Why does our style get criticized but others get a pass or even loved?

It’s just lazy commentary. Bill simmons and Chris Ryan / the other people in his echo chamber have been peddling the same narrative for three years straight. Through three coaches, the departure of Dwight, the arrival of Gordon, and now the insertion of Chris Paul to get this team to a 65win franchise.

They watch 1.2 rockets games a year, usually first halves and then the last five minutes whenever their Eastern Conference childhood team (Boston or Philly for example) plays us. They get upset when their teams lose. They call us chokers when their teams eke it out in the last minute. No one blows us out.

The NBA is a perception = reality league. If they can frame the narrative around our team in a pejorative way, that gives their favored teams better chances to beat us when it matters. What do you think the Warriors front office and Kerr have been doing for four years now?? No one talks about their moving screens anymore, because the NBA accepted it and everyone’s doing it now. They talk about our step back threes, trying to get it officiated as a travel. Hasn’t worked so far, and no other players can do it as successfully as Harden. So it’s on them to keep b****ing.

Fight the good fight Rockets fans. Push back on reddit and anywhere you run into the haters.

 

harden looks like osama

 

I don’t care what non-Rocket fans think...we know our faults and we know how good we are...our offense is explosive and can go through dry spells...we can win with our defense..

 

It's because the warrior shot a better percentage. It's not that they hate we shoot so many 3's it's the fact we miss alot. Shoot 50 make 12. I have embraced the math approach. I have be n explaining to fans for a while now why it makes sense. My bro is a die hard season ticket holder. He hates it when we are just bricking from 3 n only have cappella rebounding. I tell him it's part of our philosophy and it actually makes sense math wise, with the basic premise of Threes are just better than 2 and with the speed of our Pace we make up for missing so many threes by getting so many more possessions in the normal team would have shoot to, in the reason why we don't gain rebound is because we want to not get beaten transition which can kill you so at the end of the day we were rather just get one possession go back down n defend and not give up easy layups

 

Yep, every podcast they talk about how they hate How The Rockets have "hacked" basketball. In his latest Podcast, Bill tries to almost convince a guy who likes the way the Rockets play that it sucks. I think people think the Rockets style of play is too sterile and predictable despite being frustratingly dominate. It's a handful of sets, minimal amount of passes, ISO, PnR's, and drive and kick to 3pt shooters. That's it. No cutting, no postups, or amazing plays. The offense is all Harden and CP.

 

It's super weird too because Bill Simmons is supposed to be good friends with Morey. He should be thrilled for his friend's success. I would be.

 

They aren't wrong. We are dead last in # passes I think and pace. We don't move the ball. We don't need to, Harden and CP3 make quality passes, not quantity passes. Jazz game 3 was an anomaly, not the norm for shot selection.

I get why people criticize our style. What we do is very predictable, but quite frankly just hard to stop. It is rinse and repeat, and pre-conceived notions aren't going to go away.

And to be honest, Harden is the most unwatchable superstar for casuals (key on unwatchable, not skill). He baits for fouls. It goes viral on reddit, on Youtube. He's not a high flyer. He doesn't look explosive or athletically dominant. That step back realllllyyyy pushes the limit of what a travel is or is not (it isn't. But nobody else figured it out, so "muh unfair!". Doesn't matter tho, people still think it's cheating). Our most athletic wing is on the bench: we don't have high flying highlights, so we aren't aesthetically pleasing to watch really. It's like a Swiss army knife. I'm not going to blame people being salty the Rockets figured out how to science a sport better than they do.

 

To me the argument of basketball “elegance” is a complete facade for the politics underlying the argument. If the roles were reversed between us and GSW people would be talking up how sound their style of basketball is, almost surgical with no unnecessary passes and thus no turnovers, while we are just frantically moving the ball all over the court in order to generate “fake” team assists and have high TO numbers as a result. You see how the narrative can be manipulated like that?

The fact is we DON’T shoot that many free throws compared to other teams, and Harden’s FT’s are down this year compared to the past five. And GSW shot what, three times as many FTs as NOH in the first two games?! People just cling onto these talking points from 2015 though. Don’t lend any credence to it. Keep exposing their lies.

 

The detractors include Laurel, MDA's wife.

 

Just win man! You lose and everything gets dissected, just win!

 

I enjoy watching Harden play, but I agree. If you aren't watching Harden everyday you won't appreciate the nuance in his game. Add to that, with an ISO heavy offense with Harden being the best ISO player in the game, Harden doesn't have a lot of the Allen Iverson-ish cross overs. Of course three are the Wes Johnson/Ricky Rubio highlights, but they don't come often with the volume of ISO attempts he gets.

Harden's ISO's are not aesthetically pleasing. He dances with the purpose of probing for a mistake his opponent makes before the attack, not getting to the basket with speed or quickness.

I can just imagine a causal fans watching Harden and wondering what the hell is going on and what is taking so long.

 

I certainly do. Every f%$king one of 'em.

 

GSW stole the Rockets style of play and perfected it. I'm seriously waiting for them to steal what the Rockets do now for their on means. Media will eat it up as the greatest system on the planet.

 

If it’s not how we play, then what is it? Just looking at past history of these players/coach and deciding they don’t believe we can win? Or it is their off court personality? They don’t like Harden’s beard? They hate Houston? What is it?

I think lack of past success if part of it, but only a small part. So, if the Rockets win a ring, more people will appreciate how they play. But there is a certain ideal for what basketball purists like to see. Playing with pace, multiple actions, player and ball movement. It’s just not how we play.

 

Fair point. Frustrating to hear The Ringer's Chris Ryan or Mark Titus talk down about the Rockets offense where there are plenty of teams that do similar stuff at times. GSW does a lot of passes that they probably love but they also turn the ball over a fair amount because of it. Yet, no hating there.

I don't think people appreciate the nuances of the Rockets offense to be honest.

People see "1 on 1 play" and spaced 3pt shooters. What they DON'T SEE or APPRECIATE is Harden's PASSING and his READS. That is the KEY element that unlocks the offense. There are plenty of one on one guys. There are many pass first PGs. But there aren't many that are BOTH OF THOSE. That is what sets Harden apart. As Quin Snyder said, Harden is an "artist" on the court. He reads the plays. The court is spaced and he paints the picture.

That entire aspect gets trivialized by mainstream media. Totally overlocked or under appreciated.

 

Spoiler

 

Golden State don't discourage the midrange & have a traditional ball-movement heavy system.

 

I think part of it is Houston. We are the other to them, the Middle America that is not where a vast majority of the mainstream media comes from.

So you see that when the Rockets completely revamp their offensive style from 2016 (JB) to 2017 (MDA), and even from 2017 (Harden with 3’s and layups) to 2018 (Harden and Paul embracing the midrange), the complaints from the media are the exact same. That’s ignorance from the most prominent among them, and irresponsibility from the loudest. We know the few NBA analysts that actually watch our games, guys like Zach Lowe and Kevin O’Connor and David Thorpe, because they’ve actually noticed the difference.

In the NBA you can rack up regular season wins with a gimmick offense, but to be an actual championship contender you have to be able to win a variety of ways. These Rockets are the first incarnation of a team like that who can truly win it all. And people that are doing their jobs well are noticing.

 

Good post and a lot of this is this. Being a Rockets fan surrounded by TWolves fans the main complaints I've heard is that we're boring and that that Harden is cheater who flops and travels all the time. That was why Harden was booed pretty much every time he touched the ball at Target Center.

 

The hate stems from Morey.

The haters think we play the games on a spreadsheet and they hate it. They hate hearing about the math of it all. That’s all it’s really about.