SPRING WISRD MAGAZINE, VOL 6, ISSUE 2

point-efficient shots was largely catalyzed by two teams: the Golden State Warr iors and the Houston Rockets. The Warr iors were considered a dynasty for the lat ter half of the 2010s. On the backs of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, two of the league?s best shooters, they won three championships, becoming the first team to win with a game plan that focused on three-point shoot ing. The success of the Warr iors influenced the rest of the league to emulate the Warr iors?barrage of deep shots, and none did it bet ter than the Houston Rockets. With a sharpshooter of their own in James Harden, and a front office headed by two of the most stat ist ically-minded men in sports, Mike D?Antoni and Daryl Morey, the Rockets took the search for efficiency to the extreme. Half of all shots they took in 2019 were from the three-point line or beyond while keeping their other shots within a couple of feet . This raises the quest ion: is this an effect ive strategy? The Rockets had eight years with the tr io of Morey (general manager), D?Antoni (head coach), and Harden. Dur ing this t ime, they were never able to reach the finals, let alone win a championship. The Warr iors, however, won three. What did they do that the Rockets could not replicate?While the Warr iors shot a heavy volume of threes, they also at tempted more mid-range shots than the Rockets did. The Warr iors?shot chart is much more

evenly distr ibuted than the Rockets?. Although it sounds counter intuit ive to shoot more mid-ranges in order to rack up points more efficient ly, the Warr iors factored in one component the Rockets did not : human error. The Rockets? game plans were perfect , an ideal scenar io, but ignored the reality that the people taking these shots were suscept ible to bad games and misses. When the Warr iors had bad shoot ing stretches, they would take shots from closer distances, and although this would yield fewer points, it had a higher chance of garner ing any points at all. All of the Rockets?success at the three-point line would also lead to massive failures on its behalf. The Rockets lived and died by the three. In a playoff game where the Rockets had the chance to beat the Warr iors and advance to the championship, they missed an NBA record, 29 consecut ive three-pointers. The Warr iors went on to win the game and the championship. When data and analyt ics are used to show the most effect ive way to win, the Rockets forgot to plan for when the team was incapable of following those analyt ics, and it led to their demise. The Warr iors were able to use data while balancing it with a level of preparat ion that cannot be achieved through algor ithms.

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