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SI.Com-Rox one of five teams that have taken a step backwards this offseason

Discussion in 'Houston Rockets: Game Action & Roster Moves' started by Blake, Jul 24, 2006.

  1. CrazyDave

    CrazyDave Member

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    I don't disagree with the writer's analysis for the most part, save for writer's overall assessment that we are one of five that took a step back.

    but...

    Screw SI.

    They didn't give us our national mag either year we won our rings. I have boycotted them and their biased self servient marketing/journalism ever since... and forever will.

    We are better, we will be better. Bank on it. Maybe we aren't as good as we'd like, but who ever is? Maybe the offseason wasn't perfect, but I think we tried to improve and did. We will be a better team. Barring catastrophic injuries, I expect playoffs, and to do well there.
     
  2. Tango

    Tango Member

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    Regarding the Miami vs. Houston comparison, this following might be helpful as well...

    Miami Heat PER, ORtg, DRtg (Sorted by PER):

    Code:
    Name	    Games 	PER	ORtg	DRtg
    Dwyane Wade	75	27.6	115	103
    Shaq O'Neal	59	24.4	108	102
    Alonzo Mourning	65	19.4	113	98
    Jason Williams	59	15	113	108
    Antoine Walker	82	14.4	101	105
    Udonis Haslem	81	13.7	116	105
    Dorell Wright	20	13.1	97	103
    Wayne Simien	43	11.4	106	105
    Gary Payton	81	10.7	107	107
    Gerald Fitch	18	10.2	93	105
    James Posey	67	9.9	112	105
    Michael Doleac	31	9.9	101	104
    Jason Kapono	51	9	110	109
    Derek Anderson	23	8.7	102	107
    S. Anderson	48	6.2	95	106
    Matt Walsh	2	-2.4	42	113
    Earl Barron	8	-2.7	65	107
    Rockets PER, ORtg, DRtg (Sorted by PER):

    Code:
    Name	     Games	PER	ORtg	DRtg
    Yao Ming	57	25.7	113	100
    Tracy McGrady	47	22	102	102
    Chuck Hayes	40	18	127	97
    Stromile Swift	66	14.7	100	102
    Lonny Baxter	23	13.1	106	101
    Dikembe Mutombo	64	12.7	120	99
    Rafer Alston	63	12.6	99	104
    Juwan Howard	80	12.5	100	105
    Derek Anderson	20	12.5	102	105
    Luther Head	80	11.2	100	104
    Richie Frahm	8	10.5	108	109
    Moochie Norris	29	10.3	92	102
    David Wesley	71	9.6	104	107
    Keith Bogans	33	9.3	96	105
    Stephen Graham	6	9.3	83	101
    Jon Barry	20	8.5	97	105
    John Lucas	13	7.8	84	106
    Rick Brunson	23	6	82	105
    Ryan Bowen	68	4	83	105
    Maciej Lampe	4	-2	57	107
    Josh Davis	1	-19		109
    
    First of all Miami has 4 players with a PER of 15+ as a part of their core rotation. The Rockets only have 2.

    PER doesn't tell the whole picture.

    2ndly if you look at the ORtg and DRtg figures you'll see another difference as well. League avg is 106. Notice how much more offensively efficient the Heat are as well compared to the Rockets.
     
  3. akuma

    akuma Member

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    i don't consider Shaq to be a superstar even for last season. yes, he was the best center in the playoffs, but he could no longer draw hard double teams and was relatively ineffective on the defensive end. i would compare his last season to David Robinson's first championship season, although Wade was more impressive last season than Duncan in his '99 season.

    if TMac is indeed healthy, the Rockets' stars are about equal if not slightly better than the Heat's stars. the apparent difference between the two teams is one proven decent starter and one quality backup. i can only hope that Snyder becomes a legit starter. as for the quality backup, that has to be addressed through either the remainder of the MLE or a trade as i don't expect any of Head, Novak, VSpan or Lucas to be sixth men this year. something Mike James could have been if not the fifth solid starter.

    but the Rockets are not in nearly as bad shape as you might think. like i said before it's going to come down to how well they play together more than whatever pieces they add at this point.
     
  4. DaDakota

    DaDakota Balance wins
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    The reason that Miami has 4 players with PERs over 15 and the Rockets only 2 is that most of the players on Miami with good PERs got to play with Wade and Shaq....

    The Rockets players PERs will go up when Tmac and Yao are on the floor together too.

    Statistics can be manipulated any way you like....all that matters is W's and L's and we shall see how Houston plays out this year....

    DD
     
  5. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    The difference is more than adding a player or two - as you say how they play together is very important. E.G., on PER basis Snyder's a decent addition, but I can see Snyder's PER/roland rating/etc possibly taking a dip this year since he is going to be left open on the perimeter and if he can't hit the open 3 - he's toast and we might as well get rid of him. Conversely, Posey's PER was lousy last year, but he did drain 40% of his 3's.

    I'm trying to figure out why it sucked so bad - his shooting wasn't great from 2 (only 40% from 2) but he had a very high eFG%. I think his PER sucks because he gave up a ton of points on defense compared with not a lot of shots taken on offense. I'm guessing here but maybe he did a lot of guarding of the opposing team's top perimeter threat to give Wade a breather? Not sure. Also, IIRC Riley (like JVG) plays the "pack the middle" defensive style which leads to more outside shots? Not sure. :confused:

    another point with respect to Wade/Posey is that Wade can camouflage Posey's weaknesses on offense since he's such an unstoppable perimeter threat - having another is redundant - why have Posey shoot when Wade is so much bette at it? Howard's weaknesses can be canceled a bit by Yao but in certain areas it's risky (e.g., guarding guys who pwn Howard like Elton Brand, Dirk, Duncan = early foul trouble for Yao) not sure if this makes a difference though.


    Honestly I didn't mean to get into the whole breakdown vs. Miami, I just thought it's pretty obvious both intuitively and statisticallly that Howard and Alston rank towards the bottom half of starters/below average at their respective positions at thsi stage in their careers.
     
    #205 SamFisher, Jul 25, 2006
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2006
  6. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    Several pages ago I just showed you that they historically did not, for the ones that were here last year. Juwan/Rafer sucked as much with as they did without.

    merry go round.
     
  7. akuma

    akuma Member

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    i attribute the Rockets' poor offensive efficiency to their coach of course. you can't say that it was health,
    because even with Yao, TMac and Alston, the Rockets had no creativity on the offensive end. Van Gundy's
    offensive schemes just suck. it wasn't a lack of perimeter shooters as the Heat as a team only averaged
    34.5% compared to the Rockets' 33.2%. a difference of 1.3%. they just had nothing resembling a motion
    offense. it was just dump it to TMac or Yao and wait for the double team. very original and unpredictable. :rolleyes:
     
  8. Tango

    Tango Member

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    I'm not manipulating any stats. That was really disingenuous. If anything you are. You claim that PER go up with good players. Can you substantiate that?

    I'm totally happy to reach a whole different conclusion statistically. Just show me the evidence. Maybe it's subtle but if anything I'm trying to use stats as a way of providing some illumination - by looking at all available evidence to help answer a question vs. citing a particular statistic to support a point I've already decided on.
     
  9. Tango

    Tango Member

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    Whether it's the players or the coaching, it shows up statistically. If it's the coaching then has the coach picked the wrong players for his system? When I get a chance I'll have a glance at 0405. That might give us some indication if it was the system or the players.
     
  10. DaDakota

    DaDakota Balance wins
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    Tango, I am not accusing you of manipulating stats, I am saying the stats do not tell the whole story, that if Tmac and Yao were healthy like Shaq and Wade, that the rest of the Rockets PERs would be higher because of this.

    Especially Rafer......give him Yao and Tmac to pass to instead of Deke and Bogans and he is a much better player.

    DD
     
  11. DaDakota

    DaDakota Balance wins
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    Sam, this is ridiculous, did they HISTORICALLY have Tmac and Yao playing with them?

    Apples to apples my man....apples to apples.

    Each team they were on had different players and different challenges.....maybe they were asked to do more on other teams...maybe not.

    The point is that unless you have a healthy Yao and Tmac together on the floor for 75+ games NONE of the PER statistics are worth much for Rockets players.

    None.

    DD
     
  12. Tango

    Tango Member

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    Here's the Rockets 0405 PER, ORtg, DRtg data...

    Code:
    Name	     Games	PER	ORtg	DRtg
    Yao Ming	80	23.2	113	99
    Tracy McGrady	78	22.9	109	101
    Mike James	27	17.4	111	103
    D. Mutombo	80	16.4	117	96
    Bob Sura	61	14.4	106	102
    Jon Barry	53	14	116	103
    Juwan Howard	61	13	103	104
    Scott Padgett	66	12.3	112	101
    David Wesley	54	11.6	110	105
    Torraye Braggs	7	11.6	99	103
    Jim Jackson	24	10.5	101	104
    C. Weatherspoon	40	9	104	102
    Charlie Ward	14	8.7	96	103
    Maurice Taylor	38	8.2	89	103
    Tyronn Lue	21	7.7	97	106
    Ryan Bowen	66	7.7	104	103
    Bostjan Nachbar	16	6.1	106	106
    Andre Barrett	27	5.6	87	104
    Reece Gaines	10	4.7	86	104
    Rod Strickland	16	4.6	75	104
    Moochie Norris	6	0.6	64	105
    Brandin Knight	1	-1.2	53	111
    Vin Baker	3	-18	40	104
    Pretty different from the 0506 team in terms of supporting cast contribution. I don't have time to digest this so here's the info for anyone that wants to look this over and make any hypothesis about.
     
  13. Tango

    Tango Member

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    DD: The thing that worries me is that with Rafer given the chance with both Yao and TMac there from Jan30-Mar8 we didn't see any increase in ORtg for the team. That just doesn't give me any confidence. Hey, I would be totally ecstatic if I'm being a pessimist about all this. With the data available it's just too convenient for me to dismiss it.

    Regarding the PER, ORtg, & DRtg increasing with the players playing around good players I would want to see more testing of the hypothesis. It might be interesting to look at players with similar PER ratings like TMac and Yao combos on a team and see how the players around them have faired for a comparison.
     
  14. vlaurelio

    vlaurelio Member

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    so u miss stro?
     
  15. Panda

    Panda Member

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    No need to do that. One can suggest that JVG's system needs high percentage shooters to perform well, as it did in 04-05 with Barry, Wesley, Padget and James etc. The caveat is teams have certain self structuring ability on offense based on individual characteristics. You put players who are smart passers, average or below average slashers(except for James), and good spot up shooters on the floor surrounding Yao and T-Mac. Such players will line up automatically behind the arc and wait for the kickouts, or make plays with their passing. Because those are the only things they are good at. Is it because JVG tells them to do so? No. They know what's best for their game. I'd rather say those players compliment Yao and T-Mac's game by being highly efficient shooters and smart team players with the never give up bull dog mentality. They were special. They played well in spite of JVG. It was the only team of JVG that ever got into a consistent offensive flow. Will this year's team play well in spite of him? We'll see.

    Regarding systems, I think first, a coach with a system often marked with broken plays, standing around idle galore that stresses no cutting, no slashing, and often half assed unimaginative pick and rolls is not going to help players perform to their fullest, two, it's easier to get rid of a coach and a one dimensional system than getting a group of players that can perform well despite the coaching and the limitations of the system.
     
  16. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    Yes. HOward had a full season plus, Alston six weeks. There was no change in either's performance - they remained as lousy then as they are now (of course they're now both a year older and crappier). You're a smart guy. You can figure this out yourself.

    which is why I used it from when they were on the Rockets with Tracy and Yao. Go back and read the thread.

    Very scientific of you - 75 games? Did you have a proctoscopy in order to get that number? Cause Sura, Barry, James et al didn't require 75 games to play well with Yao & T-Mac. (also earlier in the thread, go back and read the thread.)
     
  17. DaDakota

    DaDakota Balance wins
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    Sam,

    I will be happy to crush you in another bet if you like.

    Boki II baby !!

    Science has nothing to do with winning basketball games, neither do statistics, it is all about scoring 1 or more points than your opponent, but you know that, right tough guy?

    So, if Yao and Tmac both play 75 games, I say the Rockets win the division. Sig bet for 30 days?

    DD
     
  18. Panda

    Panda Member

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    Chemistry is like love at first sight, either there is in the beginning or there isn't. :)
     
  19. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    I'm not going to bet against the Rockets ever, sorry, just on principle- but I don't think they'd win the division if that were the case, nor am I so certain that they'll make it to 75 games.


    I don't even know what we're still arguing about. You already admitted that Howard and Alston are subpar, so I don't see what the problem is.
     
  20. rimbaud

    rimbaud Member
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    If you add Battier and Snyder and further assume that Hayes gets "core" minutes now that Swift is gone then the Rockets would have 5 based on last year's numbers.
     

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