![]() ![]() Morey has always seen Rio Grande Valley as a laboratory - a place he can let his analytical freak flag fly in hopes of uncovering some new edge for the Rockets. At 24-10, Daryl Morey’s fever dream has the best record in the D-League, and the NBA is watching. Smith is fond of saying that the Vipers’ style of play is “just basketball.” But nowhere outside the Valley does basketball look like this. “If we don’t score 120,” Morey says, “we don’t win.” They average 123.6 points per game, and their offense, at 113 points per 100 possessions, is the most efficient of any NBA or D-League team this season. The team exists, essentially, as a Daryl Morey experiment in applied basketball analytics. The Vipers push those ideas to their logical extremes. Morey has long been at the forefront of the NBA analytics movement, and for years, execs like him have been pushing their teams to turn up the tempo, cut down on long 2s - which carry similar risk to 3s, but without the added reward of an extra point - and shoot more 3-pointers, especially from the corners, where it’s a shorter shot. When Smith’s players warm up, they don’t bother shooting inside the 3-point line, except for maybe a few bunnies in the paint. They’ve scored a whopping 3 percent of their points this year from midrange. That means, combined, 88.1 percent of the Vipers’ shots are 3s or short 2s. When they aren’t bombing 3s, Smith’s Vipers shoot almost exclusively close to the rim: 41 percent of their field goal attempts come within five feet of the basket. The Rockets, who lead the NBA in 3-point attempts, shoot only 26 per game, good for about a third of their shots. The Vipers also fire an unprecedented barrage of 3s, taking nearly half their shots from behind the line and averaging 45 3-point attempts per game. The NBA has sped up since then, with the league average now at 96.5, but even this year’s fastest team, the Philadelphia 76ers, at 102.6 possessions per game, are tortoises compared with RGV. ESPN stat guru Kevin Pelton has described their style of play as “the most extreme professional basketball in America,” and their pace is historically fast: At 109 possessions per game, the Vipers play far faster than any NBA team in the past two decades, including Mike D’Antoni’s Seven Seconds or Less Suns, who averaged around 98 possessions per game. His Vipers might just be the most running, gunning team pro basketball has ever seen. It’s possible that nearly every coach on earth would have hated that shot - except Nevada Smith. Seven seconds into the shot clock - and with a hand in his face - Daniels fires a 3-pointer, practically from across the Rio Grande.Īs the ball splashes through the net, Daniels throws up three fingers and bangs them against his head. Vipers guard Troy Daniels grabs the rebound and passes ahead to Canaan, who starts to drive to the hoop before whipping it back to Daniels, now standing at the top of the key, three feet beyond the arc. So Canaan coolly waits for the ball to bounce across the 3-point line before snatching it as he whirls and nails a playground triple.Ĭoming back the other way, the Toros, who usually play at one of the D-League’s slowest paces, rush a quick, contested 3. ![]() ![]() He’s in no hurry to grab it, though - his coach, Smith, preaches that besides a dunk, the best possible shot is a corner 3. On the Vipers’ next possession, point guard Isaiah Canaan, the 34th pick of last year’s NBA draft, down on assignment from the Rockets, tracks a long offensive rebound along the baseline toward the corner. Three minutes into the third, though, a Toros dunk cuts RGV’s lead to 11 and momentum seems to be shifting. Playing the Austin Toros at home in Hidalgo, Texas, a dusty town along the Mexican border, Smith’s team is keeping a frantic pace. ![]() On this night in late January, the Vipers are going. Off turnovers, rebounds, made baskets, whatever - it doesn’t matter. Now, the 33-year-old has been entrusted with running what amounts to Rockets general manager Daryl Morey’s grand experiment, and all he wants is for his team to push the ball. A year ago, Smith, the coach of the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, the Houston Rockets’ Development League affiliate, was leading the men’s basketball program at Division III Keystone College in La Plume, Pennsylvania. “Let’s go!” Nevada Smith’s instructions are not complicated. That brings us to D-League Week, an examination of the innovators, also-rans, has-beens, and oddities of the NBA’s minor league. We like it so much that bingeing on LeBron James off-the-wall dunks and Marcin Gortat “Dream Shake” Vines sometimes doesn’t cut it. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |