Hard to criticize Howard's effort level when he's a spectator on offense

as i've posted here since even before dwight became a rocket, dwight is a worse postup player than even pippendagimp. that being said, i still think establishing the inside/outside game has more value for us over the course of a game than just the 0.73 number alone would indicate.

in addition to the side benefits, such as getting inside defenders in foul trouble, it gives us another player in rhythm to run the offense thru at times, such as when harden got in foul trouble last night. and especially against a guy in omer that he has had success on in the past with his quickness. perhaps dwight needs to play the deandre role on certain or even most nights, but i don't believe last night was one of them.

and i'm all for running dwight thru pnr, but i didn't see that much at all last night either -- this team is truly an enigma from every angle.

regarding the predictability of our offense, we looked locked up at the end of the 4th last night. harden is indeed great at contested 3's alone against one defender. he certainly delivered on saturday night. but i think it's too much to ask of even him to deliver possession after consecutive possession, game after game. if they are packing the paint then make them pay for being out of position against at least 2 of our players. seems that bickerstaff is overusing harden like a crutch in the clutch, when we have 1/2 a dozen other players in the rotation who have drained final 2min shots with regularity all career long.

 

I've said this before and I will say it again... STATS never tell the entire story..

I get it that a lot of you guys don't like Howard and a lot people never wanted on the Rockets in the first place...

Howard is not the greatest Post Player that the Rockets have had... But on the flip side he's not a Center such as Eaton or D. Jordan who don't look to integrate themselves into the offense.. So trying to compare Howard to them is not a good comparison.

If you look at the offense, he stops once Harden gets the ball, because they all know he's going to hold on to the ball for 24 secs... Not like GS where guys are consistently moving even when Curry has the ball....

Say what you want, Howard is not the biggest issue with this team, but it's amazing how he gets the blame for all things wrong even when he's not a part of the offense.

The amazing thing is people were posting when DMo gets back and I said it then and I will say it again... As long as this offense is run the way it is, it doesn't matter what low post player you get on this team it want make a difference.

T_Man

 

QFT tbh.

 

To be fair, deandre was never good on offense while Dwight used to be an MVP caliber player in Orlando

 

I agree with this and wish can rep

 

Yet another fallacy that keeps getting repeated as if it was true. Each game Harden's possession time is 42 seconds more than Curry's despite the fact that Harden is on the floor 3.2 minutes longer than Curry.

Per minute that they are on the floor, Curry possesses the ball more than Harden.

 

Harden and Howard's play this year are the two biggest reason this team is struggling. Both of them are lacking in the heart department this year.

 

You can quote as many stats as you want.. But the main stat is telling story and that's their record....

This team is playing like individuals instead of like a team.... In the 4th quarter when Harden is on the floor it turns into the iso game..

You can quote as many stats as you like... The proof is right in front of you...

The iso offense will win you some games, but not a championship...

The iso game will make you a hero, but more than often it will make you a goat..

So you stick with your stats... Like I said they don't tell the entire story...

T_Man

 

People are talking about ISOs

Harden has 8 ISOs/game to Curry's 2.7
Harden ISOs on 27.5% of the possession's he's in vs Curry's 10.4%

http://stats.nba.com/playtype/#!/isolation/?dir=1&PT=player&OD=offensive&sort=Poss

Now, not all of those are at the beginning of the possession, I'm sure, which your possession stats prove. But one way or another, he does end up in a league-leading % of ISOs / possession and per game.

 

aelliott,

Also note that GSW has more possessions per game than any other team in the NBA, and 2 more than HOU. So, you can't compare time/min of Harden vs Curry's time/min, because GSW has more possessions.

btw: where'd you get those possession time stats. I can only find that for team totals, not players. tia

 

Not one thing in this statement refutes the question at hand. This is basically concession speech. No one here even claimed to hate Howard. He a player who wants more post ups but is bad at posting up, Its literally that simple. If he wants more touches he can set a real pick.Instead of the lazy pout screens he sets, lol

 

That post was a reply to a statement that claimed that Harden held the ball for 22 seconds. i.e.Implying that Harden possessed the ball for almost the entire shot clock. Those possession stats do indeed disprove that regardless of the type of play.

If you want to go down to the touch level for possession time then you can do that too. Harden is middle of the pack (15th or so) for all team's primary ball handlers in time of possession per touch.

 

Another case of "Don't ask me to back up my opinion with any facts".

You can't win a title running ISO? Have you ever seen Lebron James? Dwayne Wade? They've already won a title running heavy ISO. Lebron is always top 5 in the league in ISO.

I always laugh when anyone is so certain that a team will never win a title doing "x". A couple of years ago there were people claiming that a jump shooting team would never win a title. Earlier people claimed that you couldn't win a title without a dominant center. Now you're certain that a team can't win running heavy ISO when it's already been done.

BTW I do agree with you that stats don't tell the entire story. What they do really well though is to disprove something that people claim to happen frequently. Those are facts and can't really be disputed. For example, someone claims that Howard is getting no touches yet stats show that he's top 3 or 4 in the league in paint or post touches. That refutes that point completely unless you believe that the NBA stats are incorrect.

If you don't want to use facts then use the video that I posted in this thread. People were claiming that Howard wasn't getting the ball when he had his man pinned. I posted the video off all 21 possessions where Harden shot the ball vs NO. Do you seen any of those possessions where Howard was in a position to get an easy hoop or even receive the ball?

 

This doesn't tell the whole story.

Curry brings the ball past half court on most possessions since he is the designated PG and when he is picked up full court that could be 4-5 seconds each possession

Harden has ball boys like Bev and Lawson to do the initial ball handling and then pass it over to Harden once they cross half court.

A more interesting stat is who holds the ball more past half court, Curry or Harden?

 

Lebron won a title with two other superstars and he did not play ISO ball..

Wade won his first title with Shaq and they played an inside out game...

LeBron will win some games and put people in their seats, but he will not win a title playing iso ball... M. Jordan couldn't do it, D. Wilkins couldn't do it and neither could Hakeem.

The fact is this... The team is in shambles and their record is showing that..

I don't need numbers to show me what I see.. People like to bring up stats and say I have proof... Stats don't tell the entire the story..

T_Man

 

I am on the side of "Howard getting too much of the blame"

He clearly has not been involved in the offense, but he isn't the same guy from 5 years ago either. The only thing that bothers me is that "playoff Dwight" is real so he clearly is not playing with the same intensity as he does in late april, but given his age and injury history maybe he just cant night in and out and saves himself. I am ok with that (provided we even make the playoffs)

Now despite that an engaged Dwight even currently is better than 75% (maybe more) of the centers out there. Like for me personally I like Dwight in the post when he takes 0-1 dribbles. More than 1 dribble its often disaster. He hasn't done too much in terms of the left handed scoops and hooks he was pretty efficient at in years past. He needs to go back to that instead of dribble dribble and then turn and hook off the glass.

Now - what bothers me from the guards is Dwight often does get great position deep in the paint and rarely gets the ball. What bothers me particularly from Terrence Jones is that he is an absolute black hole when it comes to running the hi-low offense. DMo runs the hi low the best and gets Dwight easy easy buckets when he does. Capela is getting better at it. Jones is the absolute worst and he often is the big man this year getting the ball in the high post. So its so damn frustrating to see TJ not make the smart play (i know he isnt a smart player).


I mean there is a reason why so many people say to play inside out. Its a proven winning strategy. Calvin Murphy literally tweets prior to every game about feeding Dwight underneath. Its not easy to play in the post and get beat up over and over trying to fight for position and not see the ball. It takes its toll, heck I've experience that just playing in rec league and it pisses me off - I can just imagine someone like Dwight having to deal with it at the NBA level.


You could say that the team didn't really play too much with Dwight last year and aren't used to having him down there, but they fed DMo enough last year and this year neither player is really seeing the ball in the post that often.

 

This is the beauty of CF.NET. In other threads people are blaming the offensive problems on Harden taking too long to get the ball across midcourt. According to those posters, Harden barely beats the 8 second mark. Now, you say Harden doesn't bring the ball up.

NBA doesn't supply possession times for frontcourt/backcourt but they do provide the number of front court touches. Using that number you can calculate the number of backcourt touches.

Harden and Curry's backcourt touches are almost identical (within 1) so I'd have to say that they are both bringing the ball up the court a comparable amount of times.

Now if you believe all of the posters that say that Harden takes almost 8 seconds to cross midcourt, then that would further reduce his possession time in the front court.

 

Always fun watching Aelliott put people in their place.

I never really understood why people always try and shoulder all of one team's problems onto one player. I guess its because they are too lazy (or stupid) and they get mad at that one thing, rather than spending the time to properly look at the individual nuances of what is going on.

 

Lebron has always been a heavy ISO player. Same with Wade. You saying it's not ISO doesn't make it so.

You don't have to believe me, you can look at the NBA stats to see it yourself. Even this season, 22% of Lebron's possessions are Isolations...that is a fact. If your eyes see differently then you're wrong.

Are you sure that you understand the definition of an isolation play?

Here's a blurb mentioning just how much Lebron was running ISO in last years playoffs:

Here's another from prior to the 2012 NBA Finals which was an iso battle between Durant/Westbrook/Harden and Lebron/Wade.

If your eyes aren't seeing it then it may be time for glasses.

 

LeBron was Heavy ISO with Cleveland.. And you are correct LeBron was running heavy iso in the playoffs and it goes to show you that 5 is greater than 1...

You like to pull numbers to make it seem as you 're this big time genuis the same way that Morey was pulling numbers to say Barkley had no ideal of what he was talking about..

Well it looks like Barkley was right after all.... STATS don't tell the entire story... and their are multiple articles to prove points..

The fact of the matter is this... As long as Harden plays the way he's playing and if the Rockets don't get a balance attack they want be winning a championship..

I don't need numbers to help me prove that..

http://grantland.com/features/how-miami-heat-went-historic-winning-streak-came-dominate-league/

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T_Man