This offense is straight offensive

Yes you are correct. Many on here are enamored by Sengun scoring 15-20 pts a game driving on people etc. But He commits a lot of silly turnovers including offensive fouls that are quite costly. And his “IQ” is not what people believe it to be. At the same time the rest of the other players have similar issues including not making the right reads and facilitating for other players.

 

Wow, this strategy seems like it would suit us more than Memphis even:



Not sure about the reliability of the info in the video but if it has legit results, something we should pursue when we're healthy to stay healthy.

Side note: it was a small mistake to let go of Huff to Memphis. Huff would have been better than Landale, though I'm not as critical of Landale as most. I think he's a fine backup C.

 

Look at the play in this point of the video, the Gortat screen:





Worked great to free up that 4'11 PG from Bonn and Ja Morant (both fast players, poor shooters).

 

Sengun is currently the only offensive talent on this team. Even with his faults there isn't anyone else on this roster remotely close to being an All-Star right now.

If Sengun wasn't on this team, we would be so bad. Bro needs help. FVV can't shoot. Jalen can't shoot. Jabari can't create a shot. Amen can't shoot. Tari can't play. Reed is too young. Cam lol. The second best offensive player on this team and I'm not joking is probably Dillon Brooks.

 

Amen can make those passes he just needs more opportunity to run point and play more. But he is still a work in progress at that position. As good as Sengun is he often misses shooters on the wing for some reason. When he gets in his drive much like Jalen he just gets the blinders on and needs to understand teams will collapse and its about finding and trusting your teammates to make that shot. But yes we need more passers.

 

Never said Sengun wasn’t good offensively. Not talking about any other player. And certainly he can improve as a player.

I said he makes several mistakes per game on both ends. And this costs the team. Either with silly turnovers, fouls, or not finding perimeter shooters. That’s the next level for him is understanding that it’s not always about scoring and understanding how defenses play him. He really doesn’t even look at open shooters on his weak side or top key when he drives he gets so much attention. Has to clean up these things before we talk about All Star or him being great

 

Sengun can't shoot also?

Like dude is a menace once inside the painted area. Absolutely. But he is part of why our paint is so packed and congested.

 

absolutely no critique of Sengun allowed

 

important thing here is the mistakes. Unecessary behind the back passes. Lazy backcourt passes. Driving into traffic getting ripped or throwing up wild shots instead of knowing where defenses are coming and setting up teammates finding the shooters. Silly offensive fouls on the screen. Slow or late on defensive rotations. Being out of position or wrong angle on defense. Has to clean this up

 

This is correct. Amen, if starting and getting the reps as a facilitator, is a really good passer, has great vision, and improving handles and shooting. He is a long way from being a good 3 pt shooter, but if he was starting he would be first team defense and probably runner-up for DPOY. Sengun, for whatever reason, has regressed as a facilitator and interior shooting. I think both are perenial all-stars as they mature. People are just getting carried away with our fast start and losing patience. The only thing I'm losing patience with is Ime and FVV, not because I'm worried about the playoffs, but both are holding back the development of our young guys, especially Amen and Jalen. Ime might improve, FVV is sunk cost and should be moved on from.

 

Just odd to see this offense. Seems so difficult for us to get to the paint and score with these teams loading up on us and with poor spacing and movement

 

I don’t think we are a bundle of offensive potential if you just take away Ime.

Can we be better on the offensive end? Of course but I don’t see something drastic. I think the FO/coaching staff correctly saw that maximizing defensive and rebounding potential was the way to win this season with our current roster.

Without a trade for an offensive player, shooting progressing back to the average seems the most realistic way to improve the offense.

 

Offensively if a player misses open looks from long range, not much a coach can do.

Defensively, a coach can maximize effort on defense. Improve defensive IQ.


It's on the players to get better at shooting. And if case of tired legs, know how to pace their own stamina.

 

Sorry but I already disproved this theory in the post. If it was what you're describing, we'd have higher potential assists, there is no way to get around that because we are a low-iso team. It's just not true that it's only because of our shooters. FVV was our best shooter at 38% on crazy high volume for a non-star and he has regressed. Tari is 31.5%. Sengun and Green worked on their shot all summer, regressed. Jabari was catching up but currently still below last season. We're worse than OURSELVES LAST SEASON bro. Think about it. Luck will come for 5-10 games here or there, but our average is established. We need to change the offense with the same spare parts to get a better product (eg Cleveland rising 10 spots with nothing but a system change that gave their players good looks that suit them rather than good looks that don't suit them).

We're neither a bundle of offensive potential, nor are we the 25th worst shot making team. Tanking teams without any stars and full of barely-NBA players are averaging a higher TS%. Teams with similar shooters are making more of their shots too.

This argument was a valid one before we played a decent number of games, but it relied on the absence of sample/data to survive. Now that we look at things, come on dude do you really think we have bottom 5 scoring talent in the entire NBA?

Like really you're going to argue that the Jordan Poole-led Wizards with Kyle Kuzma and Jonas Valanciunas (2nd and 3rd in qualified usage) in a season where their staff doesn't care about losing or taking bad shots should have a higher TS% than us? You would sign that off as a KPI for Ime that it would be an acceptable standard for people to defend?

 

Hahaha no one has a right to tell these players to work harder, sorry. They are outrebounding and outhusling the entire NBA to the degree we've taken more shots than anyone in the league.

Improve defensive IQ? Bro we're #2 in the NBA while starting Sengun and Green. Please stop barking up that tree, it's over. They aced the F out of it. The only thing that will happen if we keep barking up that tree is what happened last season: the players will not understand how they can be trying their hardest and he doesn't believe them, and then they lose faith in his coaching, and then they feel betrayed because they are doing everything he's asking and he doesn't listen to them. 6-16 for no reason last season, before Sengun's injury. And then he just changed the system with the same players and it got better. Suddenly we were able to beat 11 allegedly bad teams in a row instead of 2 or 3.

Defensive coaches constantly take over from offensive coaches and improve the defense. Vice versa with offense. I don't know where this myth came from that "either they make it or they don't" (why bother playing good defense then, the opponent's starter is just either going to beat his average or not lol), but every year there is at least one team that is better at offense and defense with same personnel more than summer training can improve a player. This season it's the Cavs (offense). Also the Clippers. Same team. No one really became a better defender. They just came up with a better system.

So like you think when Phil Jackson comes to the Lakers and Shaq and Kobe couldn't win the title without him, it's all a sham? They were going to win it even if they didn't fire the last coach? Jerry West, Shaq, Kobe, Phil, they were all wrong in thinking the system mattered?

 

You ranted so much. Is this even a conversation. Or did you just wanted to brain dump. Pretty sure I'm not in one of those chapter Jalen threads.


Enjoy your Sunday.

 

Oh **** off dude, just say you're too lazy to answer. Thanks.

 

Agreed but part of the reason that he's constantly being swarmed/making mistakes is because teams know that this is the #1 thing they need to do to beat us. Swarm Sengun, help in the paint and let Jalen/Fred and whoever else shoot. Our team has 0 shooters right now. Literally zero. Jabari and Dillon are probably our best shooters. Jabari is out so all you have to do is not sag off of Dillon.

I guess I don't even care enough to critique Sengun at this point because the rest of the offense is just so ****ing bad. He's the only decent part of it. And yeah he's mainly "decent to good" right now and not great but I do wonder how much of that is because he's the only thing defenses worry about when guarding us. You're starting to see a little bit of chinks in the armor of the Rockets mantra. Cam wondering why Jalen can go 3/17 and he has to go to RGV while Jalen has never even sniffed RGV. Jabari being gifted a starting spot while Amen has to come off the bench. How FVV can unload the clip when he's less efficient than the absolute definition of inefficiency in Jalen Green.

I'm past the point of worrying about Sengun improving because it doesn't even matter when the rest of the team is *that* bad on that side of the ball. Notice how we're losing more since we don't have the Terror Twins lineup to lean on when the other team's stars go to the bench. The Terror Twins are literally the reason that we are 2nd in the West right now. Sengun basically has to try and hold the other team to a tie....and then Amen/Tari come in and clean up. We're like a baseball team that stuck their best bats in the 7 and 8 spot for some reason.

 

Our overall play is much better than last season bro..... that's far more important than focusing on one side of the ball.

We aren't going to "change our offense mid season". We will certainly tweak things as every team does throughout the season but lets be realistic about changes. We were never a WCF or bust team this year, our goal is to make it into the playoffs and we are doing that so far.

I don't understand why the argument is no longer valid because we have played 35 games out of 82 games? Like it's impossible we can't shoot better?

Jordan Poole is shooting 40% on 9 3FGA. Pretty good....

Again.... I think the more important thing is that our record is 23-12 and theirs is 6-27. What's the point of having a higher TS% when you are last? IS the offense a concern for the longer term outlook for the Rockets? Of course, but it is asinine to overly worry about it this year.