3 stunning NBA preseason trends that won’t survive the regular season
By Cal Durrett
3. The Houston Rockets’ unsustainable 3-point shooting.
Despite quite a few promising young players on their roster, the Houston Rockets aren’t going to replicate their preseason success through the regular season. The Rockets went 3-1 and shot a blistering 41.9% on their 37 3-point attempts per game. With shooting like that, the Rockets could make the playoffs this season, but it’s obviously too good to be true.
While they’ll undoubtedly jack up threes, 41.9% would be an NBA record and a dramatic improvement after ranking just 21st in that category last season. Bad teams often struggle to score and taking as many threes as possible is a way to equalize things, but the Rockets aren’t going to win that way, at least not yet. In the meantime, they can build a much more efficient offense simply by taking care of the ball.
They averaged a staggering 20 turnovers per game in the preseason and led the league in turnovers last season. Better yet, an improvement from rising star Jalen Green and the addition of third-overall pick Jabari Smith should help the team build a more sustainable offense that generates open high-percentage shots.
That being said, it’s obvious their hot shooting won’t continue into the regular season and the Rockets will struggle to win games this season as a result.