SB Nation User Blog: Only_A_Lad

Cavs @ Rockets: 12/09/09, 7:30 PM

Only_A_Lad — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:35:33 -0000

Maybe the Rockets DO Have a Star.

Only_A_Lad — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:47:24 -0000

More photos » by Chris Pizzello - AP

No, it's not this guy (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello).

To put it simply, I think I'm done with the Texans for the year. I'll tune back in the spring to see who gets drafted, but I'm not watching this shit anymore this season. Unfortunately, the Astros are mired in suck and the Rockets' stars are injured. Not a lot to look forward to over the next few months, Houston sports-wise.

Well, I think the Rockets' start to the season has refuted a lot of that sentiment, but, as Dave is quick to note, the Rockets don't have a star on the roster right now, and the Rockets, while good, are not a team that can expect to go far in the playoffs. Now, I think the "star" epithet is largely meaningless, mostly just referring to whoever gets on ESPN highlights a lot, but it has some meaning. Typically, when people say "star," they mean someone who scores a lot. If we break this down a little further, it can be taken to mean "a player who uses a lot of possessions and converts them efficiently." There's no statistical "line" that will delineate "stars" from "great role-player," but I think we can agree that stars will show similar statistics, right?

So let's look at some numbers. Here are the statistical lines (courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com) of three NBA Power Forwards, two of whom are widely considered to be "stars" on some level. First, here are the per-36 rates:

Player A has a clear advantage in scoring over B (and, to a lesser extent, C), and smaller advantages in rebounding and blocks. However, he (as well as C) is much more turnover prone than B, and is nowhere near as skilled of a passer.

Personally, I never really liked per-minute stats. Teams play at wildly divergent paces. Still, per-minute stats capture some of the "star" qualities in a player - the ability to take a lot of shots, for instance. But let's look at per-possession stats:

Things start to look a little different. Players A and C are using similar portions of their teams' possessions, they have similar assist numbers, and are fairly close in effective Field Goal percentage and blocks. B's rebounding looks much better, his advantage in passing looks even more solid, and he is obviously the least turnover-prone. But A has the best shooting numbers, and his rapid, efficient scoring leads to massive advantages in compiled metrics like PER and O-Rating. And, by Win Shares, he has contributed the most wins in 19 games.

In case you haven't guessed by now, Carl Landry is A. LaMarcus Aldridge is B, and Amare Stoudemire is C.

First,, some caveats:

Carl Landry's numbers come as the team's go-to scorer on the second unit. Still, he plays a good number of his minutes against the other team's starters.
Amare is having a down year, and while certainly not career-lows, these numbers reflect a season that is probably Amare's worst since 2002-2003.
This isn't a particularly great season for LaMarcus, either, and his offensive efficiency has declined a bit from last year. But he's doing better on defense, so maybe it balances out a bit.
I personally don't think Aldridge is a "star," but people were talking about him as an "all-star level" player during the offseason, and this is more about appellation than actual production.

Okay, with all that said, we need to ask two questions. First, do Carl's numbers in themselves warrant the star title? Second, do similar levels of production as other "stars" warrant that title?

I don't really have the answers to those questions. I ask you to provide them in the comments section. But I will say this:

Carl isn't a "go-to" scorer at the end of games (though I think this is an overrated quality). But I have seen him practically will the Rockets towards victory. He is a great player on the offensive glass, and he just doesn't seem to miss around the basket anymore. And, in a testament to practice which would impress even Yao, Landry has raised his sub-70% free throw shooting in college and his rookie season to 88% this season. Most importantly, he has been able to drastically increase his usage rate without any decrease in efficiency (this is related to the free-throw shooting). He has developed some good moves in the post, as well as a nice little turnaround jumper. The pick-and-roll with Landry and Brooks/Lowry has become something of a go-to play for the Rockets, even late in the game, and Landry is honestly the person I most trust with the ball at this point (turnover rates be damned). He accomplishes these numbers without an all-star level point guard like Nash or a floor-spacing 2-guard like Roy.

And, if Amare and Aldridge qualify as stars this year, then we should consider Landry for the title, as well.

What's Wrong With Trevor? - A Rebuttal

Only_A_Lad — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:57:27 -0000

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I have to get to class soon, so I'm going to make this short.

Dave made a comparison between Ariza and a certain player earlier this morning, and I think it expresses a concern we've all felt: Trevor is trying to shoot the Rockets out of the game. In fact, Dwyer at BDL has explicitly said this. The argument seems to be a simple one: Ariza takes too many threes.

And yet we're faced with a dilemma: the Rockets, whom we all suspect to be geniuses or androids or something, are apparently encouraging Trevor to do these things. What's up wit dat?

By now, I'm sure you're all familiar with our new best friends at Hoopdata. Let's look at their stats for Ariza this year. What do we see?

First, his efficiency beyond the arc is the best it has ever been outside of the playoffs. It's not a particularly efficient shot for Trevor this season, but it's worth slightly more than shooting 50% on twos.

Second, his efficiency at the rim and around the basket has declined remarkably: an 8% decline at the rim for last year, and a 26% decrease at less than ten feet (though he doesn't take many shots from there).

Third, he has increased the number of long twos he shoots. That's not cool, and he probably needs to cut that out.

So what does that mean?

Well, if I were going to guess (and I will), it means that his three point shooting isn't the real issue so far. Trevor's decline in offensive efficiency has a lot to do with the fact that his shot around the basket isn't falling quite as often, and he seemingly can't get a call when he drives into the paint (Trevor's foul-drawing rate is down this year, as well). I would expect both of these things to improve as the season progresses.

As for the other comparisons to Rafer: as I stated in the comments section, Trevor is actually better at keeping control of the ball than Rafer was, and his contributions on the boards and on defense are better than Rafer's. And his usage rate is significantly larger than Rafer's, too. So the comparison between Ariza and the Dream Shake's menace seems to me to be only apt in describing the frustration we all feel when Ariza isn't scoring well. But I think there's a good chance that will change in the near future.

Hayes, Adelman, and Morey: Taking Stats Seriously

Only_A_Lad — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:14:11 -0000

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I'm going to leave the official recap to someone (Xiane?) who actually saw the second half of the game last night. Instead, I'd like to talk about a discussion that took place between myself and a few commenters over at Clips Nation. If you didn't see the game, the Rockets battled the Clippers closely for three quarters, occasionally pulling ahead but never able to totally break away, until finally the LA offense (and defense) collapsed late in the fourth to create a blowout.

So, anyways, the discussion... Basically, I responded to two things: (1) the statement (typical of most observers at this point) by Steve Perrin that Chris Kaman had a significant height advantage over Chuck Hayes, and so he should be able to dominate on offense, and (2) Steve's question about whether or not we should really believe that Daryl Morey has achieved what he has via stats, or if the Rockets' success happened as a result of the influence of traditional scouting, and so this could happen with any "traditional" team. I and the commenters went back and forth about this for a while, but I've had a few hours to let this stew in my head, and I think I can consolidate my argument better here (not that anyone really gives a shit). My point here is one that is fairly simple: we must take stats (and the statistical revolution) seriously, and I mean this in two ways.

On the first point, Chuck Hayes is a terrific post defender. I'm not going to pretend that this is something that is only noticed by stats gurus. The announcers in the Conference Semifinals noticed this last year, and I think there's a general recognition that Chuck is, at the very least, a good defender.

And yet we routinely hear sportswriters, commentators, announcers, opposing fans, and opposing players (including Chris Kaman last night) state that there is no way that some "only" 78" tall could guard "7-footer #822." And then we see these guys get shut down. Yes, there are exceptions to this, but Hayes has, for the most part this year, done a fantastic job against opposing bigs. But, even after this happens, we continue to hear the same rhetoric. But what is most galling to me is that many Rockets fans, including many who view Morey's work very favorably, often repeat these words.

(I should make an aside here: this is not to say that Hayes is somehow the perfect defender. Chuck's skills are largely limited to single-man defense, and his defense of the basket is limited to stripping the ball from opponents - something he's very good at - and taking charges. Yao can step into the lane and defend the paint against all opponents, but Chuck can't do this. Such is life.)

Now, here is what I mean when I say we should take stats seriously. In some sense, this attitude is created from a failure to really believe what the statistics say. Adjusted Plus-Minus and a variety of other metrics have consistently shown Chuck to be one of the best defensive players in the league over his career, and they really do mean that. They do not mean this in some nuanced way. They simply mean that, when Chuck is on the court, the Rockets defend better than when he is sitting on the bench. And so, if one is tempted to say that Chuck will have trouble with Greg Oden, Andrew Bynum, or even guys like Gasol or Dirk (though let me say that everyone is going to have trouble with Dirk and Gasol, though I'd bet smaller, quicker players like Chuck might have an easier time against them, and I think this was born out in the playoffs last year), that temptation ultimately stems from a failure to take what the statistics say seriously.

I was most struck by this phenomenon in another area: Bill Simmons' tirade against Bill Belichick's decision to go for it on 4th-and-2 against the Colts a few weeks ago. Here we have a guy who has been something of an unofficial champion for Daryl Morey and his work not taking what the statistics say seriously. 4th-down conversion rates and expected payoff were some of the first work down in advanced football statistics (indeed, a discussion of it was included in my freshman microeconomics textbook), and so we have pretty good data about when coaches should go for it and when they should punt. Turns out, most coaches punt too much (though not Belichick, who was the first to adopt the stat gurus' advice on this). And, as it turns out, the numbers say that the Patriots did the right thing when they went for it:

Combine all these variables and what do we have? According to a formula called "Expected Win Probability When Going For It," Pattani believed that the Patriots had an 80.5 chance of winning the game. By punting, they had a 79.0 chance of winning. So my argument (made on Monday's podcast) that Bill Belichick should have "played the percentages and punted" was technically wrong. Barely. Belichick did play the percentages if you took those percentages at face value.

I am not disputing the numbers or the methods for achieving them. But by Monday night, based on various columns and message boards (as well as e-mails to my reader mailbox), you would have thought Belichick was a genius for blowing the game. He played the percentages! It wasn't as crazy as it looked! By this logic, Belichick also should have held a loaded pistol to his head on the sideline, spun the chamber and tried to shoot himself like Chris Walken in "The Deer Hunter." If those 1-in-6 odds came through and he succeeded, we could have said, "Hey, he played the percentages: 83.6666 percent of the time, you don't die in that situation! You can't blame him for what happened!"

Let's disregard Simmons' (embarrassingly bad) analogy, and instead focus on what's more interesting about this statement. "I am not disputing the numbers" he says. And yet they apparently do not matter in Simmons' final analysis. What matters is that Belichick "obviously" made the wrong move - "obviously" because it goes against Simmons' assumptions about the way the game is supposed to be played.

The "Belichick made the right move" argument was nearly as dense. In the biggest game of the regular season, when a football coach tries something that -- and this is coming from someone who watches 12 hours of football every Sunday dating back to elementary school -- I cannot remember another team doing on the road in the last three minutes of a close game, that's not "gutsy." It's not a "gamble." It's not "believing we can get that two yards." It's not "revolutionary." It's not "statistically smart." It's reckless. It's something that should happen only in video games, and only when you and your roommate are both high.

Simmons then launches into another tirade about APM statistics and ~~Tyrus Thomas~~ Tim Thomas (and I won't dispute Simmons' characterization of Thomas as a "one-man swine flu"). Suffice it say that the rest is a pained argument about context in statistics (yes, context is important, and that's why the best statistics attempt to figure out context. But I get the feeling that if the stats said "4th-and-2 after coming out of a timeout on the road and facing a bad defense after your team is melting down: go for it, baby!" Simmons would still say the same thing).

Here's the issue: the stats say that the payoff was higher by going for it, and they really do say that, and to disregard them because they say something that seems to deny the assumptions you've made about football since your childhood is to utilize statistics merely as a way to confirm your own biases. If we're going to accept some of what advanced stats have to say, we should be willing to accept what those same stats have to say about more general things. Yes, context matters, and if the statistical analysis keeps going against the grain and contradicting perceived experience, then something may be awry, but we should not jump to that conclusion just because the expected win tables contradict what your high school football coach or John Madden told you about winning games.

So what does that mean for Chuck and the Rockets? Simple: Chuck really is a good defender. That's really all there is to it. And when someone says that a 7-footer should be able to rise up and shoot over Chuck, then we should immediately know that he is either not looking at the advanced numbers or else is not taking what they say seriously, using them only when convenient.

The second point is a little tougher to address. Are stats really what has made this Rockets team relatively successful? Yes and no.

"No," in the sense that Daryl Morey is not simply a good statistician - he is pretty good at making deals, negotiating with free agents, etc. He can do all the other things (besides identifying talent) that one needs to do as a GM (in other words, actually acquiring talent after you've identified it).

On another level (and this was something - understandably - harped on by Clippers fans), Rick Adelman is a great coach, despite his - IMO undeserved - rep around here as "Coach Sleepy." He knows what he is doing, and the front office and players clearly trust him. But that's partly because (as he is so quick to point out), Morey gives him players he can trust. Were Adelman in Dunleavy's situation (admittedly a shithole of his own design), I seriously doubt the Clippers would be on the playoff track or anything. Coaches matter, but they don't matter nearly as much as the people actually, you know, playing the game. So, yes, Adelman is a part of the Rockets' success, but he does not explain most of it, let alone all of it.

The main sort of charge leveled at the "Statistical Revolution" by the commenters was that none of these moves are particularly revolutionary in and of themselves. I want to look at that more closely.

We're conditioned, perhaps by the experience of the Stats Revolution in baseball, that there's going to be a great deal of resistance among the NBA establishment towards this sort of thinking. I think, however, that the baseball experience was, for whatever reason, somewhat unique. Maybe it was unique because of the sort of people who own baseball clubs and comment on baseball teams, but in any case baseball statistics developed very differently from basketball stats. Sabermetrics started with Bill James doing all of his statistics by himself, placing an ad in the Sporting News, and sending out binders of his abstracts to the people who responded to the ad. There was resistance to baseball stats from the start, enough that teams didn't start using computers to look at basic statistics until the mid-80s, and that was only (if I remember right) the White Sox, who employed STATS Inc. Perhaps because baseball stat geeks went against the established "small ball" recipe for success, they encountered a lot of hostility, but it's not as if this view was unheard of. It was pioneered by Branch Rickey, utilized by Earl Weaver with great success, etc.

When you get down to it, though, a successful "Moneyball" team in 2002 wasn't that revolutionary. Anybody could see that OBP was important, right?

Well, yes. But you still had people (many people, including announcers, GMs, and managers) criticizing players for walking (shit, I heard it in 2005 about Morgan Ensberg). Getting on base was always seen as a good thing, but most people didn't understand how good it was.

So, let's look at basketball. Perhaps because the only thing "revolutionary" stated by stats-gurus in regards to strategy has been "Mid-range shots are for suckers," and that wasn't particularly revolutionary, basketball stats have faced less resistance. Or maybe it's because of the sort of people who own basketball teams compared to baseball teams (I think it's less of an "old boys" club). Really, all that people like Morey, Pelton, Pritchard, Presti, etc. have said is:

Efficiency is the right way to evaluate team defense and offense.
Defense matters a lot more than most people think it does

That's it, basically. What's so revolutionary about that?

For one, this is (as was the case with OBP in baseball) an issue of emphasis. Just as people did recognize that it was important to get on base in 1979, people recognized in basketball that these things were important, but they were not valued to the extent that the statistically-oriented GMs valued them. That's why the fact that Shane Battier gets starter minutes when most coaches and GMs would place him in a reserve role is so interesting. Same goes for Chuck Hayes. And it's easy to forget that the prevailing attitude about starting Aaron Brooks last season (or, for that matter, drafting him) was fairly negative. The Rockets were "packing it in."

Now, you can say that these decisions could be made by GMs other than Morey, Pritchard, etc. I'd agree with that - the Grizzlies gave Battier a relatively large deal and made him a starter, after all.

But - and here's the rub, as it were - would all of these decisions be made by typical front offices?

No, I think not, or else a lot more teams would look like the Rockets, Blazers, or even the Thunder. Instead, we see most teams employ several players who are basically useless, good benches are seen more as a nice addition than an absolute must, and guys like Ben Gordon get star-level contracts. Players like Battier and Hayes are the exception more than the rule.

Beyond this practical concern, there's a more basic one lurking around: How do we know stats work? And here, again, the proof is in repetition.

(Again, an aside: Much of this "debate" seems silly to me. The argument is not really over whether or not stats "work," it's if stats describe reality, and I think that they obviously do describe real things reasonably accurately. And we're going to be more accurate at this sort of work next year, as more data is incorporated into models and theories are revised. Still, the proof of whether or not stats describe reality is in whether or not they can accurately predict the future)

According to BPro, there are currently eight teams currently employing statistical consultants in their front offices in some capacity. Obviously, some are more involved with analysis than others: I'd say that the Rockets, Thunder, and Blazers form the "big three" of statistical work, but we know teams like the Nuggets, Celtics, Spurs, and Mavericks utilize statistical analysis. Of those eight teams, only one (OKC) didn't win at least 50 games.

Think about that for a minute. If, as I said, the burden of proof is in predictive capacity, and predictive capacity is inherently tied to wins, I think we have clear evidence that stats are describing reality.

"But," opponents will say, "maybe stats aren't what's really getting this done."

Now, let me say that I am in no way a strict empiricist. I'd categorize my philosophical outlook as "Kantian" - empirical science is a great boon to humanity, but we must be conscious of the limitations of our perception. Hume's internal critique of science is valid. We cannot see causal connections.

But, as Hume notes, just because we can't see the causal connection between eating and not starving to death, we'd be fools not to eat.

If we keep seeing these conjunctions - stats-oriented FO's win more games than "traditional" FO's, they make better decisions more often, etc. - then perhaps we should recognize that these GM's and front offices are doing something different that is important, and that "something" is advanced statistical analysis.

And that means we have to take these stats seriously (on both of the levels I described). We must understand that statistical analysis better predicts player contributions than "gut feeling," and so we need to take statistics seriously by recognizing their ability to accurately describe the world. And, as a result of that, we must not shy away from what those statistics say simply because they clash with the basketball discourse we bring to the table.

I suppose this is a long way of writing "Chuck Hayes really is good and Daryl Morey really does know what he's doing because the Rockets win games," but such is the nature of the debate, I suppose.

Rockets @ Clippers: 12/02/2009, 9:30 CST

Only_A_Lad — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:30:01 -0000

I'm not going to pretend that I know all that much about the Clippers this season. Here's what I do know:

The Clipshow features the 24th-best offense in the NBA this season and the 16th-best defense. As you all know, 1st-overall draft pick Blake Griffin was injured in training camp and won't return for a few more weeks. Chris Kaman started the season off with a bang, but has slowed down quite a bit from his initial pace. Eric Gordon continues to impress in his second year, while Al Thornton looks surprisingly good to start the season, though I wouldn't bet on that continuing. Despite an epic meltdown against the Grizzlies on Sunday, the Clippers have been fairly hot over the past few games.

On the Rockets' side, Carl Landry should be getting the first start of his career, though Scola will apparently be available, sporting stylish new goggles.

There. You're all caught up.

In honor of our shared history, here's Cuttino Mobley dunking on Lamar Odom.

Baseball in China

Only_A_Lad — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:33:54 -0000

Baseball in China

Only tangentially Astros-related, but this popped up on the Google Alerts feed for the Rockets, and I thought it was pretty interesting. It's an interview with the director of MLB's China operation, Leon Xie. He talks about the growth of baseball in China, as well as efforts to expand the number of people playing and watching the sport.

Someone else hates Rafer Alston as much as we do.

Only_A_Lad — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:38:28 -0000

Someone else hates Rafer Alston as much as we do.

Predictably, Nets fans don't love Rafer. But opposing defenses do, so he's got that going for him...

Tuesday Dream Links

Only_A_Lad — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:39:29 -0000

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Shane Battier, I think, is one of the weirdest players in the league. That's not a shocking statement or anything - it is, after all, why Michael Lewis wrote that article about him - but I think we tend to assume around here that everyone accepts Shane's greatness, on some level. That clearly isn't the case, sadly. And that shouldn't be surprising, because (as I said previously) he's a weird player. So I'd like to kick off this week with a focus on the No-Stats All Star and perhaps shed some light on his disguised value.

The two most frequent criticisms I hear about Battier's game are:

He contributes nothing on offense
He has lost his defensive touch, or his defensive value was always overstated.

The first criticism stems from a misunderstanding of the way players can contribute to the offense. Volume shooters (Kobe, McGrady, Arenas, Steve Francis, etc.) help their teams (even if, sometimes, they aren't particularly efficient) by using possessions and "creating" (as vague a term as that is, it describes something real, I think). Efficient shooters (Steve Kerr, Novak, Ariza prior to this season) help their teams by not taking bad shot and converting the opportunities they're given at a very high rate. Battier obviously falls into this second category, scoring primarily as a spot-up shooter around the arc.

To say that Battier doesn't have an offensive game is foolish. He's efficient, even if he doesn't take many shots, and that matters. Not everyone can use 25% of the team's possessions, and so having somebody who can simply convert open field goals is very valuable.

The second criticism is a little more difficult to address. Shane's reputation is based almost entirely around his defense, and he has acquired (rightly or wrongly) a reputation as a "shut-down defender."

Matt Moore (of Hardwood Paroxysm fame) interviewed Chris Ballard (author of "The Art of a Beautiful Game") a few days ago. Ballard's book (which Tom reviewed a few weeks ago) includes a chapter on Battier. Roughly the last half of Moore's interview focuses on Battier, statistics, and (most interestingly) the Rockets' Front Office.

Ballard describes the defensive strategy employed by the Rockets against Brandon Roy and the Blazers in the playoffs last year. Roy, unlike Kobe, does not really favor a particularly side of the basket when scoring, driving to either side with equal frequency and converting field goals at roughly the same rate. However, Roy was better able to "create" to his left ("create" here meaning "creating space"), but was more likely to pass out to a teammate when driving to his right.

The Rockets, somewhat counter-intuitively, decided to force Roy to his left. He'd be able to score at a better rate and would make some nice highlight-reel plays, but he wouldn't be as able to get his teammates involved.

Shane can be a shut-down defender. We've seen him wreck Kobe's game at times, slow Melo down, and force LeBron James into the worst game of his career. But Ballard shows us that the way the Rockets think about good defense and the way they use Battier is a lot more complex than simply shutting down the other team's main scorer.

Consider this an endorsement for adjusted plus-minus, which we know the Rockets look at. APM is subject to a lot of noise, and it isn't useful on any level smaller than an entire season, but it should (theoretically) capture the obscured parts of team defense. While boxscore-based metrics tend to show that Battier's a good wing player, I think APM is probably the best way to evaluate a player like Shane. APM metrics generally show Battier is a pretty good player, though it's clear that the Rockets think he's more than that. I'm inclined to trust the guys with all the proprietary stats.

Carl Landry will be getting the first start of his career Wednesday against the Clippers. Scola, however, will be absent for the first time in his career. What does this mean for the Rockets?

Scola hasn't quite lived up to the "20-10" predictions from this summer, but that's partly because of a decline in minutes and an overall decline in the Rockets' defense. Averaged out across 36 minutes, his stats look pretty good, and he's currently 2nd in the league in defensive rebounding percentage. That's probably where losing Luis hurts the most, as Landry is simply nowhere near as good on the defensive glass.

Still, Carl Landry is an offensive dynamo. He currently leads the Rockets in free throw attempts, free throw percentage, field goal percentage, points per minute, true shooting percentage, PER, and he doesn't turn the ball over often. Also, he's their leading shot-blocker, and those stats come on a usage rate not far behind Ariza and Brooks. So there's a good case to be made that Carl Landry is the Rockets' best offensive player right now, and that has become especially evident as the Rockets live and die by his contributions off the bench. Should he be starting regularly? Probably not, given Scola's rebounding abilities, but (as has been said numerous times around here) he's making a great case for Sixth-Man of the Year.

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As long as we're on the subject of Shane Battier, Henry Abbott posted a story about Shane's college days a while back, and I never really got around to posting it here. Turns out, Shane likes to win, but he's not a dick about it.

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Jason Friedman writes about the Rockets in close games, noting that winning close games is mostly a matter of luck, but the Rockets also need to improve their execution in the half-court offense.

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Basketball Prospectus has three articles that I thought were particularly interesting. First, Pelton wrote about the three centers (Gasol, Oden, and Thabeet) involved in the Grizzlies' upset of the Blazers last week. We knocked Oden a lot around here last season, but I'm starting to come around on him, and Pelton agrees.

Add it up and, on a per-minute basis, only six players rate as more effective. Oden's WARP ranking--13th--is much lower, which points to the biggest remaining weakness in his game: foul trouble. His rate of fouls per possession has come down slightly, but Oden is still averaging 4.1 fouls a game and 6.7 per 40 minutes, which inevitably limits his time on the court. Nate McMillan has played things very cautiously with Oden, subbing him out early in the first quarter and rarely playing him with two fouls in the second quarter. Oden has played more than 30 minutes just once all season, and that required overtime at Atlanta. If he is able to get closer to 30 minutes a night than his current 24.6, Oden's rise will be impossible to ignore.

Second, Pelton looks at the All-O, No-D Toronto Raptors. What they've "accomplished" in Toronto is pretty astounding, actually:

It's been reported, most prominently by ESPN.com's John Hollinger (Insider only), that Toronto has posted the league's best Offensive Rating thus far, as well as its worst Defensive Rating. On its own, that's a mean feat, one accomplished just twice since the NBA-ABA merger and not in the last 25 years. (The Raptors' semi-dubious predecessors: the 1978-79 Houston Rockets and 1981-82 Denver Nuggets.) But saying the team merely has the best offense and worst defense in the league actually understates the magnitude of the kind of extremism we're seeing in Toronto. It's very early, but so far the Raptors have both the best offense and the worst defense since the merger, as measured by percentage above or below league average.

Last, Pelton investigates rookie sensation Brandon Jennings' recent slump:

Since scoring 26 points in Milwaukee’s win over Memphis on Nov. 21, rookie Bucks phenom Brandon Jennings has been in something of a slump. Entering tonight’s game against Chicago, Jennings had shot 29.0 percent (20-of-69) in his last four games. Not coincidentally, the Bucks had lost each of those games. With Andrew Bogut anchoring the defense in his return to the lineup, Milwaukee got the win tonight, but Jennings (5-for-15) shot poorly again.

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Kelly Dwyer reviews the Rockets' win over the Durants:

23 offensive boards for Houston in the win, they seemed quicker - geez, how many times am I going to write this in 2009-10? - to every loose ball, and stayed patient and active on the offensive end while trying to anticipate angles and look for the best shot possible.

In spite of Trevor Ariza (notes) (7-23 shooting, missing eight of nine from behind the arc) continually trying to shoot his team out of the game, the Rockets made up for his miscues and Luis Scola's (notes) absence (Scola was whacked in the face by Etan Thomas (notes) just 22 seconds into the game) by finding Carl Landry (notes) and David Andersen (notes) inside.

This is something I've been hearing more of, and I'm not so sure about it. Is Ariza really killing the Rockets' offense? Looking at the stats would seem to confirm that. A while back I linked to a Basketball Reference article about the '94 Rockets, and part of the discussion was about high-usage, low-efficiency guys like Cassell and Maxwell and their contributions to a championship-level team. And, inasmuch as the Rockets have clearly directed Ariza to shoot more, and they're clearly note reigning him in now that his efficiency has dropped, I'm not so sure that his contributions are a net negative on offense.

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The Nets lost their 17th-straight game on Sunday, tying the '89 Heat and '99 Clippers for most consecutive losses to begin a season. Rough, right? Oh, and they're next game is against the Mavs, so they'll probably break that particular milestone, too. B-Ref looks at all three historically bad teams, what they did wrong, and what they did to rebound from such awful seasons.

Oh, and Shoals over at the Baseline looks at the Nets' subsequent firing of head coach Lawrence Frank.

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Dave Berri takes another look at Kevin Durant. While PER, WP48 (Berri's stat), and most observers thought Durant made a huge leap in his second year, APM showed him as still a net-negative to his team.

Of course, there was another potential explanation. Adjusted plus-minus is a very inconsistent measure. The year-to-year correlations are very low (there is a great deal of "noise" in the model). So it could be Durant’s adjusted plus-minus was due to his supposedly awful defensive skills. Or it could be noise in the model.

After 15 games this year it is beginning to look like "noise" was the culprit. According to BasketballValue.com, Durant’s adjusted plus-minus score is 16.09. This is the second highest mark on the team. So it looks like everyone is now in agreement. Durant is officially a "good" player (ain’t that a relief?).

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Lastly, in honor of the Rockets' win over OKC, here's a video of Rudy T beating up Scotty Brooks.

Spurs @ Rockets; 11/27/09, 7:30 CST

Only_A_Lad — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:57:02 -0000

I don't know if anyone is going to put up a preview before the game, so here's a mini-preview:

The Spurs are off to another slow start for the season, but are currently 7-6. Injuries to the big three probably have something to do with that. Manu might be out, but Parker should be in the game.

Like the Rockets, the Spurs are much better on offense than anyone expected, but they are also (like the Rockets) much, much worse than expected on defense. Expect Houston to try to push the tempo against the old guys.

Oddly enough (noted by Hardwood Paroxysm this morning), they're 0-4 on the road so far. Go figure.

Update from Tom: Recap coming tomorrow - got hung up tonight.

McGradyism: How I learned to stop worrying and love Edward Said

Only_A_Lad — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:20:59 -0000

More photos » by Gregory Smith - AP

Pretty much how I've felt throughout this whole ordeal.

Browse more photos »

(Note: I wrote this a few hours ago, and I'm not really sure I should post it. I'm afraid that it probably misstates what many people are really saying about this topic, but on the other hand it's something that I really do feel is going on, in a way)

Since virtually nothing else is being written about the Rockets today, I might as well go ahead and just concentrate on this crap (not that we haven't done this enough already) in lieu of a real links post.

T-Mac practiced with the team yesterday, and Rockets.com's Jason Friedman continues to provide one of the few non-bullshit voices out there:

"Obviously, being out for so long, it takes awhile to get in NBA playing shape and gain the rhythm and moving with consistency in this game. I could play right now but who knows where my rhythm would be? That takes time, I don’t care how great of a player you are. If you’ve been out for a long time, it takes time. You have to play in games to gain your rhythm."

Rick Adelman was busy dealing with weirder things (h/t Clutchfans), so Elston Turner ran practice:

"He’s a competitor," said Rockets’ Assistant Coach Elston Turner. "What athlete, what former All-Star, wouldn’t want to play? He’s gone through a major surgery and he is coming back and it’s a process to get him back on the court full time. But when you’re building a team, there’s chemistry that develops so when he does come back we would like him to be back - instead of in a week, out a week. He went though through the workout today, he started and he finished but it’s still a process and we have to bring him back slowly.

"I do know that our regular guys have been going at it since the end of September. So if you look at in terms of a timetable, this is basically Tracy’s training camp as far as catching up and being ready. It’s good to see him. Everybody would like him back, he’s an All-Star but we want him back like the All-Star Tracy McGrady."

Okay, so McGrady says he wants to play but understands why he'll probably have to wait, and the coaches say he'll probably have to wait but understand why he wants to play. Easy, right? Whew, I'm glad all that's over. Seriously, this whole saga has been so filled with stupid crap and interpre- oh wait, I forgot, nobody can take anything at face value, because we're all a bunch of 14-year-old girls.

Clutch, of ClutchFans fame, believes that the Rockets' disavowal of any acrimony between Adelman and McGrady is merely a lie, stating:

Source tells ClutchFans that Adelman has no interest in playing T-Mac. Zero. Says: "This isn't going to end well"

Of course, those same sources also have, in the course of a year, informed all of us that the Rockets were trading for Amar'e Stoudemire, or that Vince Carter and Baron Davis were on the table. This is no knock on Clutch, it's just that I've long felt that the "rumor mill" is exactly that: it's an industry. Someone makes an offhand comment, "sources" inform reporters of that comment (now stated as fact), and reporters craft articles treating their sources' comments as organizational objectives. It's the same thing Danny Ainge talked about recently:

"In the media, there are people that are more concerned with breaking news than writing truth and writing real history," Ainge said Wednesday on WEEI when he was asked about the trade rumor. "It’s a competition of who breaks the story first and I have a feeling that there are people with motives trying to get their player traded from another team. That’s how this story got out."

At the same time, all we've heard from Morey and Les Alexander has been that the Rockets' focus is getting McGrady healthy and ready to contribute, because an "all-star" caliber player is "obviously" going to help them on the court.

And yet I watch the Basketball Jones this morning, and what do I hear? Tas and Skeets talking about how the Rockets are worried about McGrady ruining the team "chemistry," and that the team's pronouncements on their reasons for wanting McGrady to sit out are "obviously" just words. Where do these ideas come from? The answer is simple: McGradyism.

"What's McGradyism?" you may ask. Put simply, McGradyism is the attempt to foist our own preconceived narratives and categories on reality (a related concept would be "Scrappyism"). These discourses are created from a position of power - that of the professional sports journalist or high-profile blogger - and inform and create the way sports fans view their favorite teams and players.

McGrady - because he is McGrady and the McGradyist understands who and what McGrady is - is evil, coniving, and lazy. He is the serpent in the garden by which we define and create the separate category of the "Yao" or "Battier" - the "team player" versus the "Me-Mac." This is the discourse of power utilized by the McGradyist. Meanwhile, an allied discourse - the McGrady versus the "team" - is created to further define McGrady as "chemistry-destroying." The "team" and "McGrady" have diametrically opposed desires and interests as a necessary part of their mutually antagonistic existence. This division is sharp, and McGrady cannot possibly cross over into the category of "team."

What a McGradyist does is look at the information provided - whether by another journalist or by direct observation - and reinterpret it in the context of these discourses. Any information that falls outside of the self-confirming nature of the discourse is disregarded. If McGrady and the team appear to be allied, then this is merely a mask for their "obvious" antagonistic relationship.

The problem with McGradyism is its essentialist nature. McGrady is - by nature - opposed to the team. The team - again, by nature - is opposed to McGrady. These are, in the McGradyist view, obvious, "common sense" divisions: just as McGrady is opposed to the team, so black is opposed to white, or a dog is opposed to a cat.

This means that even the most innocuous statements by McGrady will be reinterpreted in the context of the discourse as a team-opposed act, and vice-versa.

To counteract McGradyism, the fan must take a more historicist view of the information. Instead of buying into the discourse, stop reinterpreting what is said simply because the team "obviously" wants McGrady to stay away or because McGrady "obviously" hates the Rockets. Take texts at their word unless there is good reason to do otherwise, and avoid throwing them into the discourse.

A perfectly consistent history can be constructed without relying upon the discourse. McGrady was injured. He now feels like he can play, but the team disagrees. There is a great deal of tension between the two sides for a variety of reasons. The Rockets want McGrady back, but only if he is able to contribute at a level that will help the team win more games. If a trade is presented, the Rockets will consider it (that's pretty much what Morey said all summer), but nothing has been presented as of yet that would be better than simply letting McGrady's contract expire. There, clean, simple, and not full of needless crap about how both sides hate one another because of some essential nature.