I recently made a thread about RAPM and noted that Dwight's offense RAPM is below zero (similar to Asik). It doesn't make sense to our eyes, but the Synergy stats do indeed support and confirm the negative RAPM. Check out the BBALLBREAKDOWN clip on the Rockets/Suns game and starting watching at 3:14 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ3LSj6RtCY&feature=youtu.be&t=3m14s The stats say it all and it's pretty concerning for a player that we thought was still in his prime. 29th percentile is not even good -- it's terrible. As the picture says, out of a possible 36 players with a minimum of 150 post ups, he ranks 32nd in points per possession and dead last in turnover percentage. Again, terrible. And the fact that we go to him so often in the post makes our offense much more inefficient than it should be. It's clear to me we're much better off using him as a decoy, hoping he gets doubled so he passes it out to open shooters, and running the offense through Harden so Dwight can instead focus on offensive rebounds and alley oops. Since I can already see the hate flowing in: this isn't a "Dwight sucks" or "trade Dwight" thread. His defensive value is still off the charts and his high name recognition will allow us to recruit/trade for one more top-tier player. There's clear value in that which can't be represented numerically. This is yet another reason why we need a star big man like Kevin Love that can drastically reduce Dwight post-ups and allow the Rockets to focus more on what Dwight is great at and mitigate what he sucks at. By the way, I'm not even the first to bring this up here. People had concerns about him being a terrible post-up player before we even acquired him, and rightfully so.
over what time period are these stats? If this includes DH early this season, I'd say it was pretty skewed. DH was still getting into a rhythm and the team figuring each other out. If this is over his lifetime as a player, then I'll be damned.
The Synergy stats are for the whole season, but it's pretty likely these stats are consistent with previous years as well (I don't have a Synergy account so I can't verify this myself).
Also, Kevin Love is exactly Mr. Efficient in posting up. It's on the Rockets to help Dwight get better low post touches. Players need to better with their entry passes. Sometimes a late entry pass is worse than no entry pass at all.
Duh, I don't think this is a revelation. Before he came to Houston, he was known as a pretty s****y post-up player. He insisted on wanting to post-up and Houston acquiesced and even dangled McHale and Olajuwon as carrots to attract him here. The task now lies with getting Dwight to agree to play more pick and roll with Harden and Lin which will make us a way better team as it plays to our strengths. Dwight should be limited to 2 post-ups a quarter until he shows he can do it efficiently. This is one of the reasons we are not considered a serious contender. Dwight post-up is WEAK SAUCE especially come finals time.
He was one of the best post players in the nba in Orlando. His early season was reminiscent of his laker time, he's been much better since, and he's getting better at recognising double teams and passing out of them.
Kind of surprised at those statistics, the Rockets offense in general is much more efficient when we play inside out through Dwight. The games where we struggle on offense the worst is when we go through long stretches where he doesn't touch the ball. Feeding Dwight is effective, despite what those stats say.
That's because those stats attribute the turnovers produced from the double teams, but when he passes out it then counts the play to the open player who receives it (for example that pass to an open jones under the basket against phoenix counts as a cut for jones even though dwight created it).
contrary to popular belief i think that we have come to a compromise about dwights postups. (looking at you jon barry, who said repeatedly against the suns in the 4th that we still dont know if we want to be a dump it down to dwight team or not). for quarters one through three, any time dwight establishes solid post position, he can have it to do his thing. especially when its deep post position. close to automatic entry and the guys know it. however when it comes to the 4th, for the good of the offense, dwight becomes almost exclusively a pick and roller\screen setter. Enter lobs, rim runs, finishing at the rim off guard penetration etc. win win for both parties. dwight gets the ball in the post throughout the game's first three quarters and establishes rhythm, while morphing into an ultra efficient lob catching rim rattling machine in the fourth.
I sometimes cringe when Howard gets the ball too far out from the rim and tries to do his post up moves. But just like his free throws, the only way he can improve and become unstoppable at the playoffs is to keep doing it during the season...it's something we just have to put up with...we can already see a massive improvement not only in his free throws but his post ups
Jermaine O'Neal defended him very well the other night ... Just gave him the business all game long. Part of the problem is the positioning of other players on the court being close enough that they teams can easily double him & that's where a lot of his TO's come from. I feel like they would be better off initiating post up plays with a more unbalanced set around the perimeter which would make those double teams more difficult to execute. But would much prefer he got his paint touches thru pick and roll situations where he is very good.
How does Synergy classify pick & rolls that lead to post ups? Because he's been very good when he's used the PnR to establish deep post position, which usually leads to one power move and a dunk, or a point-blank hook.
Pretty much the one area where I'm unwilling to even debate the Rockets organization is the interpretation of advanced statistics. There is virtually no chance that they do not know what you know and haven't taken it into account. Without question, this organization wants to win at least as much as you do, and they're not going to ignore this nugget of information which has been known to everyone for a long time now. It's no secret. We all know Dwight is deadly in the pick n roll, while being a work in progress as a post up option. Moreover, there is a bigger picture which those who hate advanced stats always whine about. That's the part where you get a superstar to sign up for your team despite not being LA or NY. The part where you sacrifice a little bit to keep them happy, and that happiness makes his overall play improve. Finally, come playoff time, this team needs an option in the post and the best option is Dwight Howard. So whatever it takes to let him refine his game, for the team to understand entry passes, to get 3pt shooters in the right spot... we need all of that if we are going for a ring. All we need to know is Dwight can punish bigger guys in pick n roll situations, smaller guys in post ups, and pretty much everyone on the offensive boards. To pull the plug on Dwight getting post ups is short-sighted both in terms of personnel management and tactical flexibility. We've won 9 of our last 10 games for F's sake and are within striking distance of 2nd best record in the West. It's pretty darn clear that the organization knows what it's doing if it's meeting the most optimistic's fan's expectation of this season. Dwight is happy, contributing, healthy, acting like a leader and most importantly visibly improving. The team is flourishing. If there's any time where stats don't tell the whole story, this is it.
rondo would have helped him a lot, getting him the ball in the post quicker and into his moves….and by creating a few extra wide open dunks for him each game. and rondo's perimeter D would have saved dwight from having to help out so much, allowing him to gobble more defensive rebs inside the paint
A little off topic, but has anyone posted this yet? <iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/0mqxM4xypQw?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
