APBRmetrics

Have people taken a look at the Kevin Martin's home/road splits? I don't recall ever seeing such a huge disparity in performance.

Wow, that is huge. He doesn't have any other occurrences of this in his recent past but he did have another large disparity his rookie season. Is McHale "messing" with his role? I might, depending what your main objective was- make the playoffs thinking conventionally or try something different or emphasize building for the future, a future that will probably be without Martin fairly soon.

You may not want or be able to say anything about your relationship with Rockets (and am I guessing, but not from any solid information, that the answer is no) but I guess I'll say that I am mildly curious.

McHale is definitely focused on making the playoffs, not experimenting for the future. I think Martin's struggles are mostly a function of the team's offense operating less fluidly on the road. My own sense is that the Rockets offense has a greater tendency this year to devolve into one-on-one or predictable high PnR sets out of which there isn't as much ball movement -- especially against good defensive teams and on the road. I think that's one factor. Another factor is the way the refs are less inclined to call touch fouls which has really impacted Martin's game and seems to have taken him out of his usual rhythm. I imagine that's also a bigger issue when he's on the road.



No affiliation, just a fan.

ok, thanks.

I can't see much from the totals. Here are Kevin Martin's per 36 minute rates and shooting%Getting 12-22% fewer shots of every type on the road; he seems to try and make up for that by upping his Reb and Ast.
Other rates: not much diff.
At home, he's twice as likely to miss a FT.

Portland did something pretty different than Houston, i.e. pulling the plug on going for a 7th or 8th seed, trading veterans. I didn't like a lot of the details of the player moves and non-moves. I am not completely sure about the strategic choice but it might have been facing reality and proper.

I actually thought they could have improved things and perhaps been a team with a legit chance to get to at least the 2nd round this year and been pretty good in the next few season with a different, good, experienced coach.

Which team gets back to the Western Conference Finals first? We will see. But probably not anytime soon for either all things considered.

Houston currently has 3 "white" players in its top 6 scorers per game. Only Minnesota has more with 4. Orlando. Toronto also have three and maybe I am forgetting one.

In the last 32 years I counted 5 champs meeting this criteria, including Dallas last season, maybe, depending on what you categorize Jason Kidd.

Houston still pretty much at the same win% level they were 2 months ago.

Houston, I think, are 1 game under .500 since the all-star break. No top 10 factor ratings.

Budinger was faded back from .137 WS/48 to .110. Dragic is excited to be an unrestricted free agent. Martin continues on the DL. The experiments with T Williams, Thabeet, Flynn and Hill are all over in Houston with no successes on the court. Patterson continues to disappoint in most ways as an undersized passive big. Parsons and Lee are just alright. Camby is playing well by boxscore stats (just neutral on RAPM though) but seems likely to a be quickly forgotten footnote in Rockets history. Marcus Morris continues to have among the worst productivity per minute of any player in the league. Greg Smith is getting very few minutes. Boykins has been awful. Lowry's games per year takes a big dive but continues a general trend downward as well. Interest in acquiring Scola has surely declined after the worst season of his career (below average on ws/48, average to a bit above on RAPM) and approaching 32 years old with 3 more guaranteed years of his deal at an average of over $10 million.

The new starting lineup with Camby and Dragic is just neutral, like the team in general. Stuck in the middle. Showing no significant signs of using the tread water phase to actually advance in the next few years. The killer lineup that Kevin Arnovitz wrote about yesterday with Dalambert instead of Camby
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... ts-grenade
actually hasn't played a single minute in the last 3 games, for whatever reason or lack of sound reasoning.

Average attendance this season slips to 22nd place. Houston has not given them above average attendance straight back thru their championship seasons. There seems to be little basis to say that "trying to stay competitive" has paid off for them on the court or at the box office.

I just don't get his thinking. The biggest "inefficiency to take advantage of" by far is a high draft pick. It's like Morey's purposely not using the stick of dynamite next to him, and is instead finding cool little bargain pick axes that are more efficient than you think!

Sam Presti also inherited a team with average talent, and immediately traded his stars for picks and tanked. I would LOVE to see Morey build around a star 20 year old top-5 pick ... it's a shame he hasn't been willing to give himself that chance.

His choice I guess.

Owner seems very patient. I am not sure that is a good thing in this case. There are other kinds of patience. Maybe they try a blow up and draft strategy high strategy if they make no meaningful progress in another 2-3 years. With current management or the next one.

The decision to not rebuild through the draft isn't Morey's choice. The owner's first priority over anything else is making the playoffs, which is why a total rebuild is not an option. Of course, making the playoffs without already a star or high-level talent on your team is a difficult task.

Morey has acknowledged that their current approach is a much more difficult way to rebuild, and, with the current rules of the game, its not the optimal way to set up your future.

And why is that?
All they need is 1 superstar. They've got plenty of pretty-good players, and they just need a good free agent deal.

I'll take deepak's assessment that the choice is owner-driven. I don't know one way or the other.

Part of the reason they don't have a superstar right now is what they decided to spend on Martin and Scola. But this summer they will have plenty of cap. They should be flexible about moving anybody but as it stands it would seem less change provoking for them to acquire a free agent C (or C-PF), if they find one they like and are willing to pay. They could also opt for a vet SF but they would have to commit to giving him plenty of time and probably dealing 1 or more of the young guys.

No playoffs again. They might need luck or the reputed David Stern assist in the draft lottery. Certainly the try to make the playoffs, probably get a mediocre pick thing isn't working.

None of the young bigs seemed to show much from the pick of McHale as coach.