Are there any profits in investing in Houston Rockets this season?

In essence, this article centers on the Houston Rockets, the aim of which is to ascertain the profitability of investing in the team/players in this 2019/2020 NBA season.

At the ScoreMetrics Lab we are constantly analyzing the profitability of different scenarios and today we are going to discuss the team’s strong points as well as their weaknesses by providing you with facts about the current performance of some of their key players, by reviewing their performance in the past 3 games, analyzing their past playoff performances, and predicting their performance in subsequent games.

Talks about the Beasts: Strength – Offensive Prowess

James Harden

There is no way you can talk about the Houston Rockets and not mention “the beard”, as this guy’s offensive contribution to the team is second to none. James Harden sinks 3pt shots with ease even when tightly defended. Also, over the course of this current 2019/20 league, Harden has led the league as the player with the highest points made, as a matter of fact, out of the 5458 total points for the Rockets, Harden scored 1551 (28%) of those points.

Consequently, with a player that averages 36.1 PPG (the highest PPG average seen in the last ten plus years) on your team, you know you can rely on his scoring abilities, and that he can give you value for your money. Let us just hope his thigh injury heals quickly as he has not played in their last 2 games because of it.

Russel Westbrook

This 6’3 ft explosive shooting guard has proved to his fans and his team that he is an all-round player, averaging triple doubles (double digits in Scoring, Rebounds and Assists) over parts of his career. His joining the Rockets last season has improved the team’s potentials to a greater extent with his his mid-range shots, ability to drive to the basket, dish out the ball and crash the boards for rebounds.

Westbrook also has also led the the NBA in scoring and is currently averaging 26.0 PPG this season.

Eric Gordon & Other Key Players

This guy is another consistent shooter in the team, he is, in fact, a one-time winner of the NBA 3-point contest, in the year 2017. Gordon has also displayed his shooting prowess by scoring his career-high 50 points in the Rocket’s game against the Utah Jazz on the 27^th of January 2020. Other shooters on the team that are worth staking your money on include Daniel House (one of the best at “catch-and-shoot” in the league), P.J. Tucker (leading the league in corner threes) Clint Capela (offensive rebounds and put-backs), and Ben McLemore (who has made 455 points this season).  

Major Weakness: Defense

Over the years, the Houston Rockets have not been known to be a super-defensive team, however, this season, things have turned a bit better for them with Clint Capel averaging 13.9 and 1.9 rebounds and blocks per game respectively. 

P.J. Tucker is also a beast on defense and has proved himself to be more than capable this season, he was, in fact, just one second-place vote away from being tied with Kawhi Leonard in the all-defensive team ranking in 2019.

In essence, you cannot totally bank on the Houston Rockets’ defense but you cannot totally rule-out the efforts of players such as Capela and Tucker.

Rocket’s Playoff Performance Over the Years

The 2017/18 Rockets made a franchise record by emerging the first Houston team in history to win 60 or more matches in a regular season, finishing with 65–17. The Rockets have partaken in a total of 52 seasons and advanced to the playoffs in 33 out of these. They have also badged seven division titles, and have emerged as conference champions four different times. They have an overall record of 2,225 wins and 1,991 losses. Now with the current spirit the team is playing with, they will likely advance to the playoffs and encounter the real battles with their counterparts in the east.

So let’s look at the Rockets as an investment. If you would have invested in the Rockets with the spread up to this point in the year, and placed only $100 on each trade, you would have lost $420.

And how about on the moneyline?  Well that would be a little different but still not a great outcome for an investment of this length as the returns over this time period would have net you about $200, if you would have invested $100 on each trade. 

Conclusion

With the current stats of the Houston Rockets this season (2019/20) investing in Rockets may not be totally a good idea. When investing in sports it’s rarely a good idea to go into it looking at the shining stars that play for each team.  

As with all sports investing, analytics and back tested models show the best results we have seen so far. For more information on this and a lot more, check out John Todora’s new book on sports investing; Zero Correlation Investing – The ScoreMetrics Secret to find out more!

ScoreMetrics Lab

The ScoreMetrics Lab is the engine that runs the Sports Trading System operation, consisting of a team of researchers and writers who are constantly testing and retesting algorithms. They work hand in hand with our Head Trader and Creator of ScoreMetrics, John Todora to help find new breakthroughs and develop new systems.