Hear me out. I'm not saying spacing isn't important. I'm just saying it's not the end-all be-all. Many on this board fretted about Amen playing with Sengun because you can only have "one non-shooter." Well, looks like those worries may have been for naught. The thing is, I feel like people have forgotten there are benefits to having a bigger, stronger team less reliant on the 3 ball. Further, in order to reap the full benefits of spacing, you have to most of your players on the perimeter, which can impact rebounding. There can be other, less obvious benefits as well. For example, with Bari in the lineup instead of Amen, the spacing is clearly better. However, Sengun also was doubled a ton because defenders were able to cheat just enough to provide themselves enough recovery room. Conversely, replace Bari on the perimeter with Amen in the dunker's spot and the dynamics completely change. Check out some examples from last night's game: :03: Sengun gets the ball down low, but two defenders are so worried about Amen that Sengun has a path to the basket. :26: The paint defender's attention is on a cutting Amen, giving Cam a free lane. 1:03: Because Amen is in the paint, EVERY defender crashes to defend Sengun and Amen, leaving Green wide open.
Even though we suck at shooting, we are the 12th best offense at this moment, thanks to offensive boards and low turnovers. Not bad, I'd say. The question now is, is this the limit to this kind of offense? Or can we double down on physicality and rebounding and make it even better? Top 10? Top 5? I wonder how good you can be with terrible shooting. Interesting problem.
It's only been two games. Let's give teams time to adjust to our new line up and see how the Rockets handle it.
fwiw: We just moved into Top 10 … 10th to be exact https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/advanced?dir=A&sort=OFF_RATING
No, it's not overrated. I think we have a great regular season situation going on and the goal was to make it to the playoffs. The next goal will be "win a playoff series" and we will need to solve some of our offensive woes the next season.
My source was Basketball Reference. They might be measuring the stat differently or maybe they are not up to date. Thanks.
Thinking Basketball posted a great video the other day about how three pointers are going up again league-wide. One point he made that I thought was interesting was that he said "the goal of a possession is not to shoot threes. The goal is basically to get an uncontested layup [or free throws] and only then when option A and 1A are taken away, do teams look for high percentage threes, because 40% from three is like 60% from 2". He also posted a couple of graphs showing that the league-wide 2P% at the rim and from 4-10 feet has gone up dramatically along with three point percentage; for the former, from 58% in 2004 to 67% a year ago. So we can kind of think of "spacing the floor with three point shooting" not as the goal in and of itself, but a means to open up more/better opportunities at the rim, and a backup plan when that fails.
Yeah, they do measure the stat differently … on purpose. All of their stats that rely on the count of possessions are actually estimates of possessions. They do this unapologetically in order to provide historical comparisons for years prior to the NBA publishing PbP. They count possessions from a formula that only relies upon a boxscore, not actual PbP. Thus, the official stat is NBA.com But, the official, accurate, count of Possessions (and all stats that rely upon an accurate count) only date back to 1997.
It’s a good question. Spacing certainly doesn’t benefit a team that can’t shoot very well. We have good rebounders, but they also have a ton of opportunities due to missed shots. It’s good we have players who can capitalize on that. It really just comes down to taking quality shots. Get guys touches in spots they are comfortable shooting from.
No. A few exceptions don't change how much easier it is for playmakers to work without a clogged paint.
When faced with a question that is moronic on it's face, there's no need to explain the obvious answer.
I'm in the no camp, but with a caveat. Spacing is usually just another way of saying open. So spacing players out for the sake of being apart from each other while still being tightly guarded isn't a benefit to your offense necessarily. It's still about the players you have, and understanding how to utilize their collective talents to get good/open shots. The triangle was a good system for Jordan, and Kobe given their ability to dominate the mid court area, and the 4 out 1 in system that Rudy T ran with Hakeem was good for the Rockets in the 90's. However you sub in Mutumbo for Hakeem, and that system is not ideal, you put MJ in the role of Kenny Smith and that system is not ideal, etc. etc. The issue with this team is I really don't know yet how to best utilize the talent we have on this Rockets team offensively long term, but in the short term we do know that we can use our athleticism to win games with a defensive first system where we just rely on playing downhill as much as possible on offense. Given our talent I kind of want more guys not less around the basket to take advantage of our athleticism, and ability to get rebounds for easier shots. So in short... yeah "spacing" is kind of overrated at times, but generally in the game it's a no.... it's usually important because usually it means open shots.
