[Rockets.com] Higher Learning (Great Read!)

durvasa · Oct 29, 2008

The Rockets hired Jason Friedman over the summer to be in charge of Rockets.com content, and it might have been the most underrated acquisition of the offseason. This is a great read for any Rockets fan interested in how the front office evaluate the players on the floor. It's a conversation with Rockets VP of Basketball Operations, Sam Hinkie. Required reading for all Rockets fans!

http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/Higher_Learning-287072-34.html

Here's a sampling of some of the good parts:

HOUSTON - “I’m probably pretty boring to watch a game with because I’m all about expected values. I don’t even care if it goes in or not, I’m all about it, ‘Should it go in?’ I can live with randomness. I mean, if it’s a close game in the end, yeah, I’m just like anyone else. But I just want us to play the odds all the time.”

- Sam Hinkie, Houston Rockets Vice President of Basketball Operations

I love that quote. The second I heard it, I knew there was no other way to begin this story. As far as thesis statements go, it’s nearly flawless; primarily because it took Hinkie a mere sixty-six words to unveil a point which will probably take me 3,000 (or more) to unravel. But while his statement does provide a perfect glimpse into the essence of what makes the Rockets’ front office unique, it’s also wrong on one account: If you’re a hardcore basketball fan, “boring” is the last word you’d ever use to describe the experience of watching a game with Sam Hinkie - unless you’re referring to the dry, plain burger he ate just before tip-off.
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As with any conversation involving the Rockets these days, it didn’t take long for the name Ron Artest to surface. Specifically, I wanted to know how he compares to the Rockets’ other defensive ace, Shane Battier.

“I think Shane’s one of the better defenders in the league and one of the very best team defenders, without question. But I also think Shane and Ron are very different and they actually provide us with more breadth in exactly who we can guard. One of Shane’s big benefits is he can guard twos, he can guard threes and at times he can guard ones. He can even slide over in a pinch and guard fours. His strengths are focused on his overall basketball IQ, staying in front of drivers without fouling, contesting jump shots without fouling, fighting over screens and really, really being smart about the other team’s gameplan and using that to his advantage. That’s what really makes him special.

“Ron is special, too, and different. Ron’s defensive capabilities, to me, are much more about creating havoc, being physical, keeping people out of the post, using his length to really disrupt, deflecting passes, stripping guys with that this great left hand that he’s got and being so big and strong while still being able to move his feet so well. Could each of them guard the same guy? For sure, but they would each do it differently. And while Shane might be better at the margins at chasing a guy off pin-down screens, Ron, I think, will be better at the margin on chasing a guy on flex screens coming across the lane.

So, say, a bigger, heavier, stronger, more physical three, I think Ron can do things against that type of player that Shane hasn’t been as strong at. And I think a lighter guy who is consistently running a pin-down offense and coming off of screens for jump shots, I think Shane has already proven to be very, very good at guarding that type of player.

“So having the two of those guys in combination, I think really makes us interesting in that, if they’re both healthy – and we hope they both will be – there won’t be many nights when we say, ‘Oh no, this guy on the wing – we don’t have a good answer for him.’”
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This was perfect; exactly the sort of education I was hoping to receive. Eager to dive further into the curriculum, I quiz Hinkie about the makeup of this year’s Rockets team.

“It’s ironic to say since we’re not a team which has really gone anywhere in the playoffs – Ron and Brent are the ones who have been past the first round – but we’ve got a bunch of winners; a lot of players who have won at various levels.

“If you look at our roster, we have a bunch of guys who have a lot of winning characteristics and we have a bunch of guys who have won a lot. Those aren’t always correlated. Like a lot of teams, we believe in guys who have winning characteristics; guys who care about winning, are competitive and want to play, practice and get better – guys who don’t want to take plays off and do want to consistently help their teammates by doing the little things that every coach in basketball wants their team to do like sliding over and taking a charge, making the extra pass, getting out and running in transition even if you’re not the one who gets to score, making the right defensive rotation, and just sort of consistently following our gameplan.

“Those things are all important to us and the problem is they’re not often well-measured. But I will say, in aggregate, they’re all measured and they’re all measured by watching how much they win. How much they win titles, games, quarters, matchups. While we’re working hard to measure many of those little things that coaches have forever wanted to have on their teams, you can always measure them in aggregate. So by measuring them in aggregate, with enough patterns and over enough time, you can grow confident that the winning of a player like Shane Battier - who won a national championship in college and state championships in high school - or the winning of a player like Luis Scola - who won at many levels of international basketball - will continue. The same holds true for many of the players on our roster.

“Now if that was your sole focus when acquiring talent, you could really make big mistakes. That said, if that winning background exists in combination with some of the other things you’re looking for in a player, I think that’s a really powerful marker, and it’s something we’ve used in the past.”
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On a roll now, that last point launched Hinkie into a fascinating impromptu treatise on the evolution of the NBA game.

“The advent of the restricted area, in combination with the perimeter touch rules, has changed the game toward quick guys in a way that the league doesn’t really know what to do with. Now what you see are slashers and a lot of players who consistently attack the rim. A lot of teams are trying to figure out how to combat that, so shot-blocking, length and athleticism are at an even bigger premium that they ever were before, because they’re in the same short supply. So if you’re a legendary shot blocker that can stand on the weakside and when a guy drives you can contort your body to try to block his shot without fouling him, well that makes you really valuable.

“But another way to attack that is with quickness. If you can’t find players who can play—and play well—above the rim, then you’re forced to find another way to compete. Chuck Hayes, to me, falls into that category as a 6’ 5’’ big who doesn’t block many shots or play above the rim, but uses his lateral quickness in a way to be a tremendous help defender. He’s already an excellent individual one-on-one defender, but he’s also proven to be a tremendous help defender for his teammates in that, when you get beat on pick-and-rolls – and everyone does – and when you get beat off the dribble by these great players in our game with tremendous speed – and everyone does – to have a guy who can physically get there to defend or take a charge is huge. For weakside bigs, it often becomes a race vs. the ball handler to see who can get to the other side of the restricted area first. These dynamics have created a niche that allows a player that’s less than prototypical to have a big role on a team like ours.”
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[Rockets.com] Higher Learning (Great Read!)

durvasa JBB Rockets Fan

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[Rockets.com] Higher Learning (Great Read!)

durvasa JBB Rockets Fan

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