We’ve NEVER SEEN A Team Like The Houston Rockets…

We’ve NEVER SEEN A Team Like The Houston Rockets…

Houston is better than their record would indicate. They are third in offensive rating and fifth in defensive rating. There are not a lot of teams that are top five in both of those. Overall, they are second in the NBA in net rating with a plus 9.8. That’s 6 better than the third place team. And obviously, they’re way behind first place with OKC. The reason for their record not being mindblowing is they’ve had a lot of really close losses against the top end teams in the NBA. They lost by one to OKC. They lost by four to Detroit. And they lost by three to Denver twice, most recently in overtime. You could look at that negatively and say Denver and OKC, you know, not beating them, that’s a sign that they’re not that good. But first of all, even competing with OKC and keeping it pretty close thus far this year, pretty impressive. Detroit, very good team, top two in the East at a bare minimum. And Denver is the only other team that I really consider as at least probably better than the Rockets, but we’ll get to that. So, yeah, obviously it’s not great to lose to those top end teams, but they are very, very close games that a couple of possessions could have swinged in a different direction. and they’ve also missed some pretty key players. So, like I don’t know. I don’t think I’m going to hold their record against them given that they are second in net rating. What is most unique about this team though, there are very many factors. Their offense is so good, despite not being all that good at a lot of things that are considered super essential in modern NBA offense. First of all, they are bottom of the league in three-point attempts. and it’s by a decent margin. And it’s also the lowest amount of threes attempted in the NBA in a season in a long time. The Chicago Bulls in the 2223 season took 28.9 three-point attempts per game. That’s the last time someone’s taken less than 30. The Rockets are at 29.6. They are third in the league in three-point percentage at 39.9%. So, they’re hitting the low volume that they’re taking. They’re just not forcing threes. They are taking the clean looks and that’s why they have such a damn high percentage. Something else that is unique about their offense besides for that three-point shooting volume is that they’re kind of not that efficient inside the ark either. Overall, Alperan Shenun, Amen Thompson, and Jabari Smith Jr. are all in the negative for relative to league average true shooting percentage. Kevin Durant is still a couple of points better than league average true shooting, but of course he is Mr. Efficiency Man. And this is in fact the lowest true shooting percentage that he has had since 2011 when he was in the th when he was in a Thunder jersey. Like that is been a long [ __ ] time since Kevin Durant has been this inefficient relative to his standard. Clint Capella is at league average true shooting despite being a big man. Reed Shepard, Josh Aakogi, and Steven Adams are also right like just above league average true shooting wise. And they are 25th as a team in two-point percentage despite being the lowest volume three-point shooting team in the league. So, if you’re not taking a lot of threes and you’re not even that efficient inside the ark, how are you the second best offense in the NBA in a league where offenses are exploding? Because they almost always tend to do at the start of a season before they tamper down a little bit. Well, you might know this already. It’s because of their rebounding. It’s because they’re the best offensive rebounding team in the NBA. And it’s not even really that close. They are first with 16.2 offensive rebounds per game. and they are 1.7 above second place, who is the Portland Trailblazers, and they average 4.7 more than the overall league average offensive rebounds per game. To make things more confusing, they are fourth in turnovers while being only 19th in assists. So, as a result, in spite of the fact that they’re getting so many second chance opportunities because of these offensive rebounds, they’re only seventh in overall shot attempts. Like when I was trying to figure out why this offense is so damn good looking at the numbers, I’m like, “Okay, well clearly if you’re not taking a lot of threes and you’re not all that efficient inside the ark, at the very least the offensive rebounds are just making you have the most shot attempts in the league by far.” But no, they’re seventh place. So I’m still trying to figure out quite why this team is as good as it is. But they do win the possession battle pretty much every game. And if they clean up their playmaking a little bit, part of this is of course just because they do not have Fred Van Vleet, I do think that they can win that possession battle even more. They also get to the line a decent bit. They’re ninth in free throw attempts, so that’s a factor as well. Ninth isn’t that high, but it’s certainly noteworthy. But I want to talk about how unique this duo between Kevin Durant and Alper Shenun is. Kevin Durant has never played with someone like this in his entire career. It’s I mean Alfan Shenun is just straight up one of the most unique players in the NBA. And I feel like because there are some similarities to Joic, his overall uniqueness does not get brought up enough. But like he dribbles the ball so much more than Nola Joic does. Like he brings the ball up the floor a lot of the times. He is doing dribble moves 5 feet behind the three-point line trying to blow by a defender multiple times and a lot of the time it can look awful sloppy and he is averaging more turnovers this year and that’s probably a part of the reason why their turnovers are so high but for the most part it [ __ ] works. His efficiency is not all that great. He is below league average true shooting despite averaging 23 and a half points, nine and a half rebounds and seven assists per game. seven assists being by far his careerh high. He has, yeah, some of the Jokic archetype where he’s a post player with decent touch and he’s a really good playmaker as a center, but the way that he actually gets to his shots is just very, very different from Nola Jokic. And Nicola Joic’s way of getting to shots is very, very different from the way a lot of other people do it, from way basically everyone else does it. So, the fact that he is weirdly his his shot approached, the mid-range shots that he takes, the one-footed shots, like everything about the way that he approaches offense looks janky and wrong and awkward, but it also [ __ ] works. Also worth note that he is a better defender than Joic. Still obviously a league’s worst player, but like he is really, really, really damn good. And I feel like the aesthetic bias isn’t in his favor. I feel like the efficiency bias, which is a reasonable thing to really harp on, but like efficiency is not everything. Overall, this team goes as ShenGun goes and he is capable of having offensive explosions, but he’s also a pretty damn good offensive rebounder and he ultimately has a pretty good floor as well. Kevin Durant, of course, is one of the most unique players in NBA history. You don’t need me to convince you of that. But I also find it really novel what he is doing at the age of 37. Am I surprised by it? No. Because even though Kevin Durant has lost a step athletically and then some, he will always have that hezy pull-up mid-range shot. I think he will be able to get to that shot in like at the age of 40. like he always has the ability to just hit some of these tough buckets in the mid-range and it results in a lot of really effective like just being like give the ball to Kevin Durant he’s going to figure it out and that’s the reason they traded for him because last year it was Jaylen Green figuring it out or better Fred Van Vleet who is a good player but should not be your primary perimeter shot creator. These guys don’t play a ton of twoman game at least in the games that I have watched. So, I would like to see them do that a little bit more. Maybe they’re saving that for the playoffs. Maybe they don’t want to show their hand too much there. I’m not sure. But, as I mentioned in the intro, this role player core is also interesting. A man Thompson some nights plays like a star. Like, I don’t know if he’s quite a star NBA player yet. I guess you could argue that. I’m I’m I’m kind of like he’s certainly borderline and there are certainly games where he is giving you star level impact. His three-point shot obviously bad. As a result, his overall efficiency is not all that great. He does he takes a good amount of those touch shots that he’s pretty good at. He’s especially a lot better than his brother is. And he’s a much better free throw shooter, but still being better than Assar Thompson at general shooting touch is not a high bar. But he is of course playing point guard and he is 6 foot7 playing the point guard position which is not that insane in the modern NBA. In fact, I’ll give you a little inside baseball here, guys. If you’re watching this video exclusive, the death of small guards video coming out on the deep dive channel in the very near future along with an update video cuz we’re changing some of our content approach going into next year. Uh, but that’s enough for you. But yeah, there there is a video talking about the way that this has been changing. But, uh, the primary starting lineup has been Joshi at the two with Shenun playing the five, Jabari Smith at power forward. But when they go with their big lineup, when they put Steven Adams in in place of Joshi, they have I think Steven Adams is 6’11. Yeah. 611 Adams, 611 Shenon, 7 foot Kevin Durant, 610, 611 Jabari Smith Jr., and then a 67 Oh, [ __ ] I said it. Amen Thompson at point guard. Like, it is a very, very tall lineup. It’s one of the tallest lineups in NBA history. And I don’t think it’s a lacking in versatility or depth of abil. Obviously, the three-point shooting not all that great because Shenun’s been an okay three-point shooter this year, better than past, but still was never all that great in the past. Adams can’t shoot, Amen can’t shoot, but Jabari can shoot, Kevin Durant can shoot, and you’re going to get so many goddamn offensive rebounds cuz like Amen Thompson contributes to their rebounding thing. Amen averages 2.7 offensive rebounds per game. He is third on this team in offensive rebounds per game. He gets nearly as many as Shenun does. So like you’re just winning the possession battle because of the height so so often that ultimately I think that lineup really really works. Apparently they actually have a negative net rating as a lineup as of right now and it is their second most ran lineup. I don’t want to believe it though. It’s so fun. I enjoy that lineup so much. I hope it actually will work out because that’s just it’s it’s it it really is super fun. I guess it’s not as effective as it feels like it is to me. But I don’t know. We’ll see. Small sample size. I think the potential is still there. We’re only 20 games in. But beyond Amen Thompson, Reed Shepard continues to get slept on. Uh I don’t agree that he should be prevalent in most improved player conversations because I don’t really feel like it counts if you just didn’t get any opportunity at all in your rookie year. but he is putting up 12.9 points per game and he is shooting nearly 44% from three on five and a half attempts per game. Tari E in the 11 games that he played before getting injured was shooting literally the best three-point percentage in the entire league so far. Aaron Holiday and Joshi I think have been unsung heroes on this team for the little bit that I’ve seen people talk about the Houston Rockets. I feel like they almost never come up but like Aaron Holidayiday has been mega efficient. He’s shooting his threes. Super efficient. Like these guys were afterthoughts to me. Like roster fillers. Aaron Holiday has kind of perpetually been a third string point guard. Like one of those guys who you feel solid about if they get in with an injury, but not someone who you would expect to be a big part of a rotation, especially for such a good team. But no, he has been a really, really good backup guard for them. And Josh’s defense has been so good while he is shooting 40% from three. Now, do I believe he should be starting come playoff time? I don’t know about that. Maybe it’s Dorian Finny Smith in his place, or maybe they get some other 3 and D guy, but like I don’t believe in his jump shot. So, I’d like them to find a solution there. Jabari Smith Jr. is having a career year. He’s averaging 15.4 point. 6.7 rebounds. He’s shooting 37% from three on five and a half attempts per game. Reed Shepard was actually at six attempts per game. I accidentally read the line from Jabari’s stats, so forgive me. Reed Shepard is in fact taking 5.9 threes a game, not 5.6. Huge distinction. And of course, their centers Stephen Adams and Clint Capella have both been great. Clint Capella is out here grabbing like two offensive rebounds in 11 minutes. Like, he knows the assignment. He’s just being a worst Steven Adams in his limited time, and that’s all they need him to be. After all that positivity, if I’m going to give them any kind of critiques, first of all, you can look at some of the weaknesses this team has. The two-point percentage not being good, the three-point volume being at the bottom of the league. You could argue if that’s a disadvantage or just by design, uh the fact they turn it over a lot. And you could say, “Wow, this team’s kind of sloppy. This team has a lot of kind [snorts] of not super encouraging stats for how good their net rating and all of that is.” Or you could say, “Wow, this team that has played 20some games together has all these rough edges that have resulted in a record that is worse than they probably are. And they can come together and be much better than this. But you could also have the perspective that they’re just actually not that good uh because of all those other negative stats. I choose to believe that they will be better in the turnover department and the inside the arc efficiency department and they are even better than this. That’s how I feel. But I think it’s entirely valid to interpret the stats in a more negative way. I do wish that Alfa and Shenun did less ball handling. While I do think it is an important facet of his game that you can’t deny, you can’t cut that aspect of his game out. I don’t necessarily think he should be doing it as much as he is. It seems physically exhausting for him. And I don’t know, at the bare minimum, let Amen Thompson advance the ball or Kevin Durant. Just someone who it doesn’t have to look so damn difficult the whole time. It just it literally gives me anxiety cuz it looks like he’s going to lose the ball the whole time. A man Thompson’s lack of a jumper does worry me specifically for how this team loves to run double bigs. Shenun was shooting the three really good to start the year, his percentage has fallen back down to being a little bit below league average. So, I don’t know how effective of a floor spacer he will ultimately be. So, him not being that much of a spacer, Amen being a non-spacer, playing Steven Adams out there with those guys, I do worry about that. Josh Aakogi, like I said, if he’s a big part of this rotation, I just don’t believe in his three-point shot. Maybe he has figured it out, but he has been a non-shooter for all of his career up until this point. And I will say overall, I do trust the defense on this team more than the offense. I do believe that the fact their offense is second in offensive rating despite all of these deficiencies should be indicative that they’re a really good offense. But the data is so mixed. The the impression I’ve gotten from the Rockets is so mixed relative to what I think their upside is that I still feel like their offense could end up plummeting. But I do believe that they’re a very good defense and they started the year with a worse defensive rating. I figured they would pick it up and they did exactly that. I think they rely on bailout shots from Kevin Durant and Alparan Shenon a little bit too much. I wish their offense was a little bit more organized. Sometimes I feel like they almost take the fact that they’re such a good offensive rebounding team as licensed to not necessarily generate the best offense that they could. And I don’t know if that’s just some regular season sloppiness or indicative of a larger issue, but it’s certainly something that uh when the Rockets have not looked so good, a lot of it has been just ah I guess we’re going to give it to our top two guys and they’ll figure it out and throw up some crazy fadeaway mid-range shot and like [ __ ] it works a little bit. But I don’t love that. I definitely don’t love it. Uh the perimeter defense outside of Amen Thompson and Joshi is pretty mediocre. I’m a little worried about how much Reed Shepard can actually play in the playoffs. For what it’s worth, he is a much better defender at 6’1 than most 6’1 NBA players are. But to be less fair, targeting in the playoffs is a very prevalent practice. And I don’t know if he’s good enough to not be 61 to be real. Uh, and I don’t know if his offense will necessarily be reliable enough because while he is a very good three-point shooter, his inside the arc game does leave room to be desired. So, he is a limited offensive weapon who will probably be at least somewhat of a defensive liability in the playoffs. For what it’s worth, Dorian Finny Smith is going to be a key part of this rotation. He is set to return in January. So, the perimeter defense gets better there. And you feel better if Reed Shepard ends up not being playable. If you have Dorian Finny Smith as a backup plan or just some other guy to sub, like you feel good if you have more depth if that guy can’t play basically. um they could make a move. I they do have the ability to make a trade. I don’t think it’s a necessity, but I do think it is something worth exploring. I don’t even necessarily think it needs to be a point guard trade, even though that’s where most people will steer the conversation. But I I think it’s better for them to just embrace what they’re good at and overall develop the playmaking in a more egalitarian sense because that seems to be the direction the NBA is moving anyways rather than trying to shoehorn in some like quote unquote true point guard. So for the final question, are they contenders? Well, I think yeah. I think in the NBA right now, I mean, I don’t know. People are kind of flipping on OKC because they lost the one Spurs game and they definitely did have an easy early season strength of schedule. But I do feel like OKC is kind of in a tier of their own as far as contenders go. But aside from them, I we’re just going to treat it like they’re in their own tier and then everybody else. I have always defined uh contenders as they are in an A tier or a B tier. There is no other tier of contender that that at that point you’re just darkhorse. But a tier contender is a team that I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t even have to think about it. That that team’s a contender.” And yeah, there’s maybe another team out there’s probably maybe even one or two or three. Depends on how actually how much parody there actually is at the top of the league, but there can be like five A tier contenders if the season calls for it. But for the most part, there’s usually only two or three. And I don’t know if Houston is. I think Denver is better and I think the Spurs could be better. I also wouldn’t say that they are leaps and bounds better than the Knicks and Pistons who I do think are just the by far best teams in the East. Although the Orlando Magic have been creeping up, but I don’t know. I don’t know because I’m I literally kind of feel like they’re just no contender in the East. Obviously, some team has to make the finals, but in terms of actually having a legitimate shot of beating the Thunder or the Nuggets or probably even Houston. I don’t know. I’m I’m kind of conflicted on the Houston Rockets. As you may have gleaned from this video, I choose to lean positive. So, I’m going to say, yeah, they’re an A tier contender. I don’t even know if I clarified what be Btier to me is, but Btier is like you’re going to need to catch a break. you’re gonna have to get some guy who like gets really hot out of nowhere or some major injury needs to happen that clears a path for you. But like like I would have defined the Indiana Pacers last year. I mean, I don’t know that I did going into the playoffs, but in retrospect at least, I would say that the Pacers were a Btier contender. They were not in the clear upper echelon of the NBA, but if the right set of circumstances occur, if you just get Tyrese Hallebertton hitting every clutch shot that he ever takes, then suddenly you got to run. I probably I think I’m leaning towards the Houston Rockets could get it done straight up. I would definitely pick OKC to beat them, but I think Houston will at the very least give them trouble, especially because I just think they’re a team that embraces their identity really strongly. And I think in order to beat OKC, the worst thing you can do is try to beat OKC by doing OKC [ __ ] Houston is their own brand of physical. They’re dominant in their own ways. And I think that that contrast at least will be interesting. Uh the Thunder unfortunately have a really good double bigs lineup themselves. So not like it’s a size mismatch that much, although there is a little bit of one on the perimeter, so there could be a capacity of like shooting over guys. But yeah, I I don’t think they can beat OKC, but they can beat Denver. They can be the second best team in the NBA. I truly think that they are top five at the bare minimum, and I think they have a very strong case for being top three. I don’t know. I kind of I’m I’m The Spurs have been really intriguing me. So, like, I’ve been going back and forth lately about Houston versus San Antonio. They’re kind of fighting for the third spot for me after OKC in Denver. and then like Detroit and New York are below them after that. Um, but yeah, that’s my thoughts on the Houston Rockets. Let me know what you think in the comment section down below. I am so sorry Rockets fans for how long this video came out. If you saw my videos document, I have had a Houston Rockets video like planned for a minute and it just kept getting pushed off for a variety of different reasons. Part of it was for a long time it was going to be a film room and for a variety of reasons we have struggled to get film rooms out. That will hopefully be changing next year. We’ve gone through a lot of change the last couple of months but yeah this finally got this done. Should have happened a while ago. I apologize for that. Houston’s been one of the most enjoyable teams in the league to me. So I was looking forward to this team going into the year and they haven’t really disappointed. So yeah, that’s it. Goodbye.

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0:00 Not What It Seems
3:47 Their Strengths And Weaknesses
5:11 Duo
9:08 The PG
11:48 Depth
13:37 Critiques
18:41 Houston Is A Legit Contender(?)

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