An ISO player may not help the team as much as some fans imagine (USA Today)

Capable players... According to whom... The rockets do have players who can put up some points on any giving night, but no one that does it consistently. And they all have the opportunity to do so because Harden doesn't hog the ball and only averages 17 shots a game.

Still amazing they are one of the best offensive teams in the league with only one player averaging over 15 points a game. Which means they do play good team ball..

 

Nice OP but what's with the title?

 

The elephant in the room obviously.

 

Stats are tools. They are not answers. If don't have the right tools, or know how to use them, you build bad conclusions.

 

In the NBA, the best tool to have is someone who can attack the basket and create havoc on the defense. Beside passing inside to the big man and someone like Kobe to post up and do their thing, i don't see how iso play is not as effective as those guys especially when you guys who are very good at it.

 

If coach always talks about non stickiness and moving the ball side to side, then i see no biggie with the title. When i think of iso, it's...one player has ball, dribble dribble, dribble, dribble some more, launch crazy shot without moving the ball side to side. That's terrible basketball no matter if it's 7, 13 or carlitos.

I enjoyed the article/thread and give it 8 stars. =)

 

I disagree with this to a certain extent. Seems like Harden attacks with finesse, and Lin attacks with force (because of his falls and hard fouls on Lin getting to the rim). Harden barely falls he just gets the taps. But if the author meant Harden goes repeatedly to the rim with force, that I can agree with.

 

What you're describing by "attack the basket" is penetration, not iso play. The two aren't necessarily the same.

You can have an iso that involves penetration. An iso that doesn't involve penetration. Or penetration that doesn't involve iso, as well as penetration that is an iso.

 

might be labelled - troll. LOL

 

lol i wonder why there are some folks here still wanting to go back to sampson harden iso ball days. I know harden is the best and can create. BUT he can be shut down if we play that card too much in the game and he gets TIRED.
like i said over and over again - harden iso ball is the RED button . the nuke. that we use only when trouble comes.

 

queen must've smashed his monitors throughout lin's december dominance. :grin:

 

Not LOF, but thank you for the suggestion...DONE!:grin:

 

I don't know why people are complaining about the title. From the numbers, ISO offense early in the season is less efficient and last month with up tempo team ball the offense efficiency improved. But this might also due to Lin shooting like crap early season. I think ISO or no ISO, rockets offense are fine because Harden is a beast offensively. The later part of stats does tell you when Harden is on the floor, defense is worse though. Houston can be unstoppable if Harden decides to play better defense.

 

I see your point but the 17 shots a game is misleading as so many of his possessions lead to free throws. Don't get me wrong, Harden is the most efficient amazing offensive player at 23 that we could have possibly dreamed of, but he averages much more of the offense than the 17 shots represent.

The reason other players don't score more, is because Harden takes up so much of the possessions, once again not saying that's a bad thing. Were Harden to sit out the game, it's not like we're going to score 75 a game. The possessions will be distributed to everyone, and everyone's stats will see an uptick. Most of those possessions will probably go to Lin, who distributes it more evenly than Harden and though it may take another 10-15 games to figure it out, the scoring will come, though not to the degree with Harden of course. It's not like Lin's not scoring cuz he can't it's cuz Harden is the better option. As a pg, though I could put up 20 a game, if I have a capable big, I'd feed him all day long and average my 10 a game and collect my victories. Which is what Lin has been doing. Harden's boss so he still should get a majority of the shots but a better distribution + defense... I'd take that and hope that it won't take too long for the team to figure out where the additional offense is going to come from.

 

Thread title is misleading and sucks.

 

Good point...

But the way I see it (and I could be wrong), yes if Harden wasn't fouled those would be more shot attempts but free throws are a different stat. Yes it means more possessions for Harden but doesn't necessarily mean he had the ball for long periods of time during those possessions (he gets fouled on fast breaks and catch and shoot shots a lot).

The Rockets average 25 free throws a game which is around the norm for a good team.

The Rockets attempt 83 shots a game which is around the average of the NBA. Harden takes 17 of those 83 shots which leaves 66 shot attempts for the rest of the team. In comparison Miami and OKC attempt 78 shots a game and look at the big time players they have on their teams...

So with so many shots available for the rest of the team its amazing that the Rockets have been one of the top scoring teams in the NBA from the jump of the season with no other player (besides Harden) scoring 15 points a game. It does mean that the Rockets play team ball, but if you look at the game logs it also means the Rockets have streaky shooters and inconsistent offensive players and you never know what you will get offensively from any of them except for Harden (but I do think a couple of the guys on this team can eventually be 15 to 20 point game players).

What Harden is doing with this team is a prime example of a super star player helping elevate the players around him.

This team as constructed right now kinda reminds me of the Iverson 76ers team... One consistent offensive threat and guys who get in where they fit it.

 

Nope. Why would I care what Lin did with the Knicks? It had no bearing on the Rockets whatsoever. The differrence between you and I is I'm not a blind nuthugger who worships some average NBA PG (and average is a stretch with how he's played so far). I only care about Lin's performance on the Rockets because I'm a Rockets fan. I don't care what he did on the Knicks. So far, he sucks as a Rocket. That's just the honest truth no matter how many excuses all the idiotic LOF fans want to make for him.

Nobody is taking to ball out of Harden's hands. The team is the highest scoring in the NBA and is exceeding expectations largely because of Harden. Lin needs to learn how to shoot and stop turning the all over or he'll keep hurting the team.