Update: I updated the stats in this entry to discard end of quarter events. It occurred to me that previously observed low 3-point shooting% was explainable by the frequently occurring “3-point heaves” at the end of quarters.
One of the points of emphasis for the Houston Rockets this season has been to increase the pace and get more of their offense early. The reasons are straightforward. Without the dominant low post option in Yao Ming that they’ve relied on for these many years, and with the availability of their premier playmaker, Tracy McGrady, in question, the Rockets could no longer depend on their half-court offense for 48 minutes. Last season, the Houston Rockets ranked 19th in pace and 30th (that would be dead last) in fast break points. That needed to change, and it has. They are currently ranked 9th in pace and as recently as a week ago were 5th in fast break points.
But let’s dig a little deeper. We know that the gold standard for up-tempo play in the modern era was Mike D’Antoni’s “7 seconds or less” offense under Steve Nash. With that in mind, and using the fantastic play-by-play spreadsheets provided by Ryan Parker over at Basketball Geek, I’ve gone through all the Rockets possessions this season and recorded what they’ve done within the first 7 seconds. I didn’t filter out half-court possessions after a timeout, but for the most part this should give a good representation of what the Rockets have done in their “early offense”. Here are the results for the 9 primary rotation players:
MIN PTS FGM FGA 3PM 3PA fouled FTM FTA AST 3PAST TOV OFOUL Aaron Brooks 696 73 21 42 8 17 17 23 27 22 1 16 3 Trevor Ariza 822 96 37 55 8 19 13 14 17 13 3 8 1 Shane Battier 681 10 2 6 1 4 7 5 6 6 3 3 0 Luis Scola 605 45 17 20 0 0 18 11 12 6 2 6 0 Chuck Hayes 504 3 1 2 0 0 3 1 2 8 1 1 1 Kyle Lowry 502 41 8 17 0 0 24 25 29 31 7 9 2 Carl Landry 547 41 16 19 0 0 12 9 10 0 0 6 3 Chase Budinger 375 42 19 36 3 9 5 1 6 4 0 2 0 David Andersen 287 7 2 3 0 0 9 3 4 1 0 1 1 total 1013 363 124 202 20 49 111 95 118 91 17 54 12
The MIN column is just the total number of minutes each of the players have played this season. All the other columns show what each player has done in the first 7 seconds of Rockets possessions. The fouled column refers to fouls the player has drawn, 3PAST is number of assists for 3-pointers, and OFOUL is number of offensive fouls the player has committed. The final row shows totals for the entire team.
Next, let’s look at that same data per 48 minutes. For this table, I’ve added a TS% column to the end indicating each player’s scoring efficiency:
MIN PTS FGM FGA 3PM 3PA fouled FTM FTA AST 3PAST TOV OFOUL TS% Aaron Brooks 696 5.0 1.4 2.9 0.6 1.2 1.2 1.6 1.9 1.5 0.1 1.1 0.2 67.7% Trevor Ariza 822 5.6 2.2 3.2 0.5 1.1 0.8 0.8 1.0 0.8 0.2 0.5 0.1 76.8% Shane Battier 681 0.7 0.1 0.4 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.2 0.0 57.9% Luis Scola 605 3.6 1.3 1.6 0.0 0.0 1.4 0.9 1.0 0.5 0.2 0.5 0.0 89.0% Chuck Hayes 504 0.3 0.1 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.3 0.1 0.2 0.8 0.1 0.1 0.1 52.1% Kyle Lowry 502 3.9 0.8 1.6 0.0 0.0 2.3 2.4 2.8 3.0 0.7 0.9 0.2 68.9% Carl Landry 547 3.6 1.4 1.7 0.0 0.0 1.1 0.8 0.9 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.3 87.6% Chase Budinger 375 5.4 2.4 4.6 0.4 1.2 0.6 0.1 0.8 0.5 0.0 0.3 0.0 54.3% David Andersen 287 1.2 0.3 0.5 0.0 0.0 1.5 0.5 0.7 0.2 0.0 0.2 0.2 73.5% total 1013 17.2 5.9 9.6 0.9 2.3 5.3 4.5 5.6 4.3 0.8 2.6 0.6 71.5%
A few comments:
- This confirms how good Lowry is on the break — 31 “early” assists, including 7 to 3-pointers, lead the team by far. He also draws a ton of fouls.
- Brooks, in contrast, shows great promise as a scorer in transition, but his playmaking for others leaves a lot to be desired. He’s very turnover-prone and has a terrible assist to turnover ratio for a PG.
- Ariza’s got nearly twice as many field goals in early offense as anyone else. He leads the team in points scored per minute in the first 7 seconds.
- How about Chase Budinger? He’s definitely been active running out in transition. He’s struggled efficiency-wise pretty much across the board, but you have to like the energy he’s brought.
- Earlier in the year, there was an article in the Houston Chronicle on how Carl Landry needed to improve in running the floor in the transition. Looks like he’s got it. He and Luis have both been great on the break.
- Shane and Chuck … not a big part of the early offense attack.
- Only 20 for 60 on early offense 3-pointers. That’s 33%, lower than I would have expected. Keep in mind that the percentages shown here could be tainted to a degree by quarter ending possessions where a contested shot against a set defense is required. Update: After filtering out end of quarter possessions, the team is now 20-49 on 3s for a healthy 41%.
So that’s interesting, but how does this compare to what the Houston Rockets did a year ago? Basketball Geek has provided 72 of the 82 Rockets games for the 08/09 season in its data section. Following the same procedure as above, here are the stats for last year:
MIN PTS FGM FGA 3PM 3PA fouled FTM FTA AST 3PAST TOV OFOUL Yao Ming 2217 49 11 16 0 0 31 27 37 0 0 16 3 Ron Artest 2090 99 33 59 5 18 29 28 38 22 2 14 1 Luis Scola 2182 115 40 59 0 0 43 35 51 5 1 8 3 Aaron Brooks 1696 132 39 71 7 13 41 47 51 26 4 18 4 Carl Landry 1328 46 15 19 0 0 23 16 20 0 0 13 4 Von Wafer 1154 123 45 79 8 17 27 25 32 11 0 8 3 Rafer Alston 1308 61 20 48 1 7 20 20 24 35 7 17 4 Tracy McGrady 958 39 13 26 5 14 12 8 9 5 0 4 0 Shane Battier 1816 30 6 10 3 6 17 15 15 2 0 8 2 Kyle Lowry 538 52 17 28 0 0 27 18 26 25 7 11 2 Brent Barry 706 27 9 22 2 10 8 7 7 6 1 4 0 Luther Head 243 9 3 6 0 1 2 3 3 2 0 3 0 Chuck Hayes 705 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 3 0 4 0 total 3456 787 253 448 31 86 281 250 315 142 22 129 26
And, again, here are the stats per 48 minutes:
MIN PTS FGM FGA 3PM 3PA fouled FTM FTA AST 3PAST TOV OFOUL TS% Yao Ming 2217 1.1 0.2 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.7 0.6 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.3 0.1 75.9% Ron Artest 2090 2.3 0.8 1.4 0.1 0.4 0.7 0.6 0.9 0.5 0.0 0.3 0.0 65.4% Luis Scola 2182 2.5 0.9 1.3 0.0 0.0 0.9 0.8 1.1 0.1 0.0 0.2 0.1 70.6% Aaron Brooks 1696 3.7 1.1 2.0 0.2 0.4 1.2 1.3 1.4 0.7 0.1 0.5 0.1 70.6% Carl Landry 1328 1.7 0.5 0.7 0.0 0.0 0.8 0.6 0.7 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.1 82.7% Von Wafer 1154 5.1 1.9 3.3 0.3 0.7 1.1 1.0 1.3 0.5 0.0 0.3 0.1 66.1% Rafer Alston 1308 2.2 0.7 1.8 0.0 0.3 0.7 0.7 0.9 1.3 0.3 0.6 0.1 52.1% Tracy McGrady 958 2.0 0.7 1.3 0.3 0.7 0.6 0.4 0.5 0.3 0.0 0.2 0.0 65.1% Shane Battier 1816 0.8 0.2 0.3 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.2 0.1 90.4% Kyle Lowry 538 4.6 1.5 2.5 0.0 0.0 2.4 1.6 2.3 2.2 0.6 1.0 0.2 65.9% Brent Barry 706 1.8 0.6 1.5 0.1 0.7 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.3 0.0 53.8% Luther Head 243 1.8 0.6 1.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.0 0.6 0.0 61.5% Chuck Hayes 705 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.0 0.3 0.0 0.0% total 3456 10.9 3.5 6.2 0.4 1.2 3.9 3.5 4.4 2.0 0.3 1.8 0.4 67.1%
For last season, we see that Von Wafer and Kyle Lowry were by far the most active scoring in transition. Tracy McGrady, as we know all too well, wasn’t particularly interested in taking part in an early offense attack and over half his shots in this situation were 3-pointers (you know, the ‘trot down the floor and shoot a 3 on the break’ variety). We also can observe the marked improvement from Carl Landry in running the floor hard in transition this year compared to last, scoring over twice as many points per minute. Its also interesting to compare Ron Artest last year to Trevor Ariza this year. Both like to gamble on defense and are active as a disruptive force on that end. But its evident here how much more effective Ariza has been at turning those forced turnovers into offense.
MIN PTS FGM FGA 3PM 3PA fouled FTM FTA AST 3PAST TOV OFOUL TS% Ron Artest 2090 2.3 0.8 1.4 0.1 0.4 0.7 0.6 0.9 0.5 0.0 0.3 0.0 65.4% Trevor Ariza 822 5.6 2.2 3.2 0.5 1.1 0.8 0.8 1.0 0.8 0.2 0.5 0.1 76.8%
And finally, let’s take a closer look at the team totals for last year and this year:
MIN PTS FGM FGA 3PM 3PA fouled FTM FTA AST 3PAST TOV OFOUL TS% total (08-09) 3456 10.9 3.5 6.2 0.4 1.2 3.9 3.5 4.4 2.0 0.3 1.8 0.4 67.1% total (09-10) 1013 17.2 5.9 9.6 0.9 2.3 5.3 4.5 5.6 4.3 0.8 2.6 0.6 71.5%
The results speak for themselves. Not only are the Houston Rockets getting significantly more in transition this year, the efficiency has also gone up. If people are wondering how the Rockets have managed to be in the top half in offensive efficiency facing the hardest schedule thus far, this should tell part of the story. The other part, offensive rebounding, is a topic for another post.
Trevor Ariza 777 2.3 3.8 0.5 1.3 0.8 0.9 1.1 0.8 0.2 0.6 0.1
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