Midseason Report Cards for Every Houston Rockets Player
The Houston Rockets have reached the season's halfway point. Boasting a 28-13 record, they're on pace to surpass last year’s 54 wins."
The Rockets have had an unusual year in the sense that their roster has been in flux. Because of this, players who have been there for only a portion of the season will be grouped together into single grades.
Grading is based primarily on performance, though expectations were also considered. The players are listed here by grade, lowest to highest.
Incomplete
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Several Rockets have not logged sufficient playing time to warrant a grade, so they received an incomplete. This shouldn’t be viewed as a reflection of how they played in their extremely limited time. But with 200 or fewer minutes, there just wasn’t enough to offer a fair evaluation.
Clint Capela played just 12 minutes for the Rockets and has spent the majority of the season with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, the Rockets’ D-League affiliate. He’s averaging 13.5 points and 7.9 rebounds there, per Basketball-Reference.com.
Nick Johnson is there with Capela, notching 23.1 points and 5.6 assists per game.
Troy Daniels logged 108 minutes before being traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves in a three-team exchange that brought in Alexey Shved and Corey Brewer on Dec. 19.
Shved has only been on the court for 43 minutes since his acquisition, so he makes this list as well.
Francisco Garcia had 200 before he was waived.
Finally, Terrence Jones is still with the team and played well (14.0 points, 7.5 rebounds) in the Rockets’ first four games, but he has been injured since then with a peroneal nerve contusion.
Withdrawn Passing: Tarik Black and Isaiah Canaan
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Tarik Black was averaging 4.2 points and 5.1 rebounds as an undrafted rookie but was waived to make room for Josh Smith when he was picked up after clearing waivers on Dec. 24.
That should not reflect on Black, though, who filled in admirably as the starting center for the Rockets while Dwight Howard was injured.
Black was picked up by the Los Angeles Lakers, where he is averaging 8.0 points and 5.7 rebounds a game.
Isaiah Canaan was assigned to the Vipers on Jan. 19 once Shved, who had an ankle injury when acquired, was cleared to play. Canaan played well enough, averaging 15.6 points per 36 minutes. His stint with the Rockets included a career-high 24 points on Nov. 26.
He hasn’t played any games for the Vipers yet.
Transferred in Passing: Corey Brewer and Josh Smith
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Corey Brewer has been getting As on all of his papers since he became a Rocket but hasn’t been here long enough to get a grade.
He’s averaging 10.8 points with a 50.0 percent effective field-goal percentage.
Josh Smith received a B on his first pop quiz, but then he flunked a few because he hadn’t gotten the right textbooks so to speak. With no practices under his belt and learning a new system, it was too much, so the Rockets moved him to the bench.
The pair has been a huge boost to the second unit. When the pair is on the court together, they are a plus-8.0 per 48 minutes, according to NBA.com player tracking info. That dynamic has been a huge lift to the Rockets bench, which was much in need of one.
While Brewer and Smith haven’t been around long enough to warrant letter grades, they are fitting in and passing.
Joey Dorsey: D
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Joey Dorsey is not providing much in the way of scoring, notching just 5.9 points per 36 minutes. He grabs a solid 11.6 boards, though, and his defensive rebound percentage is 22.4, which is second on the Rockets after only Dwight Howard.
He was brought on board to be a defensive specialist, and according to ESPN.com, his .91 defensive real plus-minus suggests he’s been solid in that role. He’s a stout guy who can muscle up inside when the Rockets need someone to do it. Sometimes, the sheer physicality of his presence means more than his numbers.
However, he wasn’t inked to a two-year deal to play spot minutes and perform mop-up duties. There are reasons why Black started over him when Howard was out. Dorsey's not performing very well, and he’s not meeting even low expectations.
Jason Terry: C
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Jason Terry has experienced a bit of a renaissance in Houston. He’s sixth in minutes played for the Rockets this year, which is a bit of a surprise all on its own, considering the 37-year old is in his 16th season. He’s already exceeded last season’s total of 570.
His player efficiency rating of 11.5 is up from 7.4 last season. And his three-point shooting, at 38.7 percent, is his highest since 2006-07.
While his numbers are better, they aren’t great. He’s only averaging 7.7 points and 2.1 assists per game. Still, he gets a passing grade because of his valuable veteran presence.
In fact, his teammates jokingly refer to him as “Coach,” and according Jenny Dial Creech of the Houston Chronicle, Terry likes that:
"I love it because it’s on the job training for me, being in tune to the game the whole time,” Terry said. “I want to coach when I’m done, so that’s just getting lessons on the fly. The other thing is supporting your teammates. It’s hard enough for those guys to be out there competing against the other team but for you to compete and know you have five other guys cheering for you, it just gives you that ultra added boost.
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Kostas Papanikolaou: C+
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Kostas Papanikolaou is a great Houston representative of this year’s rookie class. Touted as being the best draft class in years, it’s the unheralded guys who are making the most noise.
Papanikolaou is eighth among rookies in win shares. He was arguably the Rockets’ most reliable performer off the bench prior to the in-season overhaul. He averaged 25.5 minutes per game, scoring 6.6 points, grabbing 4.3 boards and distributing 3.0 assists per game until the acquisition of Brewer.
However, with the additions, his time has been reduced to 13.9 minutes, and he’s getting just 2.6 points, 1.6 rebounds and 1.2 assists. That lowers his grade slightly. Still, he’s a promising player for the future with a diversity of talents.
Patrick Beverley: B-
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Patrick Beverley has been a mixed bag this season. He is most notable for his defense, as evidenced by his being named to the second-team All-Defensive Team last year. While his present defense has been solid, it hasn’t been quite on the same level.
His .46 DRPM is down slightly from last year’s 1.29, and the Rockets are actually giving up 4.2 more points per 100 possessions with Beverley on the court, though that’s arguably more correlation than causation. And players Beverley guards actually shoot slightly better when he guards them.
That may be a bit of a symptom of what I call Chihuahua defense. That’s when a player expends all kinds of energy on defense, but sometimes it’s just chaotic. Beverley’s effort is intense. But sometimes he overcommits, and that opens him up to getting crossed over or caught out of position. He’s still a great defender, but little flaws are getting exposed.
On the other hand, his offense has been better. He’s scoring a career-high 11.8 points per game, and his three-point shooting is also improved, up to 39.5 percent.
He’s exceeded expectations on offense more than he’s failed to meet them on defense, so he gets a B-.
Trevor Ariza: B
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Trevor Ariza started well, averaging 13.6 points, making 36.1 percent of his attempts from deep, through the end of December. But he’s fallen off since then, contributing just 12.1 points and making 31.2 percent of his treys. If his grade were just for his offense, it would have to be lower.
But Ariza has meant a lot more to this team than his shooting suggests. He’s the primary difference in the Rockets' having the second-best defensive rating in the league at 99.2—an improvement of 3.9 over last season’s 12th-ranked defense.
Ariza’s 3.17 DRPM is fourth among small forwards and 15th regardless of position. The Rockets’ defensive rating is a miserly 97.1 when he’s on the court and a far more generous 105.2 when he grabs a seat. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly the difference between the best defense in the league, the Golden State Warriors (105.1), and the 22nd-ranked Sacramento Kings (105.0).
Ariza gets an A for his defense, but his subpar shooting since December drags him down to a B.
Donatas Motiejunas: B+
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Probably the most pleasant surprise of Houston’s season is the development of Donatas Motiejunas’ post-up game.
His footwork is something he’s improved immensely, and he's finishing with a hook shot that is one of the best in the NBA. In fact, only Roy Hibbert has made more of those than Motiejunas’ 169. And he’s making them 59.5 percent of the time. Furthermore, while he’s still not a terror from deep, his three-point shooting has gone from 25.0 to 31.3.
His defense has been solid too. Opponents are shooting 4.9 percentage points below their season averages against him.
If it weren’t for Jimmy Butler running away with Most Improved Player, “D-Mo” would certainly be in the conversation. “A” is for “All-Star,” however, so I wasn’t able to bring myself to give him one, but I can still "be positive" with a B+.
Dwight Howard: A-
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Dwight Howard has had a typical Howardesque year, averaging 17.1 points and 11.0 rebounds. His defense isn’t quite up to its usual standard, but it’s still good. His DRPM is 37th, which is down from last year’s 4.91, which was sixth-best.
Some of that may have to do with his injury, as he seemed to have a little trouble getting things going again after he missed time with a strained knee. In the 10 games prior to his injury, the Rockets were giving up just 90.0 points per 100 possessions while he was on the court, per the media version of NBA.com. Since then, that’s gone up to 99.9, which is still very good.
Those kind of numbers are borderline All-Star, but they’re far from career highs.
But what Howard is doing—and it's something which can’t be measured—is he’s taken giant steps in leadership, going back to his work in the offseason. His leadership extends to things which he is actually criticized for too.
He’s deferring the scoring load and “alpha” role to James Harden. When he does it, it’s called soft, but when David Robinson and Dwyane Wade did it, it was considered leadership. He should get credit for this, not smeared.
He hasn’t let himself get goaded into senseless fights which would hurt his team in spite of the trash-talking administered by the NBA’s version of grumpy old men: Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett.
Set aside the bogus narratives, look at what Howard has done, and you see a man doing whatever it takes to help his team win, even if that means getting a lot more criticism and a whole lot less of the glory. For that, he gets an A-.
James Harden: A+
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Halfway through the season, James Harden leads the NBA with 8.4 win shares. He’s third among qualified players in PER (26.6). He leads in scoring, averaging 26.6 points with a 60.3 true shooting percentage.
He’s 11th in assists per game and sixth in steals, just for good measure. Players who have matched those box-score numbers and maintained a true shooting percentage over 60.0 include only Michael Jordan and Larry Bird.
Harden carried the team through a plethora of injuries to start the season and when they were changing personnel. He has played minutes as the Rockets’ point guard, shooting guard, small forward and power forward.
His DRPM is .06, which certainly establishes that he’s no longer a defensive liability. Opponents are shooting 2.3 percentage points below their averages when he’s guarding them.
He’s 11th in field goals made inside the restricted area (144) and sixth in three-point makes (105). On top of that, he’s first in free throws made (317).
Whether it’s offense or defense, scoring or passing, going inside, hitting from outside or getting to the stripe, he’s done everything. And he’s done it playing everywhere but center. He has a solid argument as the most complete player in the game and on a level that only two of the greatest players in history have matched.
And the kicker is, he’s done it with as unstable of a lineup as any in the league. He’s by far the biggest reason the Rockets are where they are at, and that’s why he should be the leading candidate for MVP.
So yeah, he gets an A+.
Stats for this article were obtained from Basketball-Reference.com, NBA.com/Stats and ESPN.com unless otherwise noted.
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