Not a complaint but an observation: Harden is still playing analytic ball aka MoreyBall

Because you have no arguments LOL. Becuase you fundamentally think something as simple as True shooting is a complicated stat....get the **** outta here.

 

You have been using nothing but anecdotal evidence you dont have facts behind you.

 

Great theory you have there but the facts simply don't support your conclusion.

- Take Austin Rivers for one - the stats across his career(winshares, VORP to name two) with 5 teams suggest he is various shades of replacement level and the fact he is currently playing for his SIXTH team for just over $3mil a year on the Knicks is another indicator of how lukewarm most everyone in the league is on him. Houston didn't make him that way - he has played that way across his teams and he would probably already be out of the league if it weren't for his father's position as a legendary player AND coach.

- Statistically Melo is producing very similarly in Portland to what he did in Houston - actually Houston managed to catch his first negative VORP season and he is even worse now in Portland. He does get more minutes now which marginally increases his stat line but rest assured he is the same low efficiency player he was in Houston - it's just billed as a success story because Portland's bench REALLY stunk before he arrived.

- Ariza has been terrible since he left the Rockets - no one in the league would agree with your take on him. Age simply caught up with him.

- CP3's hasn't been significantly better since he left - he is exactly what he was when he left Houston- an injury prone, aging player who benefited greatly from the unprecedented sequence of events that led to a significant mid season rest before he could break down like he always does. His stat line in Houston included swaths of playing through minor injuries that impacted his production which is why he has steadily played less minutes per game since leaving Houston.

-Westbrook has played exactly two games for Washington so I'm not sure how you can assess anything at this stage but since you have your mind made up without statistical proof, I guess that isn't much of a concern for you.

Back to the drawing board for you....

 

What does that have to do with anything? Appeal to authority argument. Already starting off with a fallacy.

Really because teams are running more and more plays to get out of the mid range so you are factually incorrect. And LOL show me a clip of teams running said play in the NBA? And give me the stats on how many times its run, I'l wait. You wont because you are full of ****. LMAO the Free throw line jump shot, the most valuable shot in the NBA teams, are heavily guarding, it, that's a load of **** which you have no evidence for. If you are bricking 3s, than you will not be hitting mid range twos at a high enough of a rate to give yourself a chance you. That is what I mean. So when I say "mid range twos are good enough" they are not. Learn math Mr. Scientist.

Oh and here are Tucker, Gordon and Ariza's mid range stats.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/arizatr01.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gordoer01.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/tuckepj01.html

Go to shooting percentages by distance and look at their career numbers. LOL all of them low to mid thirties from that distance. Please kindly get the **** outta here. If you really think taking those shots would make a difference.

LOL also please compare their mid range shooting percentages to their 3 point percentage, I'm really getting a huge laugh out of this.

 

So curious minds want to know, if advanced metrics are conducive to winning then why haven't we won a championship or even made a NBA Finals yet at the very least if Morey was one of the biggest early adopters of analytics? Save me that tired Harden didn't have any help speech that you have recycled so many times as your go to argument. The FACT is we haven't won $hit since the 90's. The FACT is we were up 3-2 against GSW in the WCF with a 10 point lead going into halftime in Game 6 and a 15 point lead going into halftime in Game 7. The FACT is we missed 27 consecutive threes in Game 7 and lost that game in single digits. That's all the FACTS I need, is that enough FACTS for you?

 

If you want to take nuance out of it fine we can end it here my guy.

 

I said "Outside of Harden, Houston’s roster has mostly been not very talented compared to other top tiered teams."

The last 6 years they have been knocked out of the playoffs by the Lakers and Warriors 5 times - both teams with better rosters than Houston. The Warriors had 4 all stars for much of that run. The Lakers had two top 5 players in the league. I'm sure Houston was overwhelmingly picked to lose in all of those contests. The only recent playoff loss I would say Houston should have won was the Spurs loss when Kawhi was turning into a top 5 player. I personally felt like D'Antoni got outcoached in that one but Harden was terrible for parts of that series supporting the theory that he was concussed after taking a shot to head from Pau Gasol.

 

Austin Rivers pay structure is not indicative of how good he is as a player. Kind of a moot point you are making here buddy. Most teams have 2 max level guys, so there are going to be a lot of players that sign vet minimum or MLE contracts now days. Doesn't necessarily mean they are bad players. I think any debate about Westbrook or Rivers needs to be discussed AFTER this season. Not enough of a sample size to comment on their performances with their respective new teams. I think age did play a factor in Chris Paul's declining minutes last year somewhat but you also have to factor in that OKC viewed Paul as an asset to flip. Not playing him a ton of minutes benefited them in several key areas. Number one, reduced minutes kept Paul healthy. Number two, Paul was able to showcase himself on the biggest stage as still being a basketball savant in the playoffs. Number three, it allowed OKC to play their young guys more which in turn helped develop those guys and also allowed them not to win as many games. Ariza is not worth me mentioning, God bless Ariza. I'm good on the drawing board, seems like you might need it to bring up some better points.

 

perfectly sums up my thoughts on Hardens attitude.

 

Harden gonna do whatever he wants and to be fair, he started out the game looking to get his team involved.

 

You have a very linear view IMO about basketball. Not sure if you take time to view the counter points to your arguments. Yes GSW did have 4 all-stars, on paper they were the better team. But thank God we don't play the game on paper. Basketball is all about matchups. Remember we beat the GSW 2-1 in the 2017-18 regular season. In basketball a "third" star is not that important, the third guy gets lost in the wind a lot and doesn't make nearly as big of an impact as you might think. And having a "fourth star"? You'd be better off in most scenarios solidifying your bench with key role players juxtaposition to having a "fourth" star. Game 6 and Game 7 that year in the WCF were both winnable games. Game 6 we were up by 10 going into the half. Now I get it, you're probably thinking but HTown basketball is a tale of two halves. And that would be the correct thought, but Game 7 was lost by single digits after we had a 15 point lead going into the half and missed 27 consecutive threes in the second half. I don't care how many all-stars you say GSW had. Add Boogie to their all-star list too because he was on that team as well. Let's count GSW for having 5 all-stars that year to stack the odds even more against us. Even with 5 all-stars we should have not lost Game 7 at home to the GSW, period. You have to look at how the game played out during the stretch, not a narrative based around all the stars they had. Scheme over team bro...

 

It was a close game. If it ended few seconds earlier when we were up after the second step back 3, people would be focused on different things.

Game of possessions.

This game showed potential. I'm looking forward to the Nuggets game. They're better than the Blazers.

 

First of all, this has nothing to do with my post that you replied to. My post was in response to the idea that teams ran the Rockets off of the 3 point line and that Harden was left unguarded in midrange. Those things are untrue. We got a ton of open 3 pointers and Harden was doubled even when he didn't have the ball. He wasn't all of a sudden left ungarded when he was in the midrange area.

As for your post, the Rockets got 38.7 Open or Wide Open threes per game in last years playoffs. That's a huge number of open 3s.

They did take 7.9 tightly guarded 3s. On those tightly guarded threes, they shot 29.3%. That equates to 44.21% from midrange. The problem is that we only shot 40.7 from midrange in last year's playoffs. So if you replace those few contested 3s with midrange shots then you're even less efficient.

How did those guys that you mention do on the midrange that they took in last year's playoffs?

PG13 43.9%
Lebron 39.15%
Leonard 41.8%
Tatum 41.5%
Davis 49.6%

PG13, Lebron, Leonard and Tatum were bad from midrange. AD's percentage is the same as 32.7% from behind the arc. That's below average.

Even if those guys were actually efficient from midrange, how is that relevant to the Rockets? None of them play for Houston. I could state that Curry, Robinson and Harris utilize 3 point shots. I would actually be correct but that too would be irrelevant to the Rockets. We don't have anyone that can shoot from behind the arc like those guys just as we don't have anyone who's really good at midrange.

Harden, Gordon and Westbrook's midrange shooting has never been good...ever.

Here's the entire list of guys who attempted at least 3 mid-range shots/game and made 50% or more:

Chris Paul
Khris Middleton

That's it. Two guys in the entire league.

 

On the contrary I agree with you that the three ball should be Houston's main weapon. But if a wide open two is available take it. That's bad basketball to pass up wide open looks that come at a premium.

 

Not if a wide open 3 is available. You're acting like we're continually hoisting up contested shots and passing up open midrange shots. That's simply not true.

It's better to take an open 3 than an open 2. We don't have a problem generating open 3s.

You're always going to have a few contested shots that come at the end of the shot clock or quarter. We could shoot all midrange and I doubt that we'd have less than 7.9 contested midrange shots. We don't take many contested 3s.We take more open threes than most anyone in the league. We don't have a problem creating open 3s. That's what differentiates Harden from other players.

You're solving a problem that doesn't exist.

 

Bro do you not get that I'm agreeing with you? Take open threes over open twos, yes I agree, you agree, we all agree. No one is saying not to take open threes. Not one single person in this thread has said the Rockets should eliminate the three ball from their arsenal and take mostly mid range jumpers. The difference is when there is an open two at the mid range but it's not taken for a contested three. I have literally seen the Rockets coaching staff scold past players for taking wide open mid range jumpers. This is like beating my head against the freaking wall. I swear some of you guys have reading comprehension issues. The new players on the squad are starting to take the mid range jumpers when the shot is there. But what OP was stating is that Harden is still under the Morey way of playing basketball. Maybe that is an assumption that is not true from the OP but why does that need to be argued if that's his observation/assumption? You said we don't have a problem generating open threes? Isn't that how we lost to the Lakers in the playoffs this year? It's like we are looking at two different teams instead of the same team. How I saw it was the Rockets were having trouble scoring because the Lakers were sagging off of Westbrook's non shooting ass. They were literally daring him to shoot and leaving him wide the freak open. Meanwhile they were taking RW defender and doubling on Harden. They took the ball out of Harden's hand and that's how we lost.



In this ^ short 8:30 video, there were quite a few mid range opportunities that were there. But instead of taking what was there, we either tried to roll to the basket and was met by a defender at the rim or passed it back out and had to reset the play. BTW, even in this video we took several contested shots. The offense was very stagnant against the Lakers and there is not much motion going on from our guys at all. Coach Nick actually mentions the fact that there are opportunities for Harden and other to use the mid range more. Numbers should always be used along side game film. Without film the numbers don't tell the full story, without numbers the film doesn't tell the full story.

 

It is a WASTE OF A Possession. That's what you dudes dont get. If you teams are giving you mid range twos and you are taking them YOU ARE NOT GOING TO WIN. My god. That's what you guys( dont get.

Look at the people we've had on our squad, Tucker, Ariza, Gordon, Rivers, Roco none of them are good enough mid range shooters to force the defenders to adjust. Get that through your head.


Lololol free throw line "pop and shot" Im dying.

 

A lot of our fans aren’t very smart, but they aren’t anything close to your level. @HP3 i think you accomplish what so few people on the interwebz can do, and come out thinking you’re remotely intelligent. Over the years we’ve gotten a couple here and there, they get banned come back etc...but a walking embodiment of the dunning-Kruger effect? Lol that’s special. In a way it’s blissful knowing someone so stupid can’t see himself the way others do (believe me its not pretty).

You ignored my question for good reason, you’ve never played basketball at any sort of competitive level. Think about it for a second, you’re talking about a game you’ve never played competitively in opposition to execs and players. That play it professionally around the league. There’s something to be said about folks with cheetoh fingers with minimal education googling ways to come across as smart on an internet message board though..

I digress though, I think your analysis (and history of being blatantly wrong and inability to grasp it) trumps front offices like the warriors who have come out on record stating the opposite. The funny thing is they don’t have to, for anybody “that gets it” it’s one of those fundamental concepts. There’s a reason the other poster from the page prior who clearly gets it said he’s done talking to you if you can’t grasp something so simple. You go ahead and continue your life as is, make emotionally charged tearful posts as you have been above nobody can stop you when you’re your own worst enemy. Be well.

 

Projection and ad hominem....nothing to back up your point when I call you out...typical.

I ignored your question because its dumb and has no merit wether I say yes or no. And yes I have played ball. So there you go.

LOL front offices like the Warriors, you mean the dude's with 4 HOF LMAO. You have three of the greatest shooters ever on one team...yea goof of course they can take mid range or whatever shot they want and its not gonna affect them...holy crap. This is such a poor argument. You quoted me dude, I didnt quote you. Frankly I find your basketball takes lacking, you can keep running away without providing evidence like you always do.

 

Sińce HP doesnt get it let me explain. In the long run 2point reward for midrange jumpers difficulity is too low so its better to shoot from three. But in close game down the wire when you NEED to score then closer shot is easier shot. Its harder to make shot the further its taken especially contested... so in close clutch game open midrange is a must