Team Efficiency Ratings - 2005-2006 Regular Season

What nulifies these stats as far as our team is concerned is that it does not tell the true picture or rather the whole truth.

Not that I care to defend JVG now, Mac and Yao missed major parts of last season like some have already pointed out. Our team had to focus on limiting possessions and trying to win the game the ugly way hence the skewed stats.

What will be of interest will be to revisit this topic again after the 2006/2007 season or mid way through it hopefully with Mac and Yao playing in all the games or at least 92-95% together on the floor.

 

You can't blame the low offense rankings on JVG.. .when he had the horses just one year ago (in 2005), with heathy Yao and McGrady, Rockets averaged a very respectable 106 points per 100 posession, even though Yao was still developing.

Nobody can make that much out of a lineup decimated by injuries and filled with mediocre to bad shooters.

 

They played together for 37% of the season (31 games) and during that time McGrady was never healthy and Yao wasn't for part of it. Not to mention Rafer missed 19 games that often coincided with McGrady's time out, Sura missed the whole season, and all the other little injuries that knocked 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc options out. At some points last year our injured list was a playoff team.

 

Those last two tables are very interesting. They definitely show that the West is still far and away more competitive than the East. In the West, you have to have both offense and defense to compete, but in the East, it's easier to stay competitive with a strong defense and a weak offense...and it's clear that in that conference defense is far more important (almost zero correlation between offensive ranking and playoff appearance). The two teams with weak defenses in the East that did make the playoffs - Washington and Milwaukee - were both borderline playoff teams that didn't qualify until the last minute. Milwaukee didn't put up much of a fight in the first round.

 

1. Agree about the "strength of schedule" factor. I think even JVG said that even with Yao and McGrady the team was at best a "good team" and a "tough out" in the playoffs and not really a championship contender. It was pretty much good enough to beat up on bad teams, stay competitive against certain favorable matchups against middle-of-the-road teams, but would have a hard time not get killed by good ones. I'm pretty sure he and the rest of the people in charge knew that their roster was flawed, thus there were plenty of changes this summer.

2. A big part of the bad shooters epidemic was certainly self inflicted. Mike James for Rafer was a downgrade in shooting, even if Rafer had shot a more "normal" 35-36% from the arc. Padgett was let go. Also, much of it stemmed from their mistaken faith in the health/ability of older guys: JB, Sura got hurt, DA has lost his touch. So, they ended up having to scramble and give rookie Head heavy minutes (his % was ok for a rookie... but mediocre overall) and Keith Bogans (a limited offensive player... only got 20 mpg with the expansion Bobcats, had to play him 30 mpg here in HOU). Frahm did only OK as a shooting specialist for a short while. Brunson is also not a shooter-- slow release and had to step into the shot and tried few 3 pt shots.

I guess, they could have tried to get better shooters than the likes of Bogans, but there probably was just not much out there for them to trade for...

 

You have to take into account that both players were out of rotation for a big chunk of the schedule.

I think you can gauge a team's strength better by the % or ps differentials.
Rockets does not score much but does not allow much scoring either. If YAO/Tmac played 15 more games together, we would have been in the playoffs .

 

If the Rockets were to push tempo that would mean more attempts for them AND the other team, resulting in more points per game allowed on D...Maybe Van Gundy wants to keep that stat down so he looks like a defensive mastermind...

I'm sure thats not the case, but it seems they are deliberate and methodical with some set play on offense just to get the possession out the way so they can prepare back on D... If you let them get too fancy and 'out of control' on offense it might compromise the defensive discipline. Thats my theory at least... Dont the guards collapse down to help out in the paint area in JVG's system? Maybe cuz of that they're further down inside and arent ahead enough to get the fast break going...


Or, as the stats clearly show, they just plain stink in all areas of O period.
(Good stuff guys, keep it up)

 

I am overawed by the amount of work and thought that went into designing and constructing these charts and graphs. The analysis is a touch over my head, but some research/reading should correct that. Great job!