Houston Rockets: A potential roadmap for the future

A different coach or a different style?

First off, I don’t think they should fire Mike D’Antoni. He’s proven that he can be a very good NBA head coach, especially offensively. That being said, I think we’re now at the stage where he does need to alter this offensive system a bit, which for the past couple of years has basically been James Harden isos and pick and rolls (and a heck of a lot of 3s).

While they shouldn’t scrap any aspect of this offense completely, they should look to add more wrinkles to it and get more creative with it. This is especially vital come playoff time where Harden’s scoring efficiency in isos particularly, drops off significantly. Their current system doesn’t involve too much ball movement or player movement off the ball so that’s something D’Antoni should look to incorporate a bit more.

It may be wise to have Harden work on his off-ball game in the summer and then that would allow Chris Paul to play more like a true point guard again, at times and have James playing more like a traditional 2-guard. This could work for a few reasons:

• More ball movement and player movement is better for chemistry and when everyone is touching the ball, everyone is more engaged on both ends (plus it’s a lot more fun to watch)
• I think it would open up things for Chris Paul to be more productive and assertive (while maybe playing fewer minutes)
• It would also lessen the workload on James Harden, potentially making him fresher for the playoffs.

We’ve seen D’Antoni revolutionize offensive basketball in the past so we know he is more than capable of adapting his system to best suit his team. The question then becomes… will he?