Thanks. Great find. Gotta love Coach Nick and bballbreakdown. Some of the best analysis for fans anywhere. Maybe the best, by a long shot.
I put a post on this in the 'Rockets don't like in-between shots' thread, but if with the Rocket's current FG% they shot more like the rest of the league, ie. with more 2's, they would offensively be only 20th (out of 30), instead of 10th in eFG%. If the Rockets even shot league average % around the rim and at the 3pt, they would be 5th, instead of 10th. imo, the biggest culprits of FG% are probably Lin and Asik, and perhaps Parsons now and then (can't tell with the shoulder soreness), and both those guys are super hard workers so I can't imagine them not working on this in the off-season, ASB, and whatever other chance they get.
Not the way Adelman runs it. Players need to know all the options and it requires great timing and trust between players. That's why Adelman brought Brad Miller into HOU and MINN for one year each to teach the bigs how to run it. Lakers tried the Princeton but their starters didn't fit that system since they're great at free-lancing. I heard McHale and Sampson remark several times that our guys keep settling for the first option and are not patient enough to wait for the 2nd and 3rd options to develop. Anyway Harden, Lin and Parsons are great at free-lancing. Finch was Vipers coach during the last two seasons of Adelman's tenure. Vipers were running the same stuff as the Rockets team. That's what I meant by Finch knowing Adelman's sets.
Yeah, I understand what you meant. I just don't think it makes much, if any difference that Finch coached the D-League team of the Rocekts when Adelman was the head coach. Again, Adelman has a certain system that pretty much every NBA coach knows and every half-decent coach will pick up after watching a certain amount of film. Basketball just isn't that hard to figure out. What wrinkles you ultimately end up running is very much dependent on the personal however. Adelman is still running the same system with the Wolves as he did with the Rockets, but they run different wrinkles that fit their personal better. The most basic options remain the same, but in order to get the most out of your players, you have to tweak the system to fully utilize your player's strength. That's why I don't think Finch knowing Adelman's playbook matters much. You can't just run the (exact) system of another coach and think you'll have success doing so. You need to be a good offensive mind yourself and be able to tailor the system towards the strength of your players.
Most NBA coaches incorporate some elements of Adelman's offense. That's not the same as knowing the system, let alone implementing it. Adelman's full-fledged system takes a long time to learn. It usually takes him a whole season to get it down. Sometimes he has to change personnel to make it work. Any good coach would run different wrinkles to his system to fit the players. That doesn't mean every coach uses the same basic system. What they were doing was that they wanted to have a parallel system in the D-league so that they could develop young players playing the same system when they were called back to the big league. It was not the "exact" system, but it was the same system nonetheless. It was intentional for developmental purposes.
I think you're being mistaken if you don't think most, if not all, NBA coaches know Adelman's system. The good ones certainly do. Again, it's not rocket science. He runs corner, pinchpost (counters) out of corner, some horns variotions, some corner/princeton based two man game and a few simple post-up, iso and pick&roll wrinkles, including posting guys up off the move. That's pretty much it. His BOB & SOB plays are simplistic, too. Really, pretty much everything that makes his offense unique is based on princeton/corner, which, as you even said yourself, quite a few teams use elements of. Even I could draw up and explain the vast majority of his offense right now – don't you think most NBA coaches could? NBA offenses just aren't that complex. There's lots of overlap in what teams run. Every team has iso, p&r, post-up and floppy wrinkles that for the most part are the same. Pretty much every team runs horns and at least half the league runs some stuff pinch-post stuff. While the wrinkles in those set may differ, the difference for the most part is very much negligible and quite easy to pick up. Really, what it mostly comes down to is picking up the corner offense/series, which isn't complicated. It's just different. Obviously, teaching Adelman's system to your players and have them pick it up and execute it is another story, though. You just can't compare coaches to players. For a team to execute any new system obviously takes time, especially when the key element –- again, while not complicated at all –- is different from your “standard” NBA offense. I don't know, maybe we are arguing about another thing.
For people who complain of McHale and our coaches, I think the Sixers game provide a good contrast. The Sixers were a very freelancing bunch, shot a lot of jumpshots that the Rockets clearly were giving to them. On the flip side, all Rockets players were disciplined enough to not take bad shots. They shot mostly open 3s and near the rim shots. They ran at every opportunity and caught the Sixers off guard many times. Sure, the offense does stagnate at times, whether due to fatigue or just players forgetting to run the offense. But purely in terms of shooting, they all choose optimal shots when possible. Most of the times when they jack up bad shots, it's if there's no off-ball movement with the shot clock wining down.
Jerry Sloan's Jazz teams never ever had set plays, but they had a system that allowed for counter's. Meaning its a basic set they run over, and over, and over, but with different outcomes based on how the defense reacts. It was often the 3rd or 4th guy who killed you most nights when the ball moved. This is what I believe the Rockets coaches want to do with this current team. The staples of the offense- P&R with Harden/Lin w Asik/Morris/Pat etc. This will be how every play starts, but what's going to make the offense impossible to defend is when the players off the ball build enough chemistry with the playmakers to build counter to the defensive gameplay. They will continue to get better at moving into empty spots where they can get their shots off, make cuts towards the basket, or use secondary picks to get open. I see a ton of Jerry Sloan's Jazz in this team here minus the short shorts, cheap shots, and crazy fans.
