In the process of trying to land a third star, Houston saw some of its talent drift away, and they scrambled to replace them without losing a season. Morey has infamously flipped his players quickly and used them like assets, never worrying about the role players who got away. This led to a rich cache in goods, which they used to trade for Harden and they eventually stole Howard. After busting off the mediocrity treadmill, where teams flounder with a winning record near 0.500 never contending nor being bad enough to add through a high draftpick, the Rockets are stuck as a good team that’s not quite a contender. Given how young their superstar duo is, there’s still time, but there’s a lot of pressure on Houston to land a superstar in the next year or two.
2014 in review
In landing Dwight Howard, Houston finally added a star to join James Harden, but as I noted last year Howard played the same position as their second best player, Asik, who’s a supreme defender who kept Houston’s defensive messes from getting out of hand. Due to their size and their range being limited to the paint, I was insistent the two couldn’t play at the same time — and I was right. Via NBAWOWY, the Rockets were outscored by 6.7 points per 100 possessions when the two shared the floor. (These are also possessions when Harden was on the court too.) It was in only 202 minutes, but the team failed to shoot well when the two big men clogged the paint; Harden was affected the most with a 48.9 TS%. Jeremy Lin, who like Asik was brought in with a fairly big contract, also lost his starting job when Beverley’s ball-hawking defense was too much to ignore. Overall, the Rockets improved, but only by about 1.5 points in adjusted point differential. They edged out the Blazers for the fourth seed and homecourt advantage thanks to a 3-1 regular season record against them, but they were defeated in six games on a wild shot from Lillard — though we all know that. It was a sad note to end on during a weird season, celebrating the arrival of a superstar and struggling to incorporate everyone else.
Changes
Exit: Chandler Parsons, Jeremy Lin, Omri Casspi, Omer Asik, Aaron Brooks, Jordan Hamilton, Ronnie Brewer, Greg Smith, Josh Powell.
Enter: Trevor Ariza, Kostas Papanikolaou, Joey Dorsey, Jason Terry, Clint Capela, Nick Johnson, Scotty Hopson.
Where the Rockets have been hit hardest is depth. Houston may contend that Ariza is a good replacement for Parsons and may in fact be the superior player, but Parsons is a minutes-eater who’s gone past 2700 total minutes for two straight years, while Ariza has never consistently been healthy and has averaged 2155 minutes a season since becoming a starter in 2010. Even though the team was usually better when Beverley was on the court rather than Lin, he was still useful on the bench adding depth. The same was true of Asik. But they’ve added no one to replace his role. Adrien is a tough player, but he’s not close to being the same defender and he’s vastly undersized at center. Dorsey’s a tough player, and he’s reminiscent of another beloved Houston player, Chuck Hayes, as an extremely short center who makes up his lack of height with immense strength. The hope here is that one of the new guys from their grab-bag turns out to be a high quality rotation player. Maybe it’ll be Kostas, a 24 year-old Greek small forward who had important roles for some European championship teams, or maybe it’ll be Clint Capela, a rangy center and a high-percentile finisher, who will probably spent most of his time in the D-league. With no NBA-quality point guards coming in, Houston will probably lean on D-league phenom Troy Daniels as a backup. Lastly, the team could actually miss Casspi and his floor-stretch abilities at power forward.
Player spotlight
After failing to net Chris Bosh, Terrence Jones will resume his duties as the starting power forward. Strangely, he is a like a “lite” version of Bosh with his lanky frame, finishing ability inside, and burgeoning outside shot. He just isn’t at the same level as a shot creator with a below average usage rate. He’s also not a high volume jump shooter, preferring to score inside in the post or slashing to the rim. Jones has an above average rate of drives, which is rare for a big man. His offensive efficiency overall is actually amazing: he’s well above average in TS%, but he also has a tiny turnover rate. He’s also fairly active with offensive rebounding.
Defensively, he needs a lot of work despite a high rate of blocks and an acceptable rebounding level. The 2014 season was effectively his rookie season, however, since he only played 276 minutes the year before. His eFG% defense percentile is awful, especially for a power forward. Most defensive metrics tag him as far below average. His rim protection numbers are average, suggesting that in conjunction with his block rate there’s hope for him and his problems on defense lie outside the paint.
On the Daryl Morey diet, Jones either shoots near the rim or at the three-point line. He didn’t have the requisite accuracy outside, but like Bosh I’m sure he’ll keep trying and due to his age there’s a real Channing Frye potential. He’s a superb finisher inside though, and within 3 feet he’s at 72.5%. He takes a lot of shots from 3 to 10 feet as well, showing an arsenal of moves and a post game. At least for now, he prefers the left block.
Matched up with the US mint to his counterfeit coin, Terrence Jones’ field goals (link’s also here) against Chris Bosh and the Heat are in the videos below. In the first video, he’s faced up with Bosh, pump fakes, drives to the rim, absorbs the contact when he leaps, and hits the double-clutch shot. In the second video, when Howard receives defensive attention nearby, Jones catches a pass from Howard under the rim, spins, and hits a hook shot from a couple feet away, but he initiated this action by running to just the right spot for Howard to have the angle. This happens again in the third video with Beverley driving to the rim, leaving an open window for Jones to dunk. He’s adept at running on a fast break too, and scores in the fourth video on one while being hit in the back. The only big men who scored more on the break last season were Griffin, Thaddeus Young, Anthony Davis, and Faried. In the last video, you get to see his three-point shot from the corner.
Jones is athletic and leverages this into some shot-blocking prowess, which he does a lot out on the perimeter. In a game against Golden State, he switches onto Klay Thompson and manages a great feat by blocking his three-pointer. In the second video, David Lee tries to pull of a post-move against him and gets stuffed near the rim. In the last video, he shows off his leaping ability to skying high for a block near the top of its arc. His poor defense could mostly be problems with his fundamentals and awareness. I included a second embedded playlist with one video where you can see him get lost in transition on defense in the first video and forget that he was guarding Matt Bonner, 14th all-time in three-point percentage, and left him wide open.
Jones is a good complementary scorer, moving off-ball well and finishing extremely well at the rim. With a three-point shot in development, he’s a good match for Howard on offense and doesn’t come up with too many empty possessions, rarely turning the ball over. He’s very poor on defense overall, but there’s potential. He has a long wingspan, 7′ 2″, and has the athleticism to block shots on the move. Although the Rockets find him expendable since he’s not a superstar, he should be a valuable piece going forward.
2015 projected
Houston enters the season a top-heavy team, led by the all-star duo Harden and Howard and with some solid pieces to fill out the starting lineup with two 3/D specialists in Beverley and Ariza with Jones as another scoring option. The bench can best be described as indeterminate. Garcia’s one of their two major bench players who returned, re-signing over the summer. He fits well in Houston’s culture hoisting about 3.5 three-pointers per game in only 20 minutes. He’s been a decent defender for years too and works well in filling in stray minutes, but he’s entering his mid-30’s.
Donatas Motiejunas is the other main bench player returning, and in two years he’s yet to develop. With international experience and entering the league at the age of 22, this is a concern. With a 7-foot frame and an outside shot, he’s theoretically a stretch big, which would be quite valuable combined with Howard, but he doesn’t have the accuracy to pressure the defense. Donatas probably can’t be used as a center for very long with his poor rebounding, and defensively it’s not permissible either.
The frontcourt bench is a mess in general and it’ll be managed with band-aids and hope. There’s no telling how good Dorsey is as an NBA player anymore since it’s been years when he was last over here and he only totaled 600 minutes in the league. It’ll be a major weakness barring a major surprise. The Rockets may address this depth problem next year with the draft pick from New Orleans they received in the Asik trade.
The bench guard rotation isn’t a large improvement but at least there’s Troy Daniels, a three-point Golem conjured from the depths of the Rio Grade Vipers. In the D-league, he shot an eye-popping 12.5 three-pointers a game. Coupled with Harden, and you get the ultimate Morey backcourt. Harden’s been the target of a lot of criticism lately, but, just like with Kobe Bryant, you don’t get extra points for aesthetics, so the only thing that matters is how you get that ball into the hoop. He excels in an area I’ll dub the Morey Index: he offers the rare combination of heavy three-point bombing with numerous trips to the line. Since few three-point attempts lead to free throws, this is hard to accomplish. Provided in the table below, he’s been over a 0.95 on the Morey Index scale every year he’s been in the league, and there have been only 27 of these seasons since the three-point line has been introduced.
The player who holds the unofficial record on the Morey Index is surprisingly Gallinari, who’s overlooked for his ability to get to the line. But appropriately, Daryl Morey acquired five of the seventeen players listed above. Harden’s the most consistent performer and has the second highest Index ever, endearing himself as a role model for everyone else on Houston. The most surprising thing? The Rockets player with the highest proportion of long two-pointers is actually Harden himself at 12.5%.
Dwight Howard, who shows up in the table above due to an absurdly high rate of free throws one season, recovered from his nightmare in Los Angeles for a fine season where he got better month by month. Even when he was injured he was a rebounding force, and with more of his quickness back he’s a big plus on defense — just not as he once as, as everyone says. What people forget is how unique his combination of strength, quickness, length, and rebounding is. He’s too strong and long-limbed to post-up effectively, and he’s recovered enough of his quickness that he can swallow up pick-and-roll’s. This gives him an impact everywhere. He’s no longer as excellent as his peak, and this may partly be because he’s no longer with a top defensive coach, but he’s still one of the best and unlike most other defensive aces he can play major minutes and score at high rates.
On offense, Howard is playing to his weaknesses, not his strengths. He was never an adept post-scorer and he’s notoriously turnover-prone there. Forcing these actions can stall the offense and lead to empty possessions. However, as the season progressed, he started facing up more and driving, using his quickness to get by slower centers. This is more effective and can help him get to the line. But he’s still best working on pick-and-roll’s, lobs, and crashing the glass for second chance points. One problem is that since no one on the team uses the midrange jumper, he has to screen at the three-point line and it’s usually more difficult to roll all the way to the rim. DeAndre Jordan, for instance, needs only a couple of steps after setting a pick for Chris Paul around the elbow. The criticism about Howard’s post-game and lack of skill is overblown, however. Because of rule changes and defensive sophistication, scoring in the low-post is much more challenging, and if you want to see how Howard would do versus a 90’s style defense, the dream is alive in Portland: they play him straight-up and give little help. Over the regular season and the playoffs, he burned them for 26 points per game on an excellent 61 TS% along with his regular 11 rebounds per game and 2.4 blocks per game.
The third best player on the team is probably Trevor Ariza now. After bouncing around in the league, never quite capitalizing on his athleticism or finding his jump shot, Ariza finally received a stable role on the Lakers, helping them win a title. The next year he actually went to Houston and attempted more three-pointers than he had in the entirety of his career until then. But he never had the accuracy until the last two seasons. He was derided for his shooting skills for years, so it was odd seeing him on the three-point leaderboard with a 40.7% average. He’s probably due to be hit by a case of regression to the mean, but he should still be enough of a threat to be usable and he’s a better defender than Parsons was. He fills one need they had as a big wing defender, but with the loss of Lin and Parsons Houston will be lacking in ball-handling and he can’t help there. Overall, one can’t state the Rockets will be significantly better here, and it’ll be interesting to see how he’ll fare without Wall’s phenomenal corner passes.
Summary
With the team’s penchant for finding hidden talent, you can never count them out, but even a repeat of losing in the first round as the fourth seed could be out of reach. The margins are thin in the west, and a team last year won 48 games and missed the playoffs. Even if Houston is only slightly worse, 48 wins is still within the natural variation of wins — you could get unlucky in a few close games, for example. But due to their shallow depth, they will most likely be worse and without wild optimistic guesses about the players they’re bringing in, or doing something like projecting Ariza at heavy minutes despite an injury-plagued history, it’s odd to believe otherwise.
Wins: 49
Losses: 33
Conference rank: 8th
League offense rank: 7th
League defense rank: 19th
Edited 10/27/14
