Hey everybody I figured that this week I would switch things up by writing about my favorite sport from a gaming perspective. You see basketball is in the midst of a statistical revolution that is changing the way the NBA functions at every level. Increased statistical analysis is impacting the way teams are built, the way teams play offense and defense, and even how many minutes players play. The increased availability of information and the empowerment of a number of open-minded general managers have given rise to a situation that video game players will immediately recognize: min-maxing. With the rise of a new basketball forum thread on GB and a rise in the popularity of the NBA overall I was inspired to write about one of my favorite NBA teams and the most notorious NBA min-maxers: the Houston Rockets.

The Houston Rockets are one of the most controversial teams in the NBA because of their flagrant use of min-maxing and the playstyle that they have developed as a result. You see the Rockets treat the area between the three point line and the rim as a no-shoot zone. The GM of the Rockets, Daryl Morey, is one of the league’s most analytically savvy GMs and he has been disparaging the value of the long two point shot for years. It turns out that mathematically the slightly higher rate of success on long two-pointers as opposed to three-pointers does not make up for the additional point that three-pointers give you. So the Rockets hunt layups and three-pointers at the expense of the entirety of the midrange. The Rockets player with the highest percentage of his shots in the midrange is James Harden (one of the NBA MVP front-runners) and only 20.3% of his shots come from the area between 10ft away from the basket and the three point line.

The Rockets abstinence of the midrange makes sense when you compare the value of a long two to a three-pointer, but their pursuit of layups also bears a bit of explaining. The layup is the highest percentage defended shot in the NBA, which makes sense since it is the closest shot and most of the tall dudes in the NBA can dunk. However, players are also more likely to get fouled when they are driving to the basket for a layup than when they pull up for a jump shot and fouls get you the best shot in the NBA: the free throw. Remember how I said layups were the highest percentage defended shot in the NBA? Well free throws aren’t defended and as such they are pretty easy to hit! The Rockets shoot the 6^th most free-throws in the league and James Harden leads the league in free-throws with 516. The next highest player is LeBron James with 376 free-throws and LeBron has played in two more games. The Rockets turn a lot of games into layup and free-throw contests and they tend to win those.

That brings me to the part where the Rockets are controversial. The min/maxed playstyle I’ve described has lead to an efficient offense despite playing without their starting center and power forward for much of the year; however, a bunch of people hate watching the Rockets. Some are old basketball fogeys that hate the idea of a team that shoots 40% of its shots from three-point range. Some are people who hate watching free-throws (I find them to be nice little breaks to check my email). Some are people who just dislike Daryl Morey’s statistical bent and his blatant min/maxing. The Rockets basically play the same pick and roll offense that most of the league does except they keep running it until they get an open three, a layup, a foul, or the shot clock forces them to shoot. They don’t do anything that different, they just take what other teams do and turn it to the extreme.

The Rockets basically have brought cheese tactics to the NBA and they aren’t making friends by doing so. They are the guy who picks Ryu and throws fireballs at full screen until you jump in, and then dragon punches you. They are the lady who dumps a bunch of points into poison and status effects and just makes life miserable for you until you die. They are the guy in Halo who has a shotgun and a sniper rifle. What the Rockets are doing isn’t against the actual rules, but it certainly feels like it to some basketball mainstays. So if you like brilliant players running a system grounded in min/maxing and cheese tactics then you should check out the Houston Rockets.

(I found the stats I used on basketball-reference.com and if you want a closer look at the Rockets with more depth take a look at this awesome article by Kirk Goldsberry)

P.S. I have no idea what kind of gaming + basketball writing people would like to see here, but this is just my first stab at it. If you want more research and stats then I could try to go that route. If you want a more "basketball as a series of mechanics and systems" look I can go that route. This is my first crack at writing anything about actual professional sports (other than my 100% accurate and objective reviews of football and basketball).