When the Rockets aren’t the Rockets

I feel like I’ve been writing about Houston-related things a lot. I apologize. I want to write about other stuff, but Moreyball is like analytics catnip. (Maybe we should just all be grateful that I’m not writing about politics.)

More than any other team in the league, the Rockets have attempted to eliminate “bad” shots from their arsenal. They’ve famously eschewed the midrange for several years, and have amped up their three-point shooting to historic levels this season. I decided to look at how often the Rockets took some of the worst shots in the league: tightly contested, off-the-dribble, midrange jumpers. Unsurprisingly, they take fewer of these shots than any other team in the NBA; surprisingly, the Sixers and Hawks come quite close to their mark.

Live by the three

“I don’t want us to be coming down, forcing up a bunch of threes. I really want us to attack the basket.” — Byron Scott, 2014

Odds are good you’ve heard by now about Lakers coach Byron Scott’s philosophy regarding three-pointers. Namely, he doesn’t like them.

Smarter writers than I have already taken Scott to task for the serious factual errors underlying this strategy:

I asked Lakers coach Byron Scott about his philosophy on 3-pointers. "I don't believe it wins championships. (It) gets you to the playoffs."

— Baxter Holmes (@BaxterHolmes) October 17, 2014

Seven of the past eight NBA champions led all playoff teams in 3-point attempts and makes.

— Baxter Holmes (@BaxterHolmes) October 17, 2014

But I don’t want to bash Scott. He knows more about the game than I do, certainly, and probably more than many of the Twitterati mercilessly mocking his coaching decisions. Byron Scott is zagging where the rest of the league is zigging, and I want to know: Is there anything to this? Are teams becoming too reliant on treys?