Coming into the season, there were legitimate questions about what the Rockets' game plan would be after trading away forward Ryan Anderson for several younger and significantly cheaper pieces. 61 wins and 11 losses later (including 24wins in a row), the answer appears to "pretty much everything". The Rockets plan of surrounding super-scorer James Harden with versatile players capable of defending and scoring has worked to perfection. The diagram below shows how ridiculously versatile the main rotation is.
The diagram shows the skillset of each current Rocket, split into five main categories. The names closest to the center of the Venn Diagram are the most well rounded. A player is included in a circle if he is above average for his position.
With three players seeing their names in four of the five categories (Harden, Iguodala, and Marble) and more in three categories (Faried, Aminu, Collison, Gortat, not including the injured Thad Young), the Rockets' rotation possibilities are endless, especially since they have a handful of specialists at their disposal behind the main 7-8 players. The versatility (of Harden and Iguodala in particular, who can each play positions 1-4 depending on the matchup) has allowed the Rockets to break free from the typical positional roles and experiment with some unorthodox lineups.
The most recent example being the transformation of James Harden's role from primary ball handler at the beginning of the year, to either wing position based on matchup (where Iggy holds down the PG position on both ends), to the occasional role as a small ball PF, where he has annihilated the competition in his last two games, totaling a ridiculous 121 points in the Kings and Blazers games, tying and then setting his career high in the span of about 48 hours, while Houston's loaded wing rotation were able to take care of defense, and make way for a pair of dominant performances by Harden. The Rockets are able to exploit mismatches on offense, and match up with anybody defensively.
Being 10 deep with high-level rotation players and other specialists, the Rockets are able to limit minutes to avoid injury, and pick and choose which role players play on which night. As a result, talented players like Paul Millsap, Rodney Hood, Cady Lalanne, and even Marcin Gortat can pick up a DNP or play 30 minutes depending on the matchup.
It's not a typical game plan, but it's working as well as any scheme in CSL history. The Rockets are 61-11 and will continue to explore new ways dominate their competition.
