Houston’s Dynamic Duo

Never before in NBA history have two former league MVPs shared a backcourt while in their primes. Russell Westbrook and James Harden are teammates once again — only this time as members of the Houston Rockets.

Their individual offensive production speaks for itself. Since the 2013–14 season — which was around the time both players entered their primes — Harden and Westbrook have led the league in combined points-assists per game at 37.6 and 35.6, respectively. Much of this production, however, is tied to the fact that both Harden and Westbrook are among the more ball-dominant players in the league. In the same period of time where they’ve led the league in points-assists, they’ve also ranked at the top in time of possession per game. Westbrook ranks second behind John Wall in amount of time with the ball in his hands at 8.4 minutes per game, while Harden comes in at sixth (7.6 minutes per game).

Harden and Westbrook’s ball-dominance has led many to speculate that the pairing might not work. But if history is any indication, the two superstars should be able to mesh with one another just fine. When Harden and Westbrook were teammates in Oklahoma City, they played together for three seasons from 2009 to 2012. During that span of time, they had the 45th best plus-minus out of 301 teammate-pairs logging at least 2,000 minutes. When Harden and Westbrook were on the floor together, the Thunder outscored opposing teams by 7.3 points per 48 minutes, and when they were off the court this number plummeted to -2.4 points.

Given their past success in OKC and historically great offensive abilities, Harden and Westbrook could very well be one of the most dominant duos in the NBA. However, concerns regarding pacing and ball-distribution have prevented them from enjoying the same hype as other big-name duos like Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, or LeBron James and Anthony Davis. The question is whether these concerns are legit.

It has been said that the difference in pace of play between Harden and Westbrook could possibly create chemistry issues. Last season, the Rockets played at a pace of 98.06 possessions per 48 minutes with Harden on the floor, while OKC played at 104.93 possessions per 48 minutes with Westbrook on the floor. Harden shot 28.2% of his field goal attempts with seven seconds or less remaining on the shot clock; only 8.4% of Westbrook’s field goal attempts were taken that late into the shot clock. This discrepancy looks like a problem at first glance but going back a few seasons should clear any doubts.

In the two seasons prior to last season, Harden and Westbrook had very similar paces of play, although Harden did still take a lot more of his shots late into the shot clock compared to Westbrook. Could Westbrook get tired of standing in the corner and watching Harden dribble the ball? It’s certainly possible but after three seasons of averaging a triple double, Westbrook seems ready to relinquish workload to Harden and make adjustments to his game.

Harden’s tendency to over-dribble, many have wondered whether the pairing will work given both players are among the most ball-dominant in the NBA. The answer to this is a resounding yes. Look no further than the last two seasons where Harden played alongside Chris Paul, who is very ball-dominant himself (ranks 5th in time of possession per game over the span of last six seasons). With Harden and Paul at the helm, Houston was arguably the second-best team in the NBA, behind the juggernaut Golden State Warriors. Last season, Harden and Paul combined for 67.4 points-assists per game, which is the highest offensive output by a duo in the last 23 years.

And now Westbrook has been plugged into Paul’s role as the secondary playmaker. While playing together, Harden and Westbrook will surely have to sacrifice in two areas: time of possession and field goal attempts. Both of these factors have a strong association with offensive output as shown in the plot below.

Each point in the plot represents a single season, and the dashed line represents the prediction for that season. The predictions were generated by modeling Harden and Westbrook’s offensive production as a function of their time of possession and field goal attempts. The R-squared’s for the linear models of Harden and Westbrook’s offensive production are 0.984 and 0.8919, respectively. These models can be used to predict Harden and Westbrook’s possible offensive production for this upcoming season, although Harden is likely to have the more accurate prediction given the higher R-squared value of his model.

In order to make predictions, the model needs values for the inputs. Since it can’t be said for certain what either player will average in terms of time of possession and field goal attempts, these values will simply be educated guesses. The input values and predictions of Harden and Westbrook’s offensive output for next season are shown below.

Summing Harden and Westbrook’s expected offensive output gives 67.3 points-assists per game, which is just below what Harden and Paul combined for this past season (67.4 points-assists). This might make it seem as though trading for Westbrook didn’t really help Houston get better, but there are a few points to consider.

1. Harden alone accounted for nearly 65% of the 67.4 points-assists that he and Paul combined for last season. Harden shouldn’t have to carry as much of an offensive burden with Westbrook at his side.
2. As a member of the Houston Rockets, Paul failed to register more than 65 regular season games in either of the two seasons. He played only 73% of regular season games in all, and missed crucial playoff games on top of that. Westbrook, on the other hand, hasn’t played less than 70 games since the 2014–15 season.
3. It’s merely a prediction! Harden and Westbrook could very well combine for more than 67.3 points-assists. Looking at the 95% confidence interval, the upper bounds for Harden and Westbrook’s predictions are 40.4 and 34.6, respectively — meaning there is a chance, albeit a very small one, that they could possibly combine for 75 points-assists.

Predictions are great, but admittedly they don’t tell a whole lot. There’s really no way to “predict” how Harden and Westbrook will play together but their past tendencies could provide some insight.

The percentile ranks in the table above represent how well Harden and Westbrook have scored over the past two seasons relative to the rest of the league, when running a certain type of play.

Both Harden and Westbrook are elite transition, isolation, and pick-and-roll players, ranking above the 95th percentile in all three categories. It would only make sense that Houston plays to the strengths of its two superstars. This would mean allowing them to push the tempo of the game and initiate one-on-one situations.

The three main types of off-ball movement are spotting up, cutting, and coming off screens. Neither player excels in any of these categories. However, the Rockets aren’t expecting Harden or Westbrook to play off-the-ball. Or at least they shouldn’t, since there will be plenty of basketball to go around for both players to capitalize on their on-ball abilities.

Scoring aside, both players are also exceptional passers. Westbrook should thrive in Houston’s system due to the number of capable three-point shooters on the team. Over the last two seasons, Houston and OKC have made their threes at similar rates (between 35–36%). However, in that same time frame, Houston has taken significantly more threes than OKC: 45 three-point attempts per 100 possessions for Houston versus 33 three-point attempts per 100 possessions for OKC. As someone who led the league in passes on drives to the basket last season, Westbrook will be able to find shooters easily out on the perimeter on drive-and-kick-outs. He will continue to be a dominant playmaker and facilitator in Houston’s three-point heavy offense.

Harden and Westbrook might not have to make many adjustments contrary to what has been said in the media. They will surely have to yield time with the ball and shot attempts to one another but that shouldn’t hinder their offensive productivity. With two superstars possessing some of the best on-ball skills in NBA history, the Rockets should embrace a “your-turn-my-turn” style of play. This is what the Cleveland Cavaliers ran with LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, and it resulted in a championship in 2016. Houston could reach that ultimate goal this year with Harden and Westbrook leading the way.