Boston         12.0    12.4    -0.4    24-58
 Detroit        10.6    11.2    -0.6    53-29
 New York       9.3     10.1    -0.8    33-49
 Seattle        11.8    12.6    -0.9    31-51
 Indiana        11.7    12.6    -0.9    35-47
 Sacramento     11.6    12.5    -0.9    33-49
 L.A. Clippers  7.9     9.0     -1.1    40-42
 Atlanta        11.8    13.3    -1.5    30-52
 Miami          10.8    12.8    -2.1    44-38
 Houston        7.4     9.6     -2.2    52-30
 L.A. Lakers    9.6     12.2    -2.6    42-40
 Utah           9.4     12.2    -2.8    51-31
 Minnesota      9.0     11.8    -2.8    32-50
 Charlotte      9.6     13.1    -3.5    33-49
 Portland       6.3     13.9    -7.6    32-50

Assuming a similar distribution this year, the Rockets must be amongst the league leaders.

 

Very VERY great post, OP!

I love how dedicated Rox fans are to go through the trouble to scout out these interesting numbers for people who gobble that info up like food for thought (like me) I love understanding what makes this team so great!

Keep it up and I'm looking forward to seeing how we progress!

 

I'm surprised our turnover rate hasn't gone down more. It used to be that the majority of our turnovers were from trying to get the ball inside to Yao. I guess now they come from Brooks driving the paint and not being able to realize that the defenders are looking to cover all the outlet passes. Hopefully as the year goes on we get better at that. The great thing about this team is that we still have tremendous room to improve.

 

great post. not a suprise our offense is looking great. we're already a top 10 offensive team whereas with yao we couldnt break the top 10 ever.

 

Most of it is due to Trevor Ariza and AB, both of whom are handling the ball a lot more than they have for the majority of their careers. Ariza just doesn't have a very good handle, and AB seems to make at least 4-5 careless passes per game. Those two more than make up for Yao's turnovers.

 

I think the problem with this comparison, besides the obvious small sample size of this year's team, is that last year was a tale of two halves. The first half with Alston and the limping T-Mac, and the second half with Brooks/Lowry and no T-Mac distractions.

That said, our dropoff in defense seems to be the most glaring aspect. Which really shows how much Yao meant to our historically top defenses.

 

Keep in mind that last year's squad took a long time to gel. Tmac was in and out and ineffective, Artest was trying to fit in and defer, it took them awhile to find their way. This year's team looks pretty cohesive right out of the gate, but I wonder how much better they can get as the season progresses.

 

The rebounding numbers are huge, and even though Yao Ming is an average rebounder I think he has a huge impact on team rebounding.

I don't even think there is a term for it yet, it should be called "contribution to team rebounding".

1) Yao is always camped in the lane and he is a pretty good box out guy, so even if he is not a great rebounder, he manages to box out the best rebounder on the opposing team a lot.

2) Because of Yao's defense, a lot of opposing teams will put a shooting center and try to lure Yao out of the paint, that means that the C is usually out of rebounding position when the shot goes up.

3) Even if the opposing team gets the offensive board, Yao ends up intimidating them into a tougher putback or to dribble out and reset the possession rather than just going straight up for a put back.