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Looking at the win projections for 2015-2016, the team everyone seems to be way off on is Houston. Kevin McHale has just been fired after a 4-7 start. But, is he to blame ? Watching them the other night vs. Boston, they got blown out by the Celtics and it appeared as though the team just quit mid-way through the 3rd quarter. They say you can't coach effort, and there hasn't been much of it in Houston. Harden's numbers are way down, Howard has barely showed up, guys like Ariza, Beverley haven't had the output nor effort of a year ago and Lawson still has to find a place to fit in. Who's to blame for the Rockets bad start? Did a good coach like McHale have to meet the axe to shake them up ? Or are there seemingly too many issues for the Rockets to "take flight" like they did last year?

Their 2FG% and FT rates are unchanged from last year. But 3FG% is down from .348 to .290, resulting in 6 points fewer per game from the arc.
Rebounds and turnovers are unchanged, but OppTO are down 0.7, and OppReb are up 3.7.
Put those together, and you have an 11 PPG swing.

Not much you can do about missing 1/6 of the 3's that you used to make. Especially when your team is geared to that offense.
Players listed as C and F total only 53 MPG. No SF -- Ariza, Brewer, Dekker -- could possibly pose as a Big. With Motiejunas out, Dwight and Jones missing 9 games between them, they are hopeless on the boards.

Capela has stepped up, but he's not ready to be the Man.

Overall collective effort missing shots and bad defense. Harden's play rates as the biggest drop-off compared to last year for me but is still enough to be most valuable player on the team. The Lawson, Brewer and Beverley trio rates as a carwreck so far as three of the least valuable players in the league.

What feedback or extensions can folks offer to this article? http://nyloncalculus.com/2015/11/18/fai ... n-problem/

Lawson pairs with Harden for 3/4ths his time and is averaging -7.7 net team pts per 100 possessions. With Howard for about half his time and the results so far average -6.5. I assume they planned to use the 3 together a lot before trade. But did they run it thru a lineup simulator? What results were anticipated? Where are the shortfalls? Has the effort and strategy with these lineups just sucked and / or does the model suck?

Would NC be interested in building a lineup simulator? To aid articles or to make it available as a leading edge public tool? For use and to solicit feedbacks to improve it? If you don't want to build your own, what about partnering with xohoops.com to run the data on their simulator for the Rockets schedule (and maybe promoting the site, if they want publicity). Or use another partner.

Crow wrote:What feedback or extensions can folks offer to this article? http://nyloncalculus.com/2015/11/18/fai ... n-problem/

Deja vu all over again. The Rockets overpaid for Jeremy Lin, but he's a better player than he showed in Houston. But paired with Harden, he had the exact same problems that Lawson's having: with the ball in Harden's hands instead of theirs, they lose much of their offensive effectiveness. And their defensive weaknesses are magnified because they'll usually have to guard the other team's more dangerous guard.

5-0 when scoring 100+, 0-8 when they don't break 100.

EDIT: I post this little fact yesterday, Houston goes out and scores 102. Yay!, except for the fact they let the Knicks put 107 on 'em, with little D down the stretch.
5-1 when scoring 100+
Still, 0-8 when they don't.

Harden seems to finding his shot, but his defense is nonexistent. Nobody fears Dwight Howard's presence in the low post. Lawson isn't touching the ball enough to be effective and Harden turns it over quite a bit, although he's having another good season when it comes to getting to the charity stripe. Rockets need to play the defense they did last year. P.Beverley doesn't look like that pain in the ass out there that he has looked like in the previous two years. I wonder if MoreyBall has run its course, not in the league, more teams have adopted this style, but in Houston where the current pieces might not fit the methodology.