Years after years of the NBA trending towards playmakers and shooting because the math (aka irrefutable evidence) supports that is the superior playstyle and people still wanna bang down low with bigs. As for last night, yeah, we were missing our best rebounder. Of course they'll go crazy on the boards. The Rockets have good rebounders regardless of their height by the way in Westbrook, Harden, Covington, and Tucker.
Also since you had to bring up the Rockets... if you don't understand how to analyze the Rockets with nuance, I'll leave this here because I don't feel like retyping this entire thing. Everyone needs to read this before drawing their conclusions about how the game of basketball is supposed to be played, based on the evidence of one freaking team. Because that's what you banger PF guys do. You take things and run with it in your mind and start doubling down. Just slow it down a little and wait. Parse out what the factors are in determining why something is succeeding and why something doesn't work. Don't think "we shouldn't do this because they couldn't win"- rather, ask "what can we take from them and then make better?".
sunskerr wrote:You need to appreciate how what the rockets are doing (shooting a billion threes) is able to bridge the talent gap between them and a team like the 2018 Warriors. The fact that it took a CP3 season ender (again, I have to stress this so you don't forget it) for them to lose against a team as stacked as the Warriors seems to suggest one or two of, or most likely a combination of (1) the Rockets' offensive system of shooting an apparently ridiculous number of 3s is superior, and (2) the Warriors did not know how to deal with this level of volume shooting.
In other words, you should measure the systems success relative to some other standard, and not just whether they won a championship. If you think the Warriors were more talented (i.e. they have more stars/better players-I don't think anyone would argue they didn't), then you measure whether or not the Rockets were "over-performing" relative to the Warriors, or relative to what the rest of the league is able to achieve.
This is how improvements/optimizations are made in the NBA. It's not just about copying what the championship winners are doing. Otherwise, no teams would have started increasing the pace of their offenses following the SSOL Suns. The Suns were "successful" in this light despite losing to a dynasty in San Antonio filled with talent, because they found an offensive system that allowed them to play "better" relative to their competition. In that same way, the Warriors in 2015 pushed the envelope in terms of 3PA, and the rest of the league followed suit. The rest of the league caught up and even exceeded the Warriors in terms of 3PA in 2016, especially the Rockets, and they saw "success". Now teams follow the Rockets' lead and are increasing their 3PA every year since 2016.
So going back to what the Rockets are doing today (going with all shooters, no rim runner), their success will be measured by NBA teams' front offices/analytics departments on whether or not they were able to improve their offense and defense- and analysts will take into account the talent level of the Rockets' roster when doing so, as well as the kind of competition they are facing. If they are "successful" then teams will look to emulate it, derive principles from, improve it (6'8"-6'9" 3&D player at center instead of 6'5" PJ Tucker, anyone?), and develop plans against it.
On a slightly related note:
I also think one of the most important things that cannot be understated is the lag time after an innovation in play is made until the rest of the league begins to copy it or develop an adaptation against it. You have a very small window (often just one season long) where your success has the best chance of getting you through to a deep playoff run or even a championship. "The NBA is derivative" is often said, but it is completely true. Coaches are always copying each other and planning against new schemes. You only have a very short time in which the likelihood of you capitalizing on your innovation is at its highest.
Sorry for sounding annoyed. But I really am. It gets to me when people ignore everything in favour of looking at a couple of examples, and brush off certain things that we should actually be learning from, in favour of either who won a game, or who won a championship. It just doesn't work like that in the actual NBA- no front office is doing that, even the very worst ones. I can promise you they have nuanced analyses.
