The Suns and Rockets: Cascading Styles in an Evolving League
Do you lean into or hedge against your offensive philosophy?
In all honesty, with the playoffs going on, I should probably be writing at least a little bit about them. But who cares? I’m going to write about basketball from 2006 to 2020 just because I am a nostalgic. This exercise started with a simple rewatch of the 2006 Suns-Mavs Western Conference Finals and then it grew into a deep-dive on how styles have evolved over the last 20 years or so. These are the teams I’ll be analyzing.
2005-06 Phoenix Suns
2007-08 Phoenix Suns
2008-09 Houston Rockets
2019-20 Houston Rockets
2005-06 Suns: Diamonds in the Rough
The Suns stylistically stick out in the depths of 2000s slow-paced basketball. They showed up a year after the Detroit Pistons won a championship in the slowest, most defense-oriented way.
Why choose the 2006 team over the better iteration a year before? Well, there are a couple of reasons. Amar’e Stoudemire is extremely talented, and the Suns nearly replicated their success without him. How? I love the D’Antoni Suns because they found ways to incorporate players who were a little bit unconventional.
Sometimes, when you go to your local park, you’ll find a guy who is a little stocky, maybe has a gut, his shot form is a little odd—but you’ll realize he can just flat out play the game. By the end of the day, you’re clamoring to be on his team—it just looks like too much fun. Well then, I’ll answer my own question. How? Boris Diaw.
He seemed like just too much fun to play with. He did all the dirty work and was extremely valuable on the offensive end in the ways that we value today. Diaw was methodical in the way he cut up defenses—it wasn’t grind-you-down, slow offense, even if it seemed like he was moving at a snail’s pace at times. It was just his own brand. On the season, he averaged 13 points, 6 assists, 7 rebounds, and a block per night and led the Suns in plus-minus. He was a superb, high IQ player who fit exactly what the Suns needed. He could adeptly play point guard, small forward, power forward, and center.
In his Game 1 Western Conference Finals explosion, Diaw had 34 points and the game-winner, but it seemed like the Suns (who had already found talent in their reserves) were going to find yet another player to fit the fun style of basketball they played. This is Diaw’s peak—Spurs fans might say differently—but he looks utterly unstoppable at moments during this game.
The Suns do some interesting things in this game—they push even in “half-court sets.” Even modern NBA teams don’t do this as often as they did. The second possession of the game involved Diaw racing down the court so he is picked up by the bigger Dampier. He then circles around and finds space in the midrange.
I can’t talk about the 2006 Suns without mentioning their MVP, of course. He’s their catalyst—their ring leader. I think that’s what people miss when they talk about the MVP awards he won. His counting stats weren’t extraordinary—he wasn’t winning any scoring titles, but there’s a responsibility we have to assess that only Nash could handle. He’s the engine of the team—they rely on him to find them in their constant motion—and he does that very consistently.
Nash was the MVP not because he averaged 18 points and 11 assists but because he constantly kept their offense in motion, in free flow. Without him, they slow down and lose games against teams that have personnel better equipped to play grind-it-out basketball.
So why did the Suns never win a championship? Nash talked about it himself—they had a tendency to play the other team’s game when they were placed in uncomfortable situations. He said in an interview that the Suns succumbed to the naysayers who said they couldn’t do it by shooting threes or playing small ball, and they would fall apart and play grind-it-out basketball if they weren’t confident.
The evolution hadn’t truly arrived—it was just the first glance. Despite their not winning, it’s important to recognize those teams for what they gave the sport.
Fun-fact: Boris Diaw was originally drafted to play shooting guard, then found a role as a starting center. Then he played point guard on the Bobcats, and then small forward in his early Spurs days, and then power forward during their title run.
2007-08 Suns: Shaq and the 24 Seconds or Less Offense
By the time the 2007-08 season had rolled around, the Suns were under serious duress about whether they could be championship winners or not. They had played three seasons and lost three pivotal series to the eventual Western Conference champions.
In retrospect, it’s easy to say “run it back!” knowing what could have been. But basketball is not just about making baskets or defending well; it’s about balancing egos and keeping everyone happy. D’Antoni was notoriously not good at that, and by the beginning of the 2007-08 season, the Suns had started to implode. Shawn Marion, Nash’s running mate, had grown tired of his role with the team. The Suns maybe should’ve tried to reconcile their relationship with him—Marion was the perfect wing for a fast-paced team. The Matrix was unconventional, to say the least, but he did all that the Suns needed. The Suns, as you might predict, did not try to fix anything. They shipped him off to Miami in a trade for Shaquille O’Neal (or The Big Cactus, as he anointed himself upon arriving in Arizona).
I guess it’s not a super big mystery why they swung for Shaq. This was pre-analytics, or at least it was before analytics had reached the public scope. Looking at the rebound totals, the field goal percentages—the Suns seemed to have a problem—and the symptoms were starting to show. They had lost to teams with bigger, stronger, more dominant big men who had started to exploit their lack of size.
But what if that wasn’t the case?
What if the Suns had just been the victims of bad luck—and if they played enough seasons, they could finally cash in on the treasure chest they happened to stumble into a couple of years ago? Maybe I am a bit of a hindsight artist, but I do think the Suns were the best team in the league throughout those years, and I think they could’ve won the title if they had leaned in harder to their style. Even if trading Marion was necessary—if his relationship with the team was truly beyond reconciliation—they could have traded him for more rangy, passing-oriented bigs who could fit right into their system.
Rather, they swung for Shaq, the most slow-it-down, can’t-defend-the-pick-and-roll big man ever. It seems like the front office hit a crossroads on their style and decided that they were lacking in areas that were crucial to win basketball games. We now know that they were wrong. You can win a championship playing small-ball—it might even put you at an advantage.
Hedging on your identity is not always a recipe for disaster. Sometimes teams need variety. The Orlando Magic are a good example—I’m not sure if they will ever reach the top of the East unless they add some versatility and shooting, even if it does cost them some of their impenetrable defense.
But in the Suns' case, I think some reinforcement would’ve been a good idea. They had a window, and they shortened it by trading for an old, immobile post player. He was a pretty good bodyguard though.
Fun fact: Shaquille O’Neal shot nearly 13 free throws a game in the 2008 playoffs and made 50% of them. After O’Neal complained about the Hack-A-Shaq strategy, Gregg Popovich told Michael Finley to intentionally foul O’Neal on the first play of the 2008-09 regular season, holding up two thumbs.
2008-09 Houston Rockets: Different Ideas of Defense
The 2008-09 Rockets are an interesting team, somewhat lost in the annals of NBA history. By most metrics, they were pretty standard for most of the season. They had their dominant big man, their defense-oriented wings, and some speedy, streaky-shooting guards—a pretty good team that contended in the West, even without their All-Star, Tracy McGrady.
I don’t really care about their first 91 games of the season, though. Their last four are much more interesting. After Yao Ming was diagnosed with a hairline fracture in his foot (a career-ending injury for the Chinese superstar), the Rockets were forced to play Chuck Hayes at center. Chuck Hayes, notably, is only 6’6”. Guarding Pau Gasol for the next four games, he minimized the Lakers center on offense. Pau still got his points against the other big men - Carl Landry and some of the other mismatches they hunted. But Chuck Hayes pushed him out of the post and kept him in disadvantageous positions.
Shane Battier said, “Three-fourths of the world is covered by water, the rest is covered by Chuck Hayes.”
It might as well have been true. Chuck had tree trunk legs and a really low center of gravity. The height difference (six inches) wasn’t going to make up for that. Pau was forced to be uncomfortable. The only issue with Chuck Hayes? The man couldn’t play a single bit of offense. He was essentially a black hole on that side of the ball, and he couldn’t capitalize on any fouls or make a free throw to save his life. Don’t believe me? Here’s a Chuck Hayes free throw.
Well, what if Chuck Hayes could play some offense though? What if, like the average 6’6 NBA player, he could shoot a jumper? What if you could stick him in the corner for all of your offense, and open up the lanes, while also preserving defense on the other end? Interestingly enough, a future Rockets team tried to answer those questions.
Fun fact: Chuck Hayes had the second-highest defensive adjusted plus-minus in the NBA from 2003 to 2009. However, he also shot 37% from the free throw line in the 2008-09 season.
2019-20 Houston Rockets: Micro Ball
To offer some context, the 2019-20 Houston Rockets exceeded expectations, at least in basketball nerdlandia. Calling their season a disappointment wouldn’t be a fair assessment—even if it didn’t end with them hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy. For what it’s worth, even if the 2019-20 Houston Rockets can’t call themselves NBA champions, I would be willing to offer their executives the label of “gutsiest NBA front office” in NBA history. Trading away your only center in the middle of your NBA season to completely invest in small ball was quite the move, and it worked quite well for a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic put everything into question.
There are a lot of storylines that run similar with the 2007-08 Suns and the 2019-20 Rockets. They both had disgruntled stars at some point (for the Rockets it was before the season started, and for the Suns it was during), and they both swung for a player who didn’t necessarily blend into their offense. The difference in these teams lies in their offensive philosophies after the fact. The Suns’ mid-season trade for Shaquille O’Neal emphasized a decommitment to what had made them so good, while the Rockets doubled down on their perimeter-oriented approach by trading away Clint Capela for Robert Covington.
After the Capela trade, the Rockets went all-in on heliocentrism and opening the lanes up for James Harden to isolate. It worked for a short amount of time—during the month of February, the Rockets went 9-2 and boasted the fourth-highest offensive rating and seventh-highest defensive rating in the league. After a while, though, the Rockets struggled—part of it being Westbrook’s injury—but further analysis would help basketball nerds realize the Rockets just didn’t have the personnel to be playing Micro Ball. The philosophy worked, but the application to that specific Rockets team was a little misplaced.
Westbrook was better when Harden wasn’t on the floor with him and vice versa. In addition, the Rockets overall didn’t have enough effective shooting to make Micro Ball effective. Most of their starting lineup and bench had average to below-average clips from beyond the arc. They were respected enough to open up the lanes for Harden, but not always good enough to capitalize on his kickouts.
The Rockets had a good defense, significantly better than expected, even though they did give up rebounds more often than before. Covington was a good rim protector, and PJ Tucker did his best Chuck Hayes impersonation at keeping opposing big men far away from the basket. Eric Gordon, Harden, and Westbrook were stocky enough to hold their ground.
The 2019-20 season was an odd one—we never got a big enough sample size of a fully healthy “Micro Ball” Rockets team to assess all of their flaws. For one, could they have held up over a full season? An explosion in one month doesn’t always translate to consistency over 82 games. In addition, they had trouble against a bigger Lakers team in the bubble (albeit with Westbrook playing the worst basketball of his life).
The lesson to be learned for the Rockets is that committing to a philosophy should require some assessment of personnel first. I think Micro Ball is something that should be experimented with further (even though the NBA seems to be trending in the opposite direction), and I think some team will crack the code eventually.
Fun-fact: The Houston Rockets became the first team in NBA history to play without a player taller than 6'7" in their regular rotation.
Overview:
I fell in love with basketball watching the 2013-14 Spurs pass and defend their way to a title. Looking back, it’s interesting to see how much they incorporated other teams’ styles. They nabbed Diaw, stocked up on shooters, but didn’t let go of their post play either. Their playstyle has been dubbed ‘The Beautiful Game,’ and as I’ve matured as a fan, I’ve realized that they struck a balance within their identity that has been hard to replicate by other teams. They dominated that season because they preserved their identity while actively countering the other teams' approaches. Both the Rockets and Suns, in their own ways, failed to figure out how to do that.
The evolution of basketball has been fascinating—compare modern NBA games to the ones from 15 years ago, and it’s almost a different sport. I’m interested to see what strategies teams will come up with and how they will seek to balance new ideas with the old.