Rockets

[deepak]

There has been interesting reversal for the Rockets. For most of the season, the starters were carrying the team. Racing out to leads, while the bench typically gave it away. The Rockets were consistently giving up leads any time Lowry, in particular, was off the floor. In the last few games, though, the bench has saved the team.

[Crow]

The last 2 weeks are Budinger's best but he has had strong 1-2 week stretches in past seasons too. Most players' stats could be snipped out that way.

The Rockets are one of 6-7 teams with 9 guys over 20+ minutes per game and in most games.

[Jeff Fogle]

Might be interesting to keep an eye on those 6-7 teams between now and the All-Star Break just to see if they're showing less vulnerability to fatigue...

[Mike G]

The Rockets have used 10 players at least 400 minutes. Only one other Western team, the Mavs, have done that.
Another 4 Western teams have 9 players with 360 minutes.
Listing 360+ minutes guys, sorted by eWins per 484 minutes.
Average e484 is 1.00; 1.50 is potentially an All-Star. Below .50 is not so good.

Code: Select all

e484  Dal        e484  Hou         e484  SAS        e484  Min        e484  NOH       e484  Uta
1.82  Nowitzki   1.64  Lowry       2.23  Duncan     2.31  Love       1.28  Kaman     2.12  Jefferson
1.40  Marion     1.39  Dalembert   1.98  Parker     1.31  Rubio      1.21  Jack      2.08  Millsap
1.32  Carter     1.31  Martin      1.33  Blair      1.16  Beasley    1.19  Okafor     .94  Favors
1.29  Beaubois   1.19  Scola       1.14  Splitter    .85  Williams    .97  Landry     .90  Hayward
1.20  West       1.02  Budinger     .78  Leonard     .78  Milicic     .90  Smith      .86  Miles
1.04  Terry       .93  Hill         .65  Green       .78  Ridnour     .83  Ariza      .82  Harris
.92   Haywood     .87  Parsons      .63  Neal        .22  Johnson     .78  Vasquez    .51  Howard
.79   Odom        .80  Dragic       .60  Jefferson   .20  Ellington   .28  Belinelli  .32  Watson
.77   Mahinmi     .58  Lee          .52  Bonner      .19  Tolliver    .24  Aminu      .09  Bell
.54   Kidd        .50  Patterson                        

Dallas looks better, not by a lot, at each "position".
These other teams, other than the Hornets, all have a star player (or two) who is better than anyone in Houston.
But at positions 4-9, the Rockets seem to be better.

Another 6 teams have gone 8 deep:

Code: Select all

e484  GSW        e484  Mem         e484  Okl         e484  Phx       e484  Por        e484  Sac
1.89  Curry      1.63  Gasol       2.44  Durant      1.75  Gortat    2.25  Aldridge   1.89  Cousins
1.53  Ellis      1.41  Gay         2.09  Westbrook   1.74  Nash      1.37  Camby      1.24  Evans
1.52  Lee        1.20  Allen       1.29  Harden      1.04  Frye      1.21  Crawford    .84  Thornton
.99   Robinson   1.17  Conley      1.11  Ibaka        .83  Dudley    1.21  Wallace     .81  Thompson
.93   Wright     1.09  Speights     .43  Sefolosha    .72  Morris    1.06  Batum       .55  Thomas
.56   Rush        .92  Mayo         .30  Cook         .64  Hill       .89  Felton      .48  Hickson
.37   Thompson    .44  Cunningham   .20  Collison     .45  Brown      .87  Matthews    .33  Fredette
.21   Udoh        .11  Pondexter    .08  Perkins      .17  Price      .49  Thomas      .26  Salmons

And 3 teams have relied upon just 7 main players:

Code: Select all

e484  Den           e484  LAC         e484  LAL
1.45  Hilario       2.17  Griffin     2.50  Bryant
1.43  Lawson        2.05  Paul        2.10  Bynum
1.26  Harrington    1.17  Billups     1.76  Gasol
1.18  Miller        1.10  Jordan       .86  Barnes
1.07  Mozgov        1.03  Williams     .31  Fisher
.60   Fernandez      .97  Butler       .15  Murphy
.49   Afflalo        .60  Foye         .06  Artest

EDIT: Gallinari should top the Den list, at 1.54 eW/484.

[Jeff Fogle]

Never would have guessed when this thread started that Houston and Philly would both head into the ASB with the same record (20-14)...

[Crow]

A move this quick, maybe not; but I am not surprised about Philly eventually falling back some. Will either or both end up over .550 or .600? I don't think either will end up over .600. They might upset somebody in the first round but do either have much chance to go beyond that? How excited to get about it? Isn't one and done in the playoffs the upper part of the range that GMs say you don't really want to be in / stay stuck in (given the ultimate goal and if that is really the only true goal)? Most of my original questions / concerns still stand.

Philly 2-7 against the top 10. 6-10 against the top 16.

Houston better at 6-6 against the top 10. But just 9-12 against the top 16, which is a three way tie for 11-13th best. I guess overall they are 12th best. Is that worth much? Does their true competitive window to win a title really include this season or next? If not, how much does it matter in the long run if they if they go .550 or a little better right now? In the 5 seasons from 2002-2007 they won 55%, made 3 playoffs and won no series. In the 5 seasons from 2007-2012 they won 59%, made 2 playoffs and won 1 series. Never out of the second round = not a contender to me and that streak runs 15 years and suggests that the franchise strategy is not really working. When do they get out of the 2nd round? If they don't in the next 3 years (that would make it 18 straight), will people then say that the current strategy was not the right one or at least not successful? Is 18 years necessary and 15 insufficient?

A brief look at some teams who have been recent contenders shows more of them were bad (below .400) for 2 or more consecutive seasons, often a lot more. Houston has had 3 fairly bad seasons in the last 15 years but only one was worse than .400 and they never had 2 consecutive ones. OKC had 4 straight bad seasons and that helped in getting a lot of top draft picks which are a large part of their current success and bright future.

Maybe playing in the same state as San Antonio and Dallas with their long streaks of very high and high success has made being bad less tolerable. But is there much meaningful difference between mediocre and bad? Probably financially and maybe emotionally for many but you either play for titles far above all else or you don't. Dallas floundered for a long time til they finally got the right star with a fairly high draft pick, secured by being bad. Of course it took them a long time to achieve what they really set out for.



Martin -1.7 on prior informed RAPM as he always has been. -1.3 on non-prior informed.

[deepak]

Never would have guessed when this thread started that Houston and Philly would both head into the ASB with the same record (20-14)...

Almost the same SRS as last year, though. They've done a good job recently in winning close games.

[Crow]

5 in 5 in the last 10.

Since last month Jordan Hill is looking maybe not as bad (overall, as indicated by RAPM) and Budinger not quite as good. Not much else has changed much.

I stand by what I said earlier. Even after listening to Morey on the BS report. Both he and Simmons noted the difficulty of moving up from being in the middle. Still Morey indicates they are striving to be a championship contender again from there without going down far even after saying it has never been done. I again say 2-3 years from now we will know if the current Rocket strategy overall worked or not and probably whether the strategy was the better or right one or not. I don't think it is.

The team has no big factor strengths unless you count being 9th lowest on fouls given. 29th on foul shots earned seems like a bigger weakness than that semi-strength. Every other factor is just average. Are there any signs of a future championship contender in that line of rankings?


K Martin at the best RAPM of his career... but still negative.

Daryl said look at our team and you can tell where we think there are inefficiencies in the league to take advantage of. I look at the team and see at most 4 players who represent good to strong values. 2 are on rookie contracts that either won't be near as cheap after next season or will be gone (Budinger and Lee). Dalambert could be gone this summer or might begin the over 30 fade.

[Crow]

Patrick Patterson used in 87 lineups. Only one used much over 1 minute per game. 45 lineups with positive +/-, 42 with negative. Have they learned anything useful with that lineup distribution? Have they started generating more positive results from his selected lineups than earlier in the season? Which ones do they want to keep and build into their future rotation plan? Is he really a wise choice for backup PF or PF of the future? I am skeptical. Patterson in the bottom 15% on FTA per minute for guys 6-9 and taller. He has very strong player pairs with many key young players and apparently negative ones with Martin and Scola. I haven't calculated how negative. Martin and Scola are in about 20 of his lineups. Is that too many? Do they plan to avoid them in the future by lineup construction and / or player movement?

McHale on video being pretty dismissive of advanced analytics.

Rockets drop 5 straight. If you watched those games, what were they doing wrong and what were they doing right?


Lowry-Budinger more than three times better per minute than Lowry-Martin but Lowry-Martin gets more than three times as many minutes? Is that acceptable or an inefficiency?

Houston's starting lineup is the 3rd most used in the league but the second weakest of the top 8 used over 10+ minutes per game. Still mildly positive but is that the right choice? There are other candidates that are doing smashing in limited minutes. Are they trying win with bench play? Against mostly or all starters is different than against mostly bench players but how do you know how the other lineups would do against mostly or all starters unless you try them against that enough to get some sort of read?

[Crow]

Quoting Morey from earlier, Daryl said: "look at our team and you can tell where we think there are inefficiencies in the league to take advantage of".

One thought on what he meant is that maybe he thinks young players on short contracts, even if they are not that good or good at all, will have more value in the trade market than what he paid for them or what they will directly contribute this season on the court.

[Jeff Fogle]

Crow, what's up with Budinger? Noticed he's been getting 0 minutes in some games of late.

[Crow]

There are reports he bruised his arm at the dunk contest but I am not sure how bad it is. the Rockets have given Terrence Williams some pretty big minutes in the some of the last 5 games. They might be trying to "showcase" him as laughable as that is. Martin and Scola have gotten some 40+ minute games recently for whatever reason or mix of reasons.

[EvanZ]

With Rubio hurt, Houston has a good chance to nab the 8th spot.

[Crow]

Yeah that could be the decisive factor. The Blazers aren't looking good right now but I'll be watching what they do next week, on the court and off.

OKC vs Houston might be an interesting playoff match-up.

[Jeff Fogle]

Thanks Crow. Injury lists I saw didn't mention anything, but he was getting 0's during the b2b where they really needed minutes off the bench. Kept googling and couldn't find any mentions of it. Odd for a slam dunk contest guy to fall off the media radar like that. Looks like he's seeing action tonight...