Houston Rockets Analysis Series by VOA

Houston Rockets Analysis Series by VOA - Part 1

Introduction

With the Rockets now 4-3 and after 2 straight losses I have decided to cheer myself up and analyse some data. As the season goes on ill be updating the thread with different data collected such as the synergy stats and videos, SportVU data or other theories and ideas of how to best to make the numbers into information for everyone on clutch fans.

Part 1: 7 games into the season (last game was Clippers at Home)

In Part 1 I’ll be looking at how each individual has performed thus far compared to last years 82 games results in basic and advanced stats

Starting 5

Patrick Beverley
In what seems like Houston’s 400th starting PG in the Morey Era, ‘Pat Bev’ has started like he finished last year continuing his high intensity and aggression.




With extra minutes comes extra opportunities to fill the stat sheet, and Bev has shown exactly that, doubling his shots per game with a combination of more assurance in his shot and the coaches and players showing more confidence in him.
Besides that Pat has proven to be a ‘pest’ on the both ends of the floor combining that with his net rating (off rating minus defensive rating) is still relatively high for his role which is 5.4(slight dip from last year of 7.4)
His true shooting % is also positive for a rockets perspective, as is his rebounding for a guard in this league at 8.6%.

James Harden

‘The beard’ has copped some slack over the past couple of weeks adding to the suspicion of many on Clutchfans of his at times non attentive defensive.

Spoiler

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For everyone sayings harden is to selfish compared to last year if you look at the stats you can see his usage has dropped from 28.9% from 28%.

Harden’s defensive can be proven to be lacklustre at times and when you divulge into his advanced metrics of net rating there has been an increase from 2.7 to 5.4.
My assumption is the Dwight affect has something to do with harden having a better defensive rating although I have noticed when Harden does want to play defensive, he can actually have an affective closeout and hustle (cant say that for his pick and roll defensive which for the most part, the beard just gambles for a quick attempt at a high risk steal allowing players of the calibre of Dudley for example to blow past the 24 year old.

Chandler Parsons

How can a player so dreamy and loved by the majority of CF’s now have threads wanting him traded (so disrespectful – Stephan A Smith Voice)





Due to Chandler’s unusual shooting technique having less arc than the more traditional method it seems people need to understand that slumps will occur. In fact even though after 7 games in the regular season Chandler’s miserable 23.2% three point shooting should be taken with a grain of salt, it could be due to a confidence issue or his new and improved as I call it ‘fake it until you make it’ pump fake but Chanlder’s three point attempts has massively dipped from 5.2 per game to now 3.7
The other concern with Dwight was that CP25 would receive fewer touches per game but his usage rate of 18.4 % has completely remained unchanged.
Lastly I have to give props to Chandlers improved rebounding, I have commented on it a few times in the game threads and the stats back it up, even though we now have Dwight, Chandler has improved the figure from 8.3% to now 9.4%, it may not seem like a big jump but when one of Dwight or Omer is off the floor, its apparent that his aggression to go after rebounds is prevalent.

Dwight Howard

Dwight on Clutch Fans is a rollercoaster experience, one moment everyone loves him and Morey is a genius for spending years acquiring assets for the final pay day, and then the next moment people are asking for him to be traded while he still has value.





When looking at Dwight’s numbers last year I had to factor in his back injury and what everyone called it ‘he wasn’t 100%’
On the positive side Dwight has increased his PPG and RPG marginally and looking at his advanced stats show he is rebounding at a higher rate of 21.8% (last year 19.3%) even though he has to spend time with Omer on the court for anywhere of 5-15 minutes a game. This may be skewed by the season openers performance of 26 boards but overall his rebounding has been impressive to say the least.
On the other spectrum it seems Dwight’s ability to get steals and blocks has been taking its time. It seems the more time Dwight spends on the floor wearing a rockets jersey he is getting more chemistry with teammates to funnel their players to him to either alter, block or pull out of their shot altogether, its amazing how his presence at times his changed players natural instincts on opposition teams.
It also wont be right if I mention the name Howard and not followed by free throw. In the 7 games Dwight has increased his FTA by 1.2 and has increased his Free throw percentage by .1%

Omer Asik


It’s funny when I see the trade rumours of Asik, people don’t realise if we never get him as a RFA through the poison pill then we probably would not have made the playoffs, and then we probably would never had got Dwight to come here.





Asik’s minutes with this team have dropped by a little under 25% over the 7 games however a side note that a few have been due to foul trouble early.

What has really impressed me is that Asik has improved his FT shooting to 62.5% almost putting him out of any Hack-A-Omer conversation (something Morey must hate, as he has stated on radio saying his encourages teams to use the strategy on us). Asik is still averaging 9 boards a night and is only grabbing .4% less of the boards available than what he did last year.
Lastly a strange stat I saw was Asik’s Defensive rating of 97.7 a very impressive total compared to last years 101.3, however his offensive rating has dipped from 107.2 to now 94.2 (insert Dwight Howard).

Bench

Jeremy Lin

I have been extremely impressed with the Lin the rockets have had in both the preseason and regular season thus far, and I also commend the coaching staff to rightly using Lin off the bench given he is a ball dominant guard.





Jeremy’s hot start of 43.2% from downtown and over 50% FG shooting has been a huge upgrade thus far for the second unit.
Lin has also been a bright spot when factoring in Net rating of 8.8 (last year of 2.4)
Although Lin now comes off the bench his minutes have only reduced by just over 2 per game, something that should be noted.
Im excited to see the of a drop off his shooting will have once the law of averages kicks in or if this is legit and were getting a knockdown stud.

Omri Casspi


People were predicting him to be cut when they were watching him in play overseas in the offseason, saying Morey had made the wrong decision and he’ll will never be Delfino 2.0. Well he may be Delfino 3.0





Where do u start with Casspi, he shoots the three ball at 40% and has a net rating of 17.3!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cant make that figure up even if I tried He also has the second highest team offensive rating 111.1 and team high defensive rating 93.7 to put the last of the Morey critics away for good.
Lastly the one thing the stats indicated Delfino was good at was defensive rebounding and Casspi has shown as well to have the same love for grabbing boards getting 11.8% off boards available, another reason why McHale trusts him to play the 4.

Francisco Garcia

This is goes out to the ‘Garcia Fan Club’.





Really, like Casspi you can forget about his 2012-2013 stats, as his role was much different for the most part as it is this year.
Garcia has improved both his FG and 3FP percentages in the 7 games.

‘Cisco’ has also shown to be dominating the net rating system having a 13.5 rating and at one time he was leading the entire league being no.1 in offensive rating and no.5 in defensive rating


Conclusion

I will admit after the Blake game winner and what I thought was a disappointing loss to the Clippers again, after reviewing the stats I can see its not all bad. Our current core 8 have a lot going for them and it ill only take a matter of time for timing and chemistry to improve on the court.

On a side note if this thread is a success in CF’ers eyes then Part 2 will be analysing either SportVU or shot charts and will be coming in a couple of weeks in this thread or let me know what type of analysis you would like me to do.

 

The reason I became a contrib member was because of statement like that, thanks for the compliment anyways

 

People normally read my name as 'voice of anus' so I guess I'll take it as a good thing.

Although if voice of America did do a analysis of the rockets season it would be an interesting read for sure

 

And soon to be Australian (insert my man love for Dante Exum)

 

i have been taking screenshots of everyones shot charts thus far, and will defiantly do a analysis of it for our players.

Pace would be interesting but i figure it would be much the same as our offensive production is still top 5, but ill look into it