Wolves

It&rsquo;s the most wonderful time of the year. The days are long, the nights are warm and the NBA Finals have come back around.
The Finals stage is where legacies are made. The entire season leads up to this series.
But with the good comes the bad; such is the nature of life. For those with allergies, like myself, June also brings about itchy eyes and a runny nose. And for basketball purists, the bad comes in the form of recycled cliche talking points that, at times, dwarf the discourse surrounding the game itself.
The Finals are where we finally find the answers to season-long, and sometimes career-long, questions.
Can Dirk Nowitzki lead a team to a title?
Did Kobe Bryant need Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal?
Is LeBron James clutch?
This season is no different.
Today's question du jour: Does Stephen Curry need a Finals MVP and another championship sans Kevin Durant to shore up his legacy as one of the 10 best to ever play the game?
One might think the Golden State Warriors would be impervious to these conversations. After all, they won an NBA championship in 2015, the same year they entered the upper echelon of the league before questions could even emerge. And yet, here we are &mdash; eight years, six Finals runs and three titles later &mdash; questioning Curry&rsquo;s greatness and ultimate legacy.
So, what is the answer to that aforementioned question?
First, let&rsquo;s take a look at Curry&rsquo;s legacy. In short, he is an all-time great who's responsible for revolutionizing the Three-Point Era.
It is too simple to reduce Curry to just "the greatest shooter of all-time&rdquo; and limit his skills to only one facet of his game. Because not only is Curry the greatest shooter ever, he is also an elite finisher with both his right and left hand, and he sports one of the best handles we&rsquo;ll ever see. And yet, despite all of his on-ball skills, he is even deadlier off the ball.
In the words of Warriors president and general manager Bob Myers, who joined The Morning Roast on 95.7 The Game on June 7: &ldquo;This guy is a made-man. Forget about this Finals; it's already been done. He's already done it. He's already proven it. I don't know what else he has to continue to prove.&rdquo;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
Bob Myers believes Steph Curry has nothing left to prove in the NBA Finals 🐐 <a href="https://t.co/JXkLpiRj4b">pic.twitter.com/JXkLpiRj4b</a>
&mdash; 95.7 The Game (@957thegame) <a href="https://twitter.com/957thegame/status/1534234887221219328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2022</a></blockquote>

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Myers is correct. Curry has cemented himself as an all-time great.
But all titles matter, and winning this one is important for Curry&rsquo;s legacy. Just as the fourth title mattered to LeBron. Just as the fourth and fifth mattered to Kobe. Just as the fifth and sixth mattered to Michael Jordan.
They all matter when cementing your legacy.
And that&rsquo;s because, unlike other accolades, championships are not debatable. Being the last team standing is a matter of fact, and not decided on by a select group of media.
Players aren't awarded titles. They win them. Curry&rsquo;s greatness is shown by reaching this objective season after season. With each new ring, it cements what should never be up for debate.
Finals MVP, however, is a subjective award. And when it comes to subjectivity, Curry&rsquo;s greatness regularly gets called into question. Being a pioneer in any industry means having your name etched into the history books, but with that comes some bad: you&rsquo;re ahead of your time. And, as a result, people often can&rsquo;t keep up with your greatness as it happens.
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Take the 2015 NBA Finals, for example, Curry&rsquo;s impact was not immediately visible on the box score; although, he was no slouch there either. Curry finished the series averaging 26.0 points, 6.3 assists and 5.2 rebounds per game on .443/.385/.885 shooting splits. (An efficiency dip from the regular season, where he averaged 23.8 points, 7.7 assists and 4.2 rebounds per game on a .487/.443/.914 slash line.)
They were numbers that paled in comparison to LeBron, who finished the series with averages of 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds and 8.8 assists per contest, leaving many to believe Curry failed in the role of a superstar on the biggest stage.
Dominance in the form of counting stats is easy to quantify, but dominance in creating an ecosystem that benefits those around you &mdash; is not. Thus, the true value of Curry is hard to measure.
And that&rsquo;s why, of the 11 votes for Finals MVP, LeBron received four, Andre Iguodala received seven and Curry received headlines calling Matthew Dellavedova his kryptonite.
That&rsquo;s right. Curry received no votes, and Iguodala won the 2015 Finals MVP.
Many voters point to the tides turning after Game 3. The Cleveland Cavaliers had taken a 2-1 series lead, and the Warriors adjusted by swapping Iguodala in for Andrew Bogut in the starting lineup &mdash; a rare move that offered major benefits on both sides of the ball.
At a distance, the case for Iguodala over Curry for Finals MVP is such:
Iguodala guarded the best player in basketball and limited LeBron&rsquo;s impact to sub-40% shooting, the Warriors never lost a game once he entered the starting lineup, and, as a starter, he averaged 20.3 points, 7.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game. He also shot 47.8% from the floor and 40.9% from three, numbers that closely resembled Curry&rsquo;s with much better efficiency.
Take a closer look, and we can see how that&rsquo;s all the more reason Curry deserved the Finals MVP. Without taking anything away from Iguodala, who was a valuable piece that allowed the Warriors to unlock this lineup, Steph made it unstoppable.
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Introducing Iguodala into the starting lineup in place of Bogut allowed the Warriors to play a five-out lineup with passing.
Curry, being the best shooter ever, gets the most attention, and the way he moves off-ball &mdash; constantly in motion and always a threat to shoot &mdash; opens the floor up for all of his teammates in ways that are not yet quantifiable. Curry running by two defenders and pulling them towards him is not a screen assist, but it still opens up a driving lane or a shot in a similar way.
Iguodala directly benefited from that gravity. According to NBA.com, 46% of the shots Iguodala took were considered &ldquo;wide open&rdquo; with the closest defender at least six feet away, and 20% were considered open with a defender four-to-six feet away.
With Bogut on the floor, the Cavs could tilt their defense toward Curry without any blowback. With Iguodala&rsquo;s passing and shooting in Bogut&rsquo;s place, the Cavaliers' defense was forced to make a choice. More often than not, their decision was to dare Iguodala to shoot, and to his credit, he knocked them down.
Curry&rsquo;s court vision and decisive actions create excellent opportunities for teammates, as he led the Warriors in assists. Iguodala was the prime beneficiary, accounting for nearly 40% of his points as a starter in catch-and-shoot situations, according to NBA.com. (That includes all of his made field goals in the deciding Game 6.)
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Decades from now, when people think back on the Warriors&rsquo; first championship, losing Finals MVP to Iguodala won&rsquo;t be an indictment on Curry and his game, but instead on our ability to appreciate what doesn&rsquo;t show up in the box score.
It&rsquo;ll be a capsule in time, defined by our limited scope.
The predicament is similar to the NBA's 2007 Defensive Player of the Year award.
Marcus Camby won the award, given to the best defender in a season, over Tim Duncan, who finished third behind San Antonio Spurs teammate Bruce Bowen.
Despite being one the greatest defensive anchors of all time, Duncan never won the honor &mdash; a gaffe on the part of voters and a result of our limited ability to measure defense.
In 2007, after finishing with his second blocks title in what would be a three-year reign, Camby was awarded Defensive Player of the Year instead.
Over time, we&rsquo;ve come to learn that blocking shots, though flashy and easily quantifiable, is far less a marker of a great defender than one who deters opponents from even attempting a drive.
NBA.com can track how well opponents shot against you in various areas on the court, and despite Camby&rsquo;s higher blocks-per-game average of 3.3 to Duncan&rsquo;s 2.4, players shot 8.3% worse when met by Duncan over Camby in the restricted area.
Blocks per game also remains the sole stat that favors Camby over Duncan defensively. The Denver Nuggets even performed better defensively with Camby on the bench.
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 67.1558%; height: 132px;" border="1">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 29.0771%; height: 22px;">Defensive Metric</td>
<td style="width: 16.18%; height: 22px;">Marcus Camby</td>
<td style="width: 13.7594%; height: 22px;">Tim Duncan</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 29.0771%; height: 22px;">Defensive Efficiency</td>
<td style="width: 16.18%; height: 22px;">105.6</td>
<td style="width: 13.7594%; height: 22px;">96.5</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 29.0771%; height: 22px;">Defensive Win Shares</td>
<td style="width: 16.18%; height: 22px;">5.1</td>
<td style="width: 13.7594%; height: 22px;">6.8</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 29.0771%; height: 22px;">Defensive Box Plus-Minus</td>
<td style="width: 16.18%; height: 22px;">3.9</td>
<td style="width: 13.7594%; height: 22px;">3.2</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 29.0771%; height: 22px;">Opponent FG% in RA</td>
<td style="width: 16.18%; height: 22px;">60.5%</td>
<td style="width: 13.7594%; height: 22px;">53.2%</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 29.0771%; height: 22px;">Defensive Pts Per Poss.</td>
<td style="width: 16.18%; height: 22px;">+2.5</td>
<td style="width: 13.7594%; height: 22px;">-8.8</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
And though not one of these stats alone is a clear indicator of which player is a better defender, all of them together make it pretty obvious that Duncan was better than Camby in 2007.
Then, there are other factors that can&rsquo;t be measured, like how often the presence of a defensive force such as Duncan prevents teams from even passing to a guy guarded by the stalwart.
Defensive Player of the Year awards began in 1982-83. Ten of the first 28 winners led the NBA in blocks. Since then, no player who led the league in blocks has gone on to win DPOY. Nowadays, it would be laughable to base a defensive argument on something as basic as blocks.
I think this is how we&rsquo;ll understand Curry not winning a Finals MVP in his first three chances, namely in 2015. The Finals MVP is supposed to highlight the most valuable player during the most important stretch of basketball all year. That was undeniably him.
The mark of a great offensive player is that teams would prefer to play 4-on-3 versus 1-on-1, and in 2015, Iguodala benefited from being the man open. But that&rsquo;s entirely thanks to the gravity of Stephen Curry.
Because, at the end of the day, every NBA defense is trying to get the ball out of Steph's hands.
And, in the words of Max Kellerman, they want Iguodala.&nbsp;
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Imman Adan details how Stephen Curry's impact can't be quantified by looking back on the 2015 NBA Finals.

Understanding Stephen Curry's gravity and a 2015 NBA Finals MVP gaffe

Superstition has it that &mdash; of all numbers &mdash; seven is the luckiest.
The Brooklyn Nets are fully testing that theory.
When James Harden flew eastbound from the Lonestar state, he landed in Brooklyn and made Barclays Center more than the Eastern Conference&rsquo;s basketball talent armory. He made it a necessary stop for any team that sees the NBA Finals in its future.
At least, that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;ve all been led to believe (and rightfully so).
The Nets enter play on April 29 as the conference&rsquo;s first team to clinch a playoff spot &mdash; a byproduct of Brooklyn also becoming the top team in the conference. Kyrie Irving has had no issue sharing the spotlight or shots, Steve Nash and his impressive coaching staff have found messages that resonate with their platoon and Kevin Durant has, well, looked just like Kevin Durant.
Lucky number, indeed? That ol&rsquo; No. 7?
To that, Brooklyn can wish upon its lucky star(s)...
And not only because it's embroidered on Durant&rsquo;s jersey&hellip; But because that&rsquo;s likely going to be the number of games Brooklyn&rsquo;s impressive triumvirate will have played together when the postseason begins.
Perhaps it&rsquo;s poetic justice. When Steve Nash and Mike D'Antoni were together in Phoenix, the point guard won two MVP awards and D&rsquo;Antoni took home a Coach of the Year trophy. Together, they revolutionized the game of basketball. The basketball court was their canvas, and Nash the artist. They treated the shot clock as nothing more than a friendly suggestion and defiantly decided that dunks and threes were a better combination than peanut butter and jelly.
So yes, perhaps it&rsquo;s poetic justice that the duo now gets to steer the most incredible offensive engine that we&rsquo;ve seen in modern times.
But alas, the game isn&rsquo;t played on paper.
Whether the Nets can actually play to their full potential in the postseason remains to be seen, and it&rsquo;s worth recognizing just how incredible of a case study they are.
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Of all &ldquo;super-teams&rdquo; that have shouldered the daunting pressure that such a collection of talent brings, only the 2008 Boston Celtics got it done in their first go-round.
We remember and continually cite those Celtics because they did the impossible, and nobody&rsquo;s done it since. As transient as the league has become over the past 10 years, we simply don&rsquo;t see teams come together, deploy completely new rotations and win immediately. Last year&rsquo;s Los Angeles Lakers came close, but LeBron James, Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Alex Caruso ruin the argument.
In Toronto, Kawhi Leonard joined a rotation that had scratched and clawed its way to the top of the conference. He was the final piece. With an asterisk, the same can be said of Durant&rsquo;s joining the Golden State Warriors. LeBron&rsquo;s Cavs, obviously, didn&rsquo;t get it done in his first year with the club, and neither did LeBron&rsquo;s Miami Heat for that matter.
You cycle back through the list of champions going back more than 20 years, and one thing becomes obvious: the teams that walk away with the Larry O&rsquo;Brien trophy almost universally feature rotational pieces who have endured some growing pains.
The Nets have, just not necessarily together.
If Irving missed his fateful three-point shot over Steph Curry&rsquo;s outstretched arm back in 2016, the world as we have come to know it today may never have been. Perhaps James never wins a championship in Cleveland. Does he still leave for Los Angeles? Would Durant have re-signed in Oklahoma City? Does Irving still ask out of Cleveland?
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To call that shot one of the biggest &mdash; and most consequential &mdash; in NBA history is no stretch. But after it fell and James cried for Cleveland, Irving got zero credit for the part he played in upsetting a 73-win team in the NBA Finals after trailing 3-1. From Game 3 onward, he scored 30.8 points per game on 50.8% shooting from the field, including 46.7% from three-point territory.
How could he not carry the feeling of being slighted with him to Boston? How does that baggage not find its way back home with him to the Nets?
Durability. Availability. Perhaps these are Durant's biggest foes. If the basketball gods were less cruel, it would be Durant, and not LeBron James, who gets to flirt with the idea of running down Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's scoring record &mdash; the biggest giant of them all.
Truth be told, there&rsquo;s an objective argument to be made that Durant is the greatest offensive basketball player who's ever played the game. His major downfall &mdash; aside from his body &mdash; is a willingness to defer touches and opportunities to his teammates. At one point, it was Russell Westbrook, then Steph Curry.
Of all the players we&rsquo;ve seen, Durant is the one who truly could have pushed Wilt Chamberlain&rsquo;s 100-point record. He just lacked the imagination, audacity and selfishness to ever consider pursuing it in a serious way. In Oakland, he became a champion, but anyone with two eyes could see that Durant wasn't fulfilled. Not a "true champion," they said. Draymond Green said his piece. So did the team's architect, Bob Myers. Finals MVP or not, Durant simply wasn't one of "them," so he took his napsack and his championship rings to Brooklyn.
And, of course, there's James Harden, the Beard.
At one point buried on Scott Brooks&rsquo; bench, the small-minded Oklahoma City Thunder couldn&rsquo;t dream big enough. Never could the ownership group imagine that three stars were worth paying $100 million. A trio of in-prime players good enough to one day be MVP? Impossible.
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A faulty showing in the 2012 NBA Finals helped the franchise conclude that Harden wasn&rsquo;t worth the max contract he sought. One whose individual scoring abilities are among the best we&rsquo;ve ever seen was traded for one year of Kevin Martin and the draft pick that became Steven Adams (in fairness, among other things).
But since then, Harden has become a special player who led a proud franchise to its genesis. He obviously couldn&rsquo;t push the Houston Rockets across the finish line, but one could fairly argue that he was just the latest in an infinitely-long list of players who&rsquo;ve existed as inliers because they had to compete against the likes of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, LeBron James and Steph Curry.
So here we have it. Irving, Durant and Harden have each found their way to Brooklyn. Now joined at the hip, their common thread is a faulted legacy that &mdash; in the case of Irving and Durant &mdash; a championship pedigree hasn't solved.
For years, Brooklyn's trio have tantalized us with their individual greatness, and at different points this season, have shown us that they are all capable of sharing the floor with one another and elevating their teammates.
An interesting case study, these Nets are. They&rsquo;ve come together wanting to build their own vibe in Brooklyn and establish New York City&rsquo;s largest borough as the new Mecca of pro basketball. Each searching for the same thing, each wanting to win, their individuals circumstances have joined them in a common quest.
But alas. Seven games is all these Nets will have played together.
With much less of an opportunity to play together than even the 2008 Celtics, they'll attempt to go where no team has gone before.
Indeed, if No. 7 is truly lucky, together, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and James Harden, these superstars... Well, they'll prove it to us all.

The 2008 Celtics are among the few teams to win a championship together in their first year. The Nets will now attempt to join them.

On the Brooklyn Nets, No. 7 and the slow, methodical march to a title

Tyler Herro isn&rsquo;t a natural point guard.
Herro didn&rsquo;t play much point in college. In fact, his lack of primary on-ball reps at Kentucky was a big reason why the comfort he displayed in Summer League and, to a much larger extent, last season&rsquo;s playoff run was a surprise to many.
(READ: It was a <a href="https://www.fivereasonssports.com/voices/its-time-to-stop-doubting-tyler-herro/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">surprise to me</a>).
He didn&rsquo;t play it much last season, with less than 20 percent of his minutes coming at the 1, per <a href="http://bkref.com/pi/shareit/w6noc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Basketball-Reference</a>. Heck, Herro himself will tell you he doesn&rsquo;t want to be <a href="https://www.si.com/nba/heat/miami-news/miami-heat-tyler-herro-point-shooting-guard" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dubbed as a point guard</a>. The lineups mostly disagree with that claim, though.
Herro&rsquo;s playing time without a (traditional) point guard on the floor has nearly tripled in terms of rate. <a href="https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos/nba?TeamId=1610612748&amp;Season=2020-21&amp;SeasonType=Regular%2BSeason&amp;PlayerIds=201609,1629639,1629134,1629216" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Per PBP Stats</a>, Herro has played 66 minutes (16.5 per game) without Goran Dragic, Kendrick Nunn or Gabe Vincent being on the floor. That&rsquo;s up from roughly six minutes per game (323 minutes in 55 games) last season if you add Justise Winslow to that list. We&rsquo;re working with a four-game sample here, but that&rsquo;s still a pretty stark difference.
The shift in role complements the shift in lineup distribution. According to <a href="https://www.nba.com/stats/players/touches/?Season=2020-21&amp;SeasonType=Regular%20Season&amp;TeamID=1610612748&amp;sort=TOUCHES&amp;dir=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NBA.com&rsquo;s tracking data</a>, Herro&rsquo;s touches, touch time and dribbles per touch are all up from last season. If you compare his bump in usage to the third year of Devin Booker, a popular if-everything-goes-right comparison for Herro, you&rsquo;ll see some similarities:
Booker&rsquo;s Rookie Year: 43.4 touches, 3.52 seconds per touch, 2.81 dribbles per touch
Booker in Year 3: 67.2 touches, 4.24 seconds per touch, 3.57 dribbles per touch
Herro&rsquo;s Rookie Year: 44.5 touches, 3.25 seconds per touch, 2.70 dribbles per touch
Herro in Year 2*: 64.8 touches, 3.85 seconds per touch, 3.46 dribbles per touch
Of course, context is needed. I used Booker&rsquo;s third year because that was when he really got a lion&rsquo;s share of the lead ball-handler workload as the Suns&rsquo; point guard room became laughable. We all remember Eric Bledsoe&rsquo;s <a href="https://twitter.com/EBled2/status/922201984211369984?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hair salon tweet</a>, yes? And this is a third year of sorts for Herro if we account for the pandemic layoff.
Beyond that, Herro is surrounded by more talent than Booker was, and thus is less reliant on true self creation. Case in point, per Synergy: the percentage of Herro&rsquo;s possessions that have ended via a pick-and-roll (passing included) or dribble handoff have skyrocketed from 54.2 to 69.5 this season. Booker&rsquo;s rate mostly stayed static (45.3 to 45.4).
Herro&rsquo;s been thrown into the gauntlet with four straight games against rangy, athletic, pesky defenders. The Magic with Markelle Fultz and Michael Carter-Williams; the Pelicans with Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart (Eric Bledsoe got the Duncan Robinson assignment); the Bucks with Jrue Holiday and Donte DiVincenzo. The results have been a mixed bag, as you&rsquo;d expect for a young guy thrust into a new, larger role against quality foes.
THE FILM
The most obvious improvement we&rsquo;ve seen from Herro thus far has come in pick-and-roll situations. He projected as a player primed to win against drop coverage because of his quick trigger, shooting touch and footwork well beyond his years. Combine that with underrated passing chops and you have the makings of a pretty solid creator.
He was better in theory than in practice last season. The former Wildcat ranked in the 26th percentile as a pick-and-roll ball-handler (passes included), per Synergy. You could tell he was trying to adjust to the speed of NBA defenders, in terms of shot windows and passing windows closing quicker than they did in college.
There&rsquo;s still room for improvement, but you can see the game starting to slow down for Herro. He&rsquo;s generating 1.21 points per pick-and-roll possession on direct hookups, the seventh-best mark among 62 players that have initiated at least 50 pick-and-rolls this season, per a source with access to Second Spectrum tracking data. If you filter those ball screens to only include those with any of the Dragic/Nunn/Vincent triumvirate off the floor, that number drops to 1.15 points per possession.
He&rsquo;s been tossing flames against drop coverage. Give him room to manipulate his man into the initial screen, and he&rsquo;ll waltz into pull-up jumpers with ease.
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/herro-pull-up-3-vs-drop.gif" alt="" width="614" height="AUTO" />
With both Brook Lopez and Giannis Antetokounmpo stationed at the elbow, Herro has his choice of screening partners in this double-high look. He does a phenomenal job of setting Holiday up with a hang dribble before crossing back over to his left.
The growth we saw from Herro as a driver in the bubble has mostly carried over. He&rsquo;s added more craft to his finishes; that threat is attracting a little more attention from enemy giants, opening the door for lay-down or wrap-around passes.
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/herro-wraparound.gif" alt="" width="614" height="AUTO" />
Again, you can see Herro relying on the hang-cross combo to set up his defender (DiVincenzo). He immediately snakes to the right elbow to draw out Bobby Portis, opening up a diving lane for Precious Achiuwa. With Portis and DiVincenzo committing to Herro, he&rsquo;s able to flip an on-target bounce pass to Achiuwa for the layup.
Herro has struggled when faced with more ball pressure. His handle isn&rsquo;t &ldquo;lead ball-handler&rdquo; tight. Stingy defenders can force him into early pick-ups or, at worst, sit on his pet move and poke it away.
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/herro-stripped.gif" alt="" width="614" height="AUTO" /> Herro has the basic pick-and-roll reads against drop coverage down, and has downloaded the &ldquo;snake&rdquo; package necessary for any above-average initiator. The next steps for him are dealing with more aggression: getting the ball out early against hedges or traps, and reading the third defender -- the man who &ldquo;tags&rdquo; the big man on the roll, or the defender &ldquo;splitting the difference&rdquo; on the weak side.&nbsp;
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/herro-no-separation%2C-missed-dumpoff.gif" alt="" width="614" height="AUTO" /> Here, Zion Williamson comes with a hedge. Herro either misses or decides not to hit Meyers Leonard early, a mostly fine result even if that isn&rsquo;t what the optimal process dictates. He drives past the hedge, but then misses the window for a dump-off to Achiuwa in the dunker spot, and instead gets blocked from behind by Ball.
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/herro-vs-hedge.gif" alt="" width="614" height="AUTO" /> Later in the corner, he gets another hedge from Zion. He knows the coverage by now, but still fails to release the ball in a timely manner. That&rsquo;s precious time off the clock due to indecision.
The 66 minutes with Herro on the court without a point guard have been awful from a statistical standpoint. The Heat have a 94.2 offensive rating in that frame, which would easily be the worst mark in the NBA if extrapolated over an entire season. That number jumps to 107.2 when Herro and Dragic are on the floor together, revealing the obvious: Herro is much more comfortable operating against bent defenses as a secondary handler.
Herro isn&rsquo;t a point guard, but that&rsquo;s exactly why it&rsquo;s important for him to get these reps now. Barring an apocalyptic amount of injuries, you can comfortably slate the Heat as a playoff team. Allowing a guy as important to the Heat&rsquo;s long-term goals as Herro -- as a player or a trade asset -- to stretch the limits of his game is more important than a gaudy regular season net rating.
The Heat have multiple security blankets to fall back on in the event that Herro falters. But if they believe he can grow into a legitimate lead option -- they reportedly believe Herro can be <a href="https://247sports.com/college/kentucky/Article/Heat-think-Tyler-Herro-can-be-better-than-Devin-Booker-151355960/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">better than Booker</a>, so the safe answer is &ldquo;yes&rdquo; -- they need to give him the rope to do so.&nbsp;

Nekias Duncan dives into the Miami Heat's experiment with the second-year guard running an offense.

Tyler Herro isn't a point guard, but that's where he belongs for now

The Houston Rockets swung for the fences last summer, flipping Chris Paul and six afros-worth of picks to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Russell Westbrook. That wouldn&rsquo;t even be the largest stylistic shift the Rockets would go through. They&rsquo;d eventually punt on the idea of centers in favor of maximizing their ability to play small, highlighted by the mega-trade that sent Clint Capela to the Atlanta Hawks, with then-Minnesota Timberwolves wing Robert Covington coming to Houston.
At their best, the Rockets bombed away from three with even more boldness, switched everything on defense, then blitzed teams in transition. At their worst, a.k.a. the back end of their second-round matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers, the lack of size hurt them at the rim and on the glass. The lack of an interior presence also made them more limited offensively; pick-and-rolls were used almost exclusively as a means to generate a switch instead of creating downhill advantages.&nbsp;
Now, with new general manager Rafael Stone and new head coach Stephen Silas, the fun will really begin.
The Rockets have no real avenue to cap space regardless of what they decide in terms of renouncements. They&rsquo;ll operate as an over-the-cap team and have a non-taxpayer mid-level exception (worth over $9 million) at their disposal. The question is how much owner Tilman Fertitta is willing to spend. The always-informative Keith Smith has a more thorough breakdown of their cap situation, which you can find <a href="https://www.slamonline.com/nba/houston-rockets-salary-cap-space-2020/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.&nbsp;
Let&rsquo;s take a look at some guys they&rsquo;ll look to bring back, as well as some targets that could help them come back stronger than ever.
Key In-House Decisions
Austin Rivers*: Bring Him Back
Rivers is one of the NBA&rsquo;s underrated drivers, utilizing a quick first step and channeled aggression to generate looks at the rim. He isn&rsquo;t much more than a rudimentary playmaker, but his north-south style has helped juice the Rockets&rsquo; second unit over the past couple of seasons. That&rsquo;s been especially important within the context of Eric Gordon&rsquo;s injuries and the general hot-and-cold nature of his game. Rivers is also one of the notable voices in that locker room, something that shouldn&rsquo;t be dismissed when discussing his value. Even if Rivers declines his $2.4 million player option, I wouldn&rsquo;t expect him to command more than a portion of a team&rsquo;s MLE -- and that&rsquo;s on the high end. He should be back.
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Jeff Green: Bring Him Back
If Green&rsquo;s career was a book, it&rsquo;d likely be dubbed: &ldquo;The Boy Who Cried Potential.&rdquo; He never became a star, and the boom-or-bust nature of his game has confounded many. Quietly, though, he&rsquo;s settled in as a solid bench big. He especially thrived as the Rockets&rsquo; backup center last season, possessing just enough shooting and ball skills to dust enemy giants while offering versatility defensively.
Green has utility at both forward spots and should be a no-brainer to bring back assuming a bidding war doesn&rsquo;t ensue.&nbsp;
Free Agent Guards 
Bargains: Tyler Johnson
Johnson had a pretty quiet regular season campaign, kicking things off in Phoenix before finding his way to the Brooklyn Nets mid-season. Johnson performed well in the postseason, averaging a shade under 14 points while unloading the clip from deep (39.3 percent on 7.0 attempts). He&rsquo;s a fearless driver and underrated rebounder; he isn&rsquo;t afraid of mixing it up with bigger players. There&rsquo;s a pretty natural fit offensively alongside Harden or Westbrook as part of a staggered unit.
Free Agent Wings 
Mid-Tier Options: Justin Holiday
Holiday is more 3-and-Decent than 3-and-D, but he&rsquo;s coming off of the best shooting season of his career (40.5 percent from three-point range on 4.5 attempts) while being a credible option against 2s and 3s. He&rsquo;d be a natural fit for the Rockets&rsquo; transition attack. His off-ball randomness -- his ability to relocate around the perimeter, or catch ball-watching defenders off guard with hard cuts -- also fits well.
Bargains: Kent Bazemore, Garrett Temple*
The idea of Bazemore -- an athletic, 3-and-D wing that can defend 1-through-3 -- is probably a little better than the reality. Still, he can knock down open shots, is an active mover off the ball and competes defensively against both wing positions.&nbsp;
Temple would give the Rockets a plus, multi-positional defender with a solid three-point stroke (35.3 percent over the past five seasons). The asterisk is present on Temple's name because the Nets hold a $5 million team option on him, though it&rsquo;d come as no surprise if they let Temple walk to free up tax room to bring back Joe Harris. 
Free Agent Forwards 
Mid-Tier Options: Danilo Gallinari&nbsp;
If Gallinari is serious about going the &ldquo;winning &gt; pay day&rdquo; route, the Rockets would be a pretty fun landing spot for him. He would immediately boost their shooting and half-court shot creation. He can get to the rack -- and the free throw line -- on his own, but being able to play off of the dribble penetration of Westbrook and Harden would make life a lot easier for him.&nbsp;
Bargains: Lance Thomas, Luc Mbah a Moute
Thomas has flown under-the-radar for years as a sneaky-solid forward defender that can knock down open threes. He&rsquo;s converted 38.5 percent of his triples over the past five seasons, though that comes on limited volume. He&rsquo;d be a solid get as a ninth man to get you through the regular season.
Mbah a Moute signed a &ldquo;substitution contract&rdquo; with the Rockets back in July, replacing Thabo Sefolosha. He&rsquo;s fallen victim to his own body, with injuries derailing his last three seasons. It&rsquo;s probably far-fetched to expect him to get back to his 2017-18 form, but he could serve as a nice &ldquo;break-glass-in-case-of-emergency&rdquo; defender during the season. There&rsquo;s obvious familiarity here -- why not?
Free Agent Bigs 
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Mid-Tier Options: Serge Ibaka
This would rely on negotiation talks breaking down with the Raptors. They will have his Bird Rights, thus giving them an avenue to pay Ibaka much more than any other contender sans the Miami Heat, and even they would get outbid. If Ibaka is okay with taking the MLE, the Rockets would be a natural landing spot because of his intersection of shooting and rim protection.&nbsp;
Bargains: Meyers Leonard, Nerlens Noel, John Henson, Harry Giles
Leonard&rsquo;s free-agency value will come down to which version from last year teams feel they&rsquo;ll be getting. If it&rsquo;s the regular-season version -- where Leonard helped anchor one of the best starting lineups in the NBA with his shooting (41.4 percent from three), screening and vocal quarterbacking defensively -- then you could argue he should command a portion of the MLE. If it&rsquo;s the postseason version, where Leonard looked out of place defensively and his lack of three-point volume really stood out, the vet minimum could be all he musters.
Noel is your classic toolsy big whose reputation precedes him a bit. He is talented, of course; he&rsquo;s able to sky for lobs, can knock down the occasional jumper (though you don&rsquo;t want him taking many of them), has wing-like mobility in space and can send shots into orbit. The issue with Noel, aside from help, has been his propensity to go for the home-run on defense, which often leaves him out of position when those gambles fail.
He was a bit more under control in Oklahoma City last season; shockingly, he had his most efficient year to date. There&rsquo;s room for him to command a portion of some team&rsquo;s mid-level exception, but it wouldn&rsquo;t shock me to see him take another prove-it type deal for a contender to set himself up for a pay day in 2021.
Henson entered the league as a classic screen-and-dive big, using his broomstick arms to convert lobs and clean up on the offensive glass. He&rsquo;s been a prolific shot-blocker throughout his career, though he&rsquo;s never been strong enough to deal with post brutes. He&rsquo;s attempted to stretch his game over the past two seasons with mostly &ldquo;meh&rdquo; results on an even more &ldquo;meh&rdquo; sample. The intrigue would be providing Harden or Westbrook with a lob target. If the spot-up three experiment continues and has some success, that would be an obvious bonus.
Giles has a bit of an injury history, dating back to his high-school days. Multiple lower-body injuries have sapped some of his athleticism, and he&rsquo;s still a fluid, jumpy big who can feast in transition. The intrigue lies in his on-ball skill; he&rsquo;s quietly one of the better passing big men in the league already. There&rsquo;s some serious &ldquo;throw-it-to-him-in-the-high-post-and-let-him-do-stuff&rdquo; potential waiting to be untapped. If the Rockets are serious about adding some optionality to their half-court attack -- and want to take a young flier -- Giles is a nice place to start.&nbsp;

Nekias Duncan breaks down the Rockets' own free-agent decisions and suggests some players that Houston should target at each position.

Qiant