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The Houston Rockets deserve a lot of credit for discovering and implementing the most analytically correct strategies of professional basketball. Whether it's their throwing choice or offensive design, the team has aligned its field-based behaviors with the most effective actions of the game. However, while Houston continues to hunt down the dragon's effectiveness further on the track, it should be asked the following question: is this endless quest for efficiency a good thing for basketball?
From an analytical point of view, the trio made up of general manager Daryl Morey, head coach Mike D & Antoni and superstar James Harden merged to form the most serious offense. astute from the NBA. Their strategies have reformed conventional wisdom and revealed important truths about offensive effectiveness – some simple ideas punctuate the way forward to maximize the effective percentage on the field: mid-range shots are stupid and layups, dunks and the free throws are brilliant.
This trio also knows something else: the most effective game in basketball is not the corner 3 or even the slam dunk. He shoots a 3-point shot foul. And it is this knowledge that is at the heart of the embarrassing debacle of the "landing zone" that hijacked the NBA speech earlier this week.
Consider this: a 3 point open shot Stephen Curry is worth 1.6 points on average, per second of spectrum tracking. An undisputed Giannis Antetokounmpo slam dunk is reporting nearly 2.0 points. Harden's 3-point shooting average yields more than 2.6 points. The 3-point foul is not just Harden's most valuable game. Overall, this is the most effective scoring game of the contemporary NBA, to a considerable degree.
Even though Curry (332 grand open in the last three seasons) and Giannis (281 uncontested dunks) continue these signature games, they will not be able to catch Harden's margins. At the age of 29, Harden is already the all-time leader in three-point shooting. Among all the strange places that he has landed this week, the top of this ranking should not be surprising:
Fired 3-point shot (since 1999-00)
| Player | Mistakes |
|---|---|
| James Harden | 429 |
| Jamal Crawford | 249 |
| Lou Williams | 218 |
| JJ Redick | 155 |
| Stephen Curry | 147 |
| Source: Elias Sports Bureau | |
To put this in context: over the past three seasons, the Charlotte Hornets is second in the NBA with 185 shots from 3 points. Harden shot 288 by himself.
Now, you could say that since the guy gets so much of 3, it's natural to see him at the top of the foul rankings. Good point. But overall, the NBA shooters are winning with 1.66% of their 3-point attempts. For Harden, this number is 11.5%. This gap can not be explained solely by Harden's unprecedented prowess on an unattended 3 and how frightening he is. It's about antics, dude.
When we look at the biggest three-point shooter in the league in the last three seasons, we find that Harden's foul rate is more than double the rate of all other top league shooters.
The Rockets are the most innovative group of the league, but as their game book continues to try to hack offensive efficiency in new ways, it also demonstrates that the effectiveness and beauty are only not always harmonious. In many cases, they are wildly disagreeing.
And this lack of harmony is not everything in Houston. Harden's antics are a control engine light on the dashboard of the league office. It simply exploits market inefficiencies hidden in plain sight, and does it better than anyone else in the world. Is not it the wisdom of Moneyball?
Harden earned 120 faults in 3 points in 2016-17, which brought him to 69 in 2017-18 after the league focused on the pursuit technique to accentuate his official accent. Harden adjusted by mastering the 3-step back this season, resulting in 93 3-point fouls in stride.
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More than any other player in the league, Harden acts as if the referees were brands. And the basis of the rules – especially the highly punitive 3-point offense – inspires Harden to continue these calls because games are considered so valuable. If you do not think the result is fun, then your solution is consistent with the underlying legislation that has created these caricatural efficiency margins.
The NBA is a business. It is also a regulatory body. The end result is paramount, but the product is what drives the business in the first place. Looking at the first game of this long-awaited series between the Rockets and the Golden State Warriors, we have achieved an NBA dream: a field full of great superstars from big teams. The scene was perfectly prepared. But we also saw three people wearing a gray shirt and black pants suddenly become the stars of the show.
While the best (and most effective) teams in the league continue to struggle to find the best routes, referees will be more and more strategists. Unless the league proactively responds to its whistle rules and tactics, free throws will become the next version of corner 3, with the most intelligent teams in the league and players competing to find new ways to get them.
Harden is just the first to realize that the The sour science of flipping and chasing whistles is very effective. He is the only player who has been most useful in this century to have made more career free throws than field goals at the time of his awards ceremony. To date, he has managed 5,604 free throws in the regular season against 5,499 goals. In the playoffs, he scored 761 free throws against 745 field goals.
In theory, if an arbitrator does a perfect job, no one will notice that he was even present. They are neutral by design. They are spectators. Nobody goes to the scene to see the officials, but if the first game of this series is an indication, the referees and their powerful whistles are pushed to the front lines.
The responsibility lies with the league office, which has the opportunity to update its rules and modify its incentives to inspire the sport it wishes to see. And harden? He will land on his feet.
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