Chris Ballard's SI Piece: Money Ballsy

[deepak]

Ballard spent a few days with Daryl Morey and the Rockets a few weeks back. His initial idea was to do a piece about the Harden trade, but it became more about all the things the Rockets did to set up the Harden trade and covers the Rockets overall analytics approach to team-building.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

[Crow]

It is a favorable, interesting article. But where will the Rockets be in 2-3 years, having taken this path of not going to the top of the lottery, spending on their 3 chosen guys and making Harden the #1? Anybody predicting top contention by then?

Currently at 4 factor level they are good on 3, near average on 4 and bad on one. On the two most important, they are a notch above average on own eFG% but 5th worst on eFG% allowed.

They have 6 guys over .100 on winshares per 48 but the 2 fairly expensive free agents signings are both well below that currently and Harden is at .133, 40-50% below last season and very near his rookie season low. Patterson, Morris and Parsons have improved but all to just barely above .100.

On new xRAPM the 3 big signings are all estimated positive but no one else on the entire team is except Delfino. Despite his better boxscore data, Patterson is still currently ranked in bottom quarter of the league on prior-informed xRAPM.

[Bobbofitos]

They are a very young team Crow - a team at this age/SRS actually projects to be quite good, in that 2-3 year window. I doubt this core has title equity down the road, but they certainly seem poised to have a solid 50-55 win expectation at that point.

[Crow]

Yes they are young and there are some reasons for optimism. I can maybe understand expectations, right now, of 45-50 wins this season or in the near future; but count me as a doubter, as of now, of 50-55 wins in that time frame or much playoff success with this basic roster. And the goal isn't 45-50 wins.

Last season's seven best on SRS (on pace to win 50+ games in a normal season) averaged more than 4 guys in the top part of the rotation with a winshares per 48 minutes over .150. The second tier averaged two. The Rockets currently have one, Greg Smith.

Season to season, the offensive efficiency has improved by about 2 pts. Defensive efficiency has declined by 1. All that change for a 1 pt improvement so far. Win% has gone from .515 to .529. 4th straight season with win% between .51 and .53.

Good last 2 weeks. Will want to see what happens in next few months.

[v-zero]

I genuinely expect the Rockets to be in contention in the two or three years. I would also like to point out that Harden has barely dropped a beat if you factor in his increased usage and inferior team mates as compared to his time at OKC.

[deepak]

Season to season, the offensive efficiency has improved by about 2 pts. Defensive efficiency has declined by 1. All that change for a 1 pt improvement so far. Win% has gone from .515 to .529. 4th straight season with win% between .51 and .53.

I don't think we can read anything into this, because the roster turnover has been so great between last year and this year. The Rockets are now the youngest team in the league, and 4 starters from last year are gone (including their top 3 scorers). If they end up with the same record as last season, that's not an indication that their progress is stalling, because its a younger team with a mostly remade roster.

That said, for the Rockets to move up from being a .500 team to a contender they'll need to add at least one more major piece. They're not going to stand pat with the current roster. Because they've been smart with their spending, they'll have plenty of cap room this summer to help with this.

[v-zero]

Season to season, the offensive efficiency has improved by about 2 pts. Defensive efficiency has declined by 1. All that change for a 1 pt improvement so far. Win% has gone from .515 to .529. 4th straight season with win% between .51 and .53.

I don't think we can read anything into this, because the roster turnover has been so great between last year and this year. The Rockets are now the youngest team in the league, and 4 starters from last year are gone (including their top 3 scorers). If they end up with the same record as last season, that's not an indication that their progress is stalling, because its a younger team with a mostly remade roster.

That said, for the Rockets to move up from being a .500 team to a contender they'll need to add at least one more major piece. They're not going to stand pat with the current roster. Because they've been smart with their spending, they'll have plenty of cap room this summer to help with this.

With the way it's going in LA I wouldn't be all that surprised to see a certain D12 in a Rockets jersey in 2013.

[Crow]

Yes they will need at least one more major contributor and will have cap space for that. But that next player will have to play better overall than any of the 3 recent signings have to date to push them into real contention. I did not say they couldn't get there, just that the moves so far don't push them into that realm yet.

[talkingpractice]

I guess one thing they have going for them is that their nucleus contains one guy on defense (Asik) and one guy on offense (Harden) who are +4 talents on their ends of the court. But I don't see how the side pieces (even with Parsons shooting so well, and even if Greg Smith turns out to be a bit of a steal) combined with their available budget allow room for the other piece or two that they need to be a legitimate title contender.