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

Sam,

I am convinced you never played any basketball at any level. Hiding behind misleading statistics is mind boggling.

A bit player like Hayes can come in (against the 2nd team) and go all out and use all his energy in getting rebounds and put backs, as he is not asked to do any more than that.

Whereas a starter like Howard has to be involved in the offensive sets, and has more responsibilities as a starter.

Whatever, you will never get it......clearly.

Howard is a below average player - - I AGREE !!

But he is doing the role that he is asked to do by JVG and company, and that is why he keeps playing.

And, I see what they are asking him to do, and see why they are doing it...you ......well.....you see numbers.

DD

 

And I remain firmly convinced that you have alzheimers or ADD or both.

So now DaDakota, the great basketball analyst and talent evaluator, is telling me that, despite the fact that it appears from all available evidence that Howard sucks, that we should have blind faith that Howard is good simply because he is there, and accordingly he must be doing something, such as fulfilling his JVG-assigned role? Essentially - you're saying "in JVG I trust" and since Howard is there, he deserves to be there - circular but true.

Is this is the same JVG who you have sworn up and down, numerous times on this BBS, has no idea what he is doing, stifles player development, and cannot coach offense? I'm not going to bother with the search function, because it's not necessary, but which way is the wind blowing today?

Oh wait, don't answer that. It doesn't matter, I'll just wait for you to switch again next time it shifts.

 

This thread is so played out.

 

Sam,

I do not like JVG much at all, but I understand what he is trying to do, and admire his dedication to making it happen.

Is he right? I don't know. He was right about making Yao stay on the low block, and when the team was healthy he had them playing well, and the players love him, so having their attention is half the battle.


My only point has been that we can win with Juwan as the starting PF, even though he is below average because we have great players at other positions.

Chucky Brown was a below average PF too, lots of teams have deficencies but make up for them with stellar play at other postions, we have 2 superstars and one good NBA player in our starting lineup. And we have 1 average PG and one below average PF... I think that is good enough to win it all.

And what you are calling evidence, I call noise........part of the picture, but only a small one.....

DD

 

....which is why he was a league minimum back-up who played 19 minutes a night in 1995 instead of a starter who played 30+ like Howard.

Every example you cite shows why Howard playing a lot is a net drain on the team.

 

I don't completely disagree with this. You're saying that Howard's role on the Rockets gives him less opportunity to collect "stats" than, say, a Chuck Hayes. Fine, let's assume that's true.

Now, answer this. Why is it that the Rockets offense (i.e. point scored per possession) was so much worse with Howard on the floor than off the floor? If what you say is true and Howard still plays his role on the team adequately, one would think that the Rockets offense would at least be as good with him on the court than off the court. Considering his backups were the clueless Swift and "liability" Hayes, and that Howard played more minutes with the starting lineup than any other player on the team, shouldn't the team have been better on offense when he's on the court?

But no, the Rockets were actually 7.3 points worse per 100 possessions with Howard on the court than off the court. That's a spectacularly poor differential for a starting player. Yeah, often defense is much worse for the starting unit (because they're usually facing better offensive players), but offense? Plus, Juwan played (by far) a greater percentage of his minutes with Yao and Tracy than anyone else on the team. That's not normal, for a guy who apparently is doing is job on the offensive end effectively and does not have a great (or even good) offensive player as a backup.

And if you think this is just a fluke, in the 04/05 season, the Rockets were again worse offensively with Howard on the court than off the court.

When you couple Howard's poor individual offensive numbers with the fact that the team struggles offensively when he's on the court, that together is a pretty strong case that Howard simply is not an effective offensive player for this team. If he could hit, say, 50-55% of all those open jumpers he gets, maybe it would be a different story. As it is, though, it simply doesn't work.

 

Just food for thought. Teams tend to match up players. When Shaq and Yao play against each other the opposing coach's have a tendency to rest Shaq when Yao is resting or vice versa and play him when Yao is playing.

Using this knowledge it makes sense that JHo would get most of his minutes against the Tim Duncan's, Elton Brands and so on. Surely that could have an effect on JHo's plus/minus stats.

Hayes is plus 7.3 while on the court. Does that mean Hayes is really that good or more of an indicator that he might be ready to spend more time against the Tim Duncan's than the Danny Fortson's of the NBA. I think it's more the latter than the former. I am hoping that Hayes turns into one of those diamond in the ruff guys but I seriously doubt that his numbers are as good playing the majority of his minutes against Tim Duncan, Elton Brand etc...

 

Reread what I said. I'm talking about the Rockets's offense with Howard on the court. You're saying that Howard, alone, happens to always face the best defensive teams? Starting units almost always have much stronger offensive efficiency compare to the backup unit. Just look at the On/Off offensive numbers for the Rockets starters last season:

Code:

[COLOR=Navy]	On	Off	Net[/COLOR]
Yao	104.6	101.1	+3.5
McGrady	107.0	99.6	+7.4
Alston	103.2	102.3	+0.9
Wesley	103.2	102.5	+0.7
[B]Howard 	100.3	107.6	-7.3[/B]

Again, let's focus on offense. The Rockets were better on offense with Hayes on the court (+2.8). It isn't so much an indication of how good Hayes was as it is an indication of how bad Juwan (or the team, with Juwan on the court, if you like) was.

 

good that what we've all been saying all along

are we happy having a below average player in the PF position?

so tell me what's he's role?

hustle, defense, rebounding, shot-blocking, instant offense?

he's just a below average PF who is performs everything below average

and add to that that he's declining every year

yeah this is a great off season.. juwans' gonna match his career stats and play his role

 

Of course the Rockets offense as a whole should be a lot better if the oppossing team has Nazi Mohamad defending as opposed to Tim Duncan. Do you agree?

Who the oppossing team has on the court at the time you are making your stats IS a variable.

 

You're totally not understanding the argument........... David Wesley (an average offensive player at best) is able to go up against Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Manu Ginobili, etc etc etc and the Rox offense does not suffer too terribly when he leaves, although it is not as good. Likewise, Rafer Alston, who IMO sucks, is able to go against Steve Nash, Tony Parker, Mike Bibby, Chris Paul, etc etc etc. and the team gets only slightly worse.

Why is it only Howard who operates as such a net drain on offense, his supposed "specialty" accordign to your definition, and why is the difference so huge? (note, this is the most favorable comparison for you, when you factor in defense, the gap is even bigger).

 

I agree, if you're saying that the Rockets play the Spurs 82 games a year.

By this logic, there should be league wide trend that teams are worse offensively with their starting PFs than backup PFs. But that's not the case.

Why is it that Howard is so uniquely vulnerable?

--

Some more numbers to chew on. Your argument assumes that, in general, teams are better defensively with their starting PF on the court. Yes, that's true with the Spurs, but in general it's not true.

I went through each team, and as best I could I selected the player who started the most games at PF for them last season:

Code:

[COLOR=Navy]Starting PF	Team	On/Off Defense[/COLOR]
Harrington	ATL	-4.5
LaFrentz	BOS	-2.6
Jones		CHA	-3.4
Nocioni		CHI	-5.1
Gooden		CLE	-0.7
Nowitzki	DAL	-3.3
Martin		DEN	+0.2
R. Wallace	DET	+5.8
Murphy		GSW	-5.5
Howard		HOU	-3.7
O'Neal		IND	+0.0
Brand		LAC	-1.8
Cook		LAL	-1.7
Gasol		MEM	-1.3
Haslem		MIA	+1.0
Bogut		MIL	+7.3
Garnett		MIN	+1.0
Krstic		NJN	+2.4
West		NOH	-3.4
Rose		NYK	-4.0
Howard		ORL	-1.3
Webber		PHI	-6.1
Marion		PHO	+3.2
Randolph	POR	-1.5
Thomas		SAC	+0.3
Duncan		SAS	+2.0
Wilcox		SEA	-0.1
Bosh		TOR	+2.1
Okur		UTA	-4.5
Jamison		WAS	-2.6

Out of the 30 teams, only 11 of them performed better on the defensive end when their starting PF (or, the player who started the most games at PF) was on the court.

So, does it really make sense to excuse the Rockets poor performance offensively with Howard on the court by saying he faced the opposing starting PF more often?

My point is that the notion Howard faced better defensive teams than his backup has little evidence. Better offensive teams, yes. Starting units tend to be much better offensively than the backup units. But you can't say the same thing about defense. I've shown that the rest of the Rockets starters have had positive On/Off offensive impact. So, why is it that Howard's is so negative?

 

i heard that juwan's shoplifting defense team are hiring..

 

This is an interesting post, but again it could be that when Juwan is off the floor that our 2nd unit is just more efficient than the other teams, thus making him look worse.

I am just saying that stats don't tell the whole story, and that J-Ho's role must be factored into any equation. Do you think JVG would have started J-Ho if he was not doing what he was asked to do?

DD

 

In case you forgot, we had an abysmal bench last year and absolutely no depth all around - yet Howard (and shockingly, Howard alone of all starters) is the only one who was usurped by our fantastic bench..with Mr. Swift being his prime backup (who you agree, sucked).

Unlikely.

Anyway there is a way to adjust for this with Rosenbaum rankings, inter alia, and he still comes out looking like crap.

JVG starts him because he's in love with his professionalism & veteran-ness, just like he's in love with Bowen's hustle. Their tangible effect is to hurt the Rockets when they're on the floor, but anyway as you indicated earlier you're presently willing to trust the opinion of JVG to use players correctly even though you have questioned it repeatedly in the past.

 

But I'm not comparing how the Rockets play relative to the opponent, with Howard on the court versus with him off the court.

Just looking at the Rockets offensive efficiency (forget what the opponent is scoring), we're much worse with Howard on the court than off the court.
http://www.82games.com/0506/05HOU16D.HTM

We scored 100.3 points per 100 possessions with Howard on the court.
We scored 107.6 points per 100 possessions with Howard off the court.

Huge difference. And that's ignoring what the opponent was scoring (when you factor that in, it's even more ugly). Plus, Juwan played a greater percentage of his minutes with Yao and Tracy than any other PF on the team:

% of minutes played with Yao

Code:

player	min	%min w/ Yao
Anderso	398	68.50%
Bogans	684	64.47%
Brunson	138	64.19%
Frahm	64	55.17%
Barry	184	53.96%
Howard	1245	49.15%
Alston	1179	48.62%
Bowen	315	48.39%
McGrady	800	45.92%
Head	1056	45.79%
Wesley	1035	43.73%
Swift	507	37.78%
Norris	65	27.08%
Hayes	105	19.66%

%min with Tracy

Code:

player	min	%min w/ Tracy
Wesley	1249	52.77%
Norris	126	52.50%
Mutombo	472	49.58%
Howard	1193	47.10%
Swift	555	41.36%
Ming	800	41.13%
Alston	958	39.51%
Baxter	108	38.71%
Anderso 216	37.18%
Bowen	240	36.87%
Hayes	189	35.39%
Barry	102	29.91%
Graham	11	29.73%
Head	616	26.71%
Lucas	27	25.47%
Bogans	98	9.24%

So his role somehow makes it ok that the team struggles on offense when he's in the game? I don't get it.

I think JVG started Howard because he hated Swift's mental mistakes and he wasn't ballsy enough to make a player straight from the D-league a starter. Howard doesn't make as many mistakes as Swift and Hayes probably did, and a coach like JVG is all about minimizing mistakes. I think it's a somewhat short-sighted way of looking at it.

 

Howard's negative stats doesn't neccesariliy mean he is a horrible player, but rather that his skill set does not fit with his role and the rest of the personnell on this team.

To correct it, you can either

1) change his skill set-- unlikely now that he's had 10+ years in the league... he's not gonna develop a 3 pt shot or shot swatting ability out of nowhere.

2)change his role on the team-- On offense, he does one of two things-- shoot 18 footers or posting up (rarely when Yao is on the floor), he does both satisfactorily, but not exceptionally. What other role can he play well? Even if you send him to either crash the offensive board every time or spot up for 3s, will he be any good at the new role? His roles are limited by his skillset.

3)Change the roster around him-- either trade all the other players to find ones better complement Juwan Howard, or trade him to a team where he and rest of the players complement each other better. The latter is the more plausible case.

What Juwan really needs in order to have better stats is to play with a atheletic players who can rebound the ball and play great D around him. The Rockets from last year were not that team... Yao, being 300 lbs and not fast, isn't the ideal front court partner for Juwan, either. Thus, I think he really needs to be traded for the Rockets to cash in on the value his skill set could bring another team.

If he were to stay, I think he needs to play as many of minutes with Yao off the floor as possible. I would also make sure the more atheleic McGrady, Snyder, Battier, and Hayes are on with him.

 

I feel somewhat different. I feel for Howard's success we HAVE to integrate some plays for him, maybe some off of a back pick(by him setting it and popping out), post-up plas. He needs to get in the post some, he still has a back-to-the-basket game, so he can score. I just think he's lost on offense, he looks to pass, then he just throws one up. He needs to catch and shoot or catch and post up. Maybe being ore assertive in the playbook?

He can certainly be a 13ppg scorer then, but that's doubtful with JVG's mind not opening up to that possibility.

 

Let's build around Juwan, that's what I'm talking about.

*jumping in joy*

 

Draftboy, Juwan wasn't all that efficient when he does post up-- he could score, but didn't draw fouls or command many double teams. If you have Yao on the floor, you want Yao to get these post ups more than Juwan.. Besides, where do you up Yao when Juwan posts up? Offensive boards? Yao is OK on those, but not as good as, say, Chuck Hayes... so you might as well post Yao up and get Chuck to hit the glass. Spotting up for 18 footers? Then Yao is rendered just as ineffective as Juwan was... Unless Yao can hit a 3 in games consistently, I don't see Juwan posting up being a good option.