At least we're getting Durant. Amirite?

I'm giving it a chance because I don't have any other options!

quote:

---

Really bizarre decision. It's almost like Morey wants to be fired.

---

Or that it isn't Morey's decision at all.

That's a great strategy if you have Curry and Thompson!

I looked up the 2015-2016 shot charts for the Rockets and Warriors. When you look at where the shots come from, the Rockets appear to play smarter basketball. I broke all shots taken in 2015-2016 into four buckets: Layups, threes, corner threes, and midrange shots. I included non-layup shots in the paint as midrange because they display a close affinity to "true" midrange shots rather than layups in terms of expected point value.

78% of the Rockets shots were layups or threes compared to 71% of the Warriors shots. Of the Rockets threes, 12% were from the corner compared to 9% of the Warriors.

BUT

The Warriors shot a better percentage from everywhere on the floor except non-layup paint shots (Rockets +0.6%), right baseline midrange (Rockets +3.9%), and the top of the key (Rockets +0.6%). Of the areas where the Warriors shot higher percentages, the left corner three was closest (Warriors +2.2%) followed by layups (Warriors +2.6%). Everywhere else was Warriors +6.0% or better. So the Rockets shot slightly better from places that neither team uses all that often, and their better shot selection was swamped by the Warriors elite shooting.

Taking a look at offensive efficiency, the Rockets are ranked 8th. Plotting every team shows 4 elite teams (GS, OKC, SAS, and Cleveland), followed by a fairly tight grouping from Toronto to New York, and four really atrocious teams bringing up the rear. So Houston is above average, but not elite.

When I match the data with a look at the roster, I see the Rockets trying to fit square pegs (midrange jump shooters) into a round hole (an offense designed for efficiency). The result is doing the right things but not all that well.



Defensive efficiency, incidentally, shows a similar plot to offensive efficiency but with a much steeper slope in the "middle of the pack". Houston's spot near the bottom of the interquartile range combined with that steep slope means they are worse at defense than they are good at offense. The relative slopes of those two lines is the more interesting factor because it tells me that there is a lot of room league wide for defensive improvement without roster improvement. This is relevant to Houston, I think, because for all the picking apart of the offense, the defense is the problem.

#AndThenWeGetDurant

D'Antoni apparently wants Jeremy Lin. You've got to be ****ing kidding me