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rickhorrow · 5 years

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15+5+5 To Watch : 9919

15 TO WATCH/5 SPORTS TECH/POWER OF SPORTS 5: RICK HORROW’S TOP SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 9

with Jacob Aere

NFL Network rolls out centennial celebrations on air. Thursday marked an historic occasion as the NFL's 100th season got under way with the 2019 NFL Kickoff. NFL Media has been building up to the occasion with a slate of NFL Network series and specials that celebrate the “memories, moments and people that have made the NFL an iconic brand for 100 seasons.” The league announced that “NFL 100 Greatest” and “NFL 100 All-Time Team” would be serving as the anchor series for the full lineup of NFL 100 programming, with additional series “NFL 100 Roundtables” and “NFL 100 Sessions” also showcased across the network this fall. NFL 100 Greatest debuts September 13, rolling out over 10 weeks with two one-hour episodes airing back-to-back every Friday night. NFL Films conducted more than 400 interviews with celebrities, current NFL stars, and legends that will air across 20, one-hour episodes. “NFL 100 Roundtables” debuts September 27 as a special eight-part series that connects some of the greatest to play the game by position. It’s also worth noting that Thursday’s NFL season kickoff on NBC scored 22 million viewers, a 16% jump over last year.

Nearly one-quarter of adults in the United States say they would bet on an NFL game this season if it were legal in their state, according to a recent survey commissioned by the American Gaming Association. An online poll conducted for the gambling trade association by Morning Consult last month found that 24% of adults would bet if they could do so legally, while 39% of avid NFL fans plan to bet on a game this season, legally or not. The survey also drew the now familiar correlation between betting and engagement. Three-fourths of NFL bettors said they are more likely to view a game when they wager on it, while 51% said they are more likely to watch pregame shows if they intend to bet. Based on the survey, the AGA projects that 38 million American adults will bet on NFL games this season – and you can bet the league will continue to monitor this scenario very closely.

Buffalo Wild Wings moves toward the sports gambling world alongside MGM. According to USA Today, the two giants released a mobile football game designed to let customers pick favorite NFL teams, choose weekly fantasy performers and make proposition picks. The name of the partnership is called Roar Digital, and it tries to offer a sports betting-style experience beginning with a free-to-play football game. Odds and point spreads will appear on screens at select Buffalo Wild Wings. The long term goal is to have Buffalo Wild Wings expand in states where sports betting is legal through a mobile app called BetMGM. Although there won’t be cash bets at first, players can win prizes such as trips to Las Vegas or to the Borgata casino in New Jersey to compete in the first BetMGM sports betting competition. This partnership looks to capitalize on the casual gamer and new sports bettors – a route that may find success on the back of Buffalo Wild Wings’ 1,200 restaurants across 10 countries, with abundant clientele to test the new venture.

Spaniard Rafael Nadal won the 2019 U.S. Open and his 19th Grand Slam title. Canadian Bianca Andreescu won her first Open and first Slam respectively. Both singles winners took home $3.85 million paychecks. But those winnings are a mere blip to the cash cow tennis tournament. According to Hashtag Sports, in 2018, the two-week-long U.S. Open generated $65 million in sponsorship deals alone. Tickets and broadcasting pulled in $120 million each; while concessions added $30 million. And in 2019, the annual tournament, put on by the nonprofit USTA, was on target to have the biggest year in its 51-year history. The U.S. Open is evolving, and becoming more brand-friendly, by design, and tennis is reaching a global audience at an unprecedented scale. The sponsors on the ground at Billie Jean King Tennis Center reflect the global appeal of the sport. Heineken is the official beer, not a domestic brew. Rolex replaced Citizen as the official timekeeper. Emirates is the official airline. And the spacious newly-renovated facility attracted 737,872 spectators this year, an all-time attendance record. If you build it, the brands, and the fans, will come.

In NFL stadiums, brands are activating as well, starting with Pepsi. Season 100 for the NFL will see Pepsi unveil its “Always be Celebrating” NFL campaign, a season-long campaign via Goodby Silverstein & Partners that “spotlights and honors the amazing celebrations that NFL fans and players have taken part in over the years,” and includes "two national TV ads using real footage of player touchdown celebrations set to the 'Cha Cha Slide' by DJ Casper" according to Cynopsis Sports. Also included in the campaign will be a new charitable program with United Way and the NFL, a national retail POS campaign running all season featuring 26 of Pepsi’s NFL player partners, local market kick-off celebrations in New England and Miami, and more. Pepsi also renewed it Super Bowl halftime sponsorship through 2022, and it has a separate deal dating back to 2002 that "makes it the NFL's official soft-drink sponsor." The halftime act for Super Bowl Super Bowl LIV in Miami was not revealed – but like all recent shows it will be leaked on social media before the official NFL announcement, much to the league’s chagrin.

Other returning NFL sponsors reveal new creative as well. Pizza Hut is tackling the new season with “Buy. Play. Win.” that will the brand-new interactive NFL-themed game Hut Hut Win and offer the chance to win once-in-a-lifetime NFL experiences and millions of instant win prizes. "In our second season as the Official Pizza Sponsor of the NFL, we're taking our partnership to the next level for fans with the launch of Hut Hut Win," said Marianne Radley, Chief Brand Officer, Pizza Hut. "Our game plan is simple – create unforgettable experiences that connect our fans to their favorite sport." Finally, Snickers enters the season by unveiling a new branded, iced-out chain created by famed jeweler Ben Baller. Each week during the NFL season, the chain will be passed from one player to another player, “who has not only shown hunger for more with a huge game or play on the field, but who is also driven to do more off the field.” Towards the end of the regular season, Snickers will invite fans to weigh in on which “Hungriest Player” is the hungriest. That player will then award proceeds from the chain to a charity of his choice.

Player deals also color the NFL’s opening week. The Cowboys last week reached an agreement on a contract extension with running back Ezekiel Elliott for six years and $90 million, ending his much-publicized holdout and making him the "highest-paid running back in NFL history," according to the Dallas Morning News. The Rams' Todd Gurley previously had the "biggest contract in the NFL for a running back with a total package" of $57.5 million. One source said that Elliott's deal includes a running back-record $50 million guaranteed. In other high-profile NFL contract news, the Rams and quarterback Jared Goff reportedly agreed to a "four-year extension" through 2024. The Los Angeles Times reported that the deal is worth $134 million with a "record" $110 million guaranteed. But the biggest headline-grabbing player saga, of course, was the journey of receiver Antonio Brown, who demanded his release from the Oakland Raiders via social media and landed with the Patriots in a one-year deal reportedly worth up to $15 million that included a $9 million signing bonus.

From an agency perspective, the NFL is moving in the right direction. Rick recently sat down with Arnold Wright, Executive Vice President and co-head of consulting for Octagon. Wright brings NFL team, league, and player deals to life for sponsors including Castrol, Delta, Bank of America, and others. “The league is obviously an incredible platform that leaps up year to year in terms of ratings and engagement,” Wright said. “The on field action is also as good as it’s ever been.” From a global perspective, Wright says, “The international piece in particular has been great for the league. You continue to see key markets like the UK, Mexico, and even Brazil growing internationally. It’s bringing other brands into the NFL ecosystem from a partner and promotional perspective.” As for the NFL’s 100th season platform, Wright says, “The league has done a lot of really great work in terms of positioning themselves, celebrating the history of the league from a player and a fan perspective. They have demonstrated a real savviness around their marketing and their connectivity to fans. The league several years ago probably would not have demonstrated that level of flexibility in terms of their marketing and what you could do with their platforms. But that’s certainly changed.”

Endeavor reported that its entertainment and sports division generated revenues of $1.33 billion during the first half of 2019, according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The filing attributed approximately $352 million of the 46.4% year-on-year increase to the sale of media rights, primarily relating to IMG’s international distribution deals with Italy’s top-flight Serie A and La Liga in Spain, along with England’s FA Cup knockout competition. Another contributing factor was the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s new $1.5 billion rights deal with ESPN. The filing also cited the growth of IMG Arena, the company’s sports betting and content business, owned events, and sports production as reasons for the increase. The first-half revenues generated by Endeavor’s entertainment and sports division is by far the most of each of the company’s three main units. The agency’s representation arm generated $688.3 million during the first half of 2019, while Endeavor X, the company’s streaming services, brought in $57.4 million in revenue. In total, Endeavor generated revenues of $2.05 billion for the six months ending June 30, up from $1.5 billion for the same period in 2018. The latest revenue figures come ahead of Endeavor’s highly anticipated, but delayed, initial public offering.

Disney has completed the sale of its 80% stake in the YES Network for $3.47 billion to an investor group comprising the New York Yankees, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and Amazon. Sinclair acquired a majority stake in the YES Network as part of its $71.3 billion purchase of Fox assets in 2017, though it had to divest the property due to a Department of Justice order last summer, along with 21 other RSNs purchased by Sinclair for $10.6 billion. The YES Network, of which the Yankees already own a 20% share, broadcasts Yankees games and also those of the Brooklyn Nets. An announcement made by all parties on August 29 confirmed the transaction, which brings an end to a year of negotiations between Disney and prospective buyers for the 22 Fox RSNs. The networks were originally valued in the region of $20 billion, though have been sold for just over $14 billion. For Sinclair, the deal adds to its portfolio or regional sports rights while Amazon continues its push into sports broadcasting.

The NFL sees flag football as a path forward. Andrew Luck’s sudden retirement from the NFL sparked another round of debate surrounding football’s future. And a report from the National Federation of State High School Associations on sports participation indicating that nearly 71% of the 43,375 athletes who stopped competing between 2017-2018 were football players has only fanned the flames. Despite the downturn, JohnWallStreet reports that NFL COO Maryann Turcke is actively working to grow flag football participation. The barrier for entry is much lower for flag than it is for tackle because no equipment is needed, and playing will “help people to understand and love the game” – some of whom who will inevitably go on to play professionally. Turcke’s ultimate goal is to see flag football recognized as an Olympic sport in time for the 2020 Tokyo Games. She says that “making flag football a global sport will generate fandom for [the NFL] around the world.” It will also drive global revenue growth that will help the NFL reach its goal of doing $25 billion per year by 2027.

The Denver Broncos have inked a 21-year naming rights deal for their Mile High Stadium with retirement plan provider Empower Retirement. The agreement will see the team’s 76,000-seater home renamed Empower Field at Mile High until 2039. The Broncos have been on the hunt for a new stadium naming rights partner since their deal with Sports Authority came to an abrupt end in 2016 when the sports retailer went bankrupt. SportsBusiness Journal reports that Empower’s contract with the Broncos is similar to the terms the team had in place with Sports Authority, which paid a reported $6 million annually. The partnership will afford Empower significant national brand and media exposure through a mix of visibility on game days and throughout the year with signage, media placement, promotional opportunities, and hospitality. The deal further expands the business relationship between the two parties. Empower, which is based in Denver, has been a partner of the Broncos since 2015. The announcement comes ahead of the Broncos’ first game of the new NFL season, which sees them travel to the Oakland Raiders on September 9.

A-B InBev capitalized on last year’s Browns Bud Light "victory fridge" by putting new versions of the appliance "up for sale at 'B.L. & Brown’s Appliance Superstore' in Cleveland.” According to Ad Age, the refrigerators sold for $200 for a small size or $600 for a larger one, with proceeds going to the “Browns Give Back” charity. To promote the effort, Bud Light ran an “ad on Cleveland TV starring WWE personality, The Miz.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer notes the B.L. & Brown's Appliance Superstore actually "doesn't exist," as it is just a "vacant store front." The refrigerators will be the "only product sold in the store." The Miz, a noted Browns fan, was given an original "victory fridge" last year that opened when the team scored its first win of the season. The fridges sold out in just under three hours after going on sale last week. Browns players Myles Garrett and Jarvis Landry were on hand for the first – and last – day of sales.

Ahead of the NASCAR regular season finale, Kevin James to lead NASCAR comedy series on Netflix. Actor Kevin James is set to star in and executive produce a multi-camera comedy that has been ordered to series on Netflix. The show, titled “The Crew," will be set in a NASCAR garage with James playing the crew chief. When the owner steps down and passes the team off to his daughter, James finds himself at odds with the tech reliant millennials she starts bringing in to modernize the team. NASCAR senior director of content development Matt Summers and chief digital officer Tim Clark will be involved as executive producers. James is a big NASCAR fan and has served as grand marshal and given the command for drivers to start engines several times by himself, as well as with friends Adam Sandler and Shaquille O’Neal. This isn't the first time NASCAR has played a starring role in a comedy, but it's now been over a decade since Talladega Nights. The league's ambitions are clear: leverage pop culture to connect with young audiences.

Oracle launches a new series of lower-tier professional tennis tournaments across the U.S. As the American leg of the global pro tennis circuit drew to a close, Larry Ellison’s company announced the Oracle Pro Series, comprising approximately 25 new women’s tournaments and 25 new men’s tournaments, with the intention of providing American players with a better route to the top-tier ATP and WTA tours. Most of the tournaments will be staged as combined events, with equal prize money and many will take place on college campuses. The prize funds will range from $25,000 to $108,000 per competition. Crucially, according to the New York Times, ATP and WTA ranking points will be up for grabs at each of the tournaments, which will enable players to step up to tennis’ elite men’s and women’s circuits. The new series is to be managed by InsideOut Sports & Entertainment, the New York-based event production company founded by former World Number One player Jim Courier. Seven combined events will take place later this year in California, Florida, and Texas before the series begins in full next year.

Top Five Tech

The NFL joins TikTok to cater to Gen Z. According to TechCrunch, just ahead of the kickoff of the NFL’s 100th season, the social media video app and the league formed a partnership to launch of an official NFL account on TikTok. The deal also includes a series of NFL-themed hashtag challenges and other marketing opportunities for brands around the NFL content. The first hashtag challenge, #WeReady, encouraged fans to show pride for their favorite NFL team while using the hashtag. Several popular TikTok creators and NFL clubs also joined the fans in the challenge. The NFL’s TikTok account already features several videos, ranging from behind-the-scenes action to highlights, to funny memes and even inspirational content. This is a big step for the NFL, a league usually hesitant to jump into new media configurations. This is the first step to the NFL’s developing a tighter bond with younger generations of fans.

DRIVE by DraftKings looks to bring together an ecosystem of athletes, entrepreneurs, investors, and sports business professionals. According to Forbes, DRIVE hopes to accelerate the movement of sports industry professionals into high-tech ventures and, additionally, to serve as a bridge for startups that want to innovate with sports, media, and entertainment. The two main components of DRIVE are its Venture Studio and Athlete Network. The first of the two will create customized programs for early stage sports tech entrepreneurs while the latter will provide both active and former professional athletes as well as Olympians with opportunities and connections to explore careers as entrepreneurs and/or investors within the sports technology space. To kick off the new venture, the DRIVE venture will launch at the DraftKings headquarters in Boston. NFL All-Pro Arizona Cardinals Wide Receiver Larry Fitzgerald will serve on its board of advisors. The firm’s inaugural internship program has already drawn more than 25 athletes, and looks to aid those individuals who are making the transition off the court or field into their post sports life.

Manny Pacquiao creates his own cryptocurrency to sell his merchandise. The champion boxer announced his new currency, the “pac,” which behaves like a standard cryptocurrency and provides a digitally tradable token with a floating value secured by the fact that it's a visible-to-all and publicly traded value. According to The Verge, Pacquiao is launching the venture with help from the GCOX Group, a company in Southeast Asia that has developed a new model for celebrity tokens. Although Pacquiao is the guinea pig of this new form of celebrity cryptocurrency, singer Jason Derulo and English soccer star Michael Owen are reportedly also planning launches with GCOX. This will be a test to push the exchange market into other forms of trade outside of standard currencies and may work with the backing from star power such as that of the ultra-likable Pacquiao.

YouTube stars Logan Paul and KSI will make their professional boxing debut. Last year, the two online sensations faced each other in an exhibition fight that generated more than 1 million pay-per-view buys on YouTube. Now they will fight each other again – this time, in an official professional fight at in Logan’s hometown of Los Angeles at Staples Center on November 9. According to ESPN, the event will be a six-round cruiserweight fight streamed on DAZN and is sure to pack the house after last year’s sold out 57-57 majority draw that happened at Manchester Arena in KSI’s hometown of Manchester, England. They are both now professional boxers, have passed their required medical exams, and will meet at a launch news conference in Los Angeles on September 14, with another news conference to be scheduled in the United Kingdom. KSI and Paul have more than 40 million YouTube subscribers between them and should bring tons of new fans to the sport of boxing, while the sport’s traditional enthusiasts can relish undercard events that will feature an assortment of more established fighters in the boxing world.

HBO Sports and NFL Films are teaming on Belichick & Saban: The Art of Coaching, a feature-length film about the four-decade friendship between football coaches Bill Belichick and Nick Saban. According to Cynopsis Sports, the pair grant unprecedented camera access to their annual coaching retreat, where they share conversation about their interwoven history, admiration, coaching philosophies, and more. “Bill Belichick and Nick Saban have become the modern versions of Vince Lombardi and John Wooden – symbols of success not just in sports but in life,” said Ross Ketover, Chief Executive of NFL Films. “Their lessons on leadership are an inspiration; not just for those of us who love football but for anyone who wants to thrive at whatever passion they pursue.” The film is slated air in December on HBO. Belichick and Saban have both started their 2019 campaigns off with a bang, as Alabama handily won its first two games and the Patriots obliterated the Steelers 33-3 on Sunday night.

Power of Sports Five

Cleveland Indians pitcher Carlos Carrasco will donate $200 per strikeout for the rest of the season to childhood cancer research after just beating cancer himself. According to CBS Sports, Carrasco returned to the mound on September 3 for the first time since May 30 after he was diagnosed with leukemia. On top of being celebrated by his teammates for such a healthy and quick return, Carrasco came up with the new charity name to support his childhood cancer research: Punch Out Cancer with Cookie. As September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, it is only appropriate that Carrasco announced his charity during the final month of MLB’s regular season. Further, New Balance and other MLB partners play a role in donations to fight childhood cancer. The sporting goods company will even match donations made on punchoutcancerwithcookie.com to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital up to $200,000. After defeating his own form of cancer, it seems Carrasco isn’t taking any moment for granted and is already giving back to those similarly afflicted.

Former NFL player Mike Brown is using gaming as a way to modernize philanthropy. According to Black Enterprise, the former Colts linebacker created Win-Win after he observed an overall decline in the number of people donating to charity. Win-Win tackles this problem to help pro athletes, entertainers, and anyone with influence activate their fans to support causes they care about through games in which users pick winners for upcoming sporting events. After making picks, users donate to enter the competition and unlock unique perks and prizes like dinner with their favorite athlete – the activity becomes a mixture of gambling and philanthropy for a charity cause. To push his company to the next level, Brown recently launched an equity crowdfunding campaign for Win-Win to allow for fan investments. After exceeding his initial fundraising goal, he is now building the platform and launching new partnerships. By leveraging star power and the newest forms of technology into philanthropy, Brown looks to be a leader in sports philanthropy.

Steph and Ayesha Curry link up with PGA REACH to host their first charity golf tournament. According to NBC Sports, the first Stephen Curry Charity Classic will benefit the Currys’ "Eat. Learn. Play." Foundation and PGA REACH. On Monday, September 16, Curry will be joined by 50 teams of friends to participate in a team-based golf competition at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco with the goal to raise $1.3 million to benefit PGA REACH and his family’s foundation. The Curry’s “Eat. Learn. Play.” charity was launched earlier this year to create equal opportunities for every child by fighting to end childhood hunger, ensuring universal access to quality education, and enabling healthy, active lifestyles. Steph became involved with PGA REACH last year when the PGA asked him to become an official ambassador for the foundation's young pillar program, PGA Jr. League. The basketball star has his own mini-golf show, “Holey Moley,” and is backing up his new business venture with charity golf tournaments.

Greenland is combating their country’s melting ice with the world’s first electric racing series. According to Thomson Reuters, Greenland will be one of five climate-threatened locations to host the first Extreme E championship in 2021, the pioneering all-electric off-road racing. The Extreme E races will race in five of the world's remote environments, using the global appeal of motorsports to shine a spotlight on the biggest climate threats to the planet and see electric sport utility vehicles used in the events. In a 10-part “docu-sport” package, Extreme E will showcase electric SUVs in head-to-head races in areas suffering from environmental damage or under threat. Fox Sports has signed a multi-year broadcast deal. Currently, E Extreme is scouting four additional endangered locations that are facing climate threats such as deforestation, rising sea levels, desertification, and plastic pollution and will announce the locations in the near future. This is sports, tech, and activism coming into one to save the planet.

The new Roc Nation and NFL partnership will donate $400,000 to Chicago charities. The two charities that will receive the support are the Better Boys Foundation Family Services organization and the Crusher’s Club. According to Variety, both groups are designed to present local at-risk youth with alternatives to gang violence and criminal activity. The donation is attached to a free concert in a “Songs of the Season” series that featured Meek Mill, Meghan Trainor, and Rapsody in Chicago. The three performers, along with Chicago rapper Vic Mensa, will visit the programs this week. The event is the first in a planned Inspire Change series that will make similar donations in each NFL city. Songs of the Season is an initiative that will run throughout the season in which selected musicians will create and deliver a song to be integrated in all NFL promotions each month and their songs’ proceeds will go toward Inspire Change. Although Jay-Z took heat for partnering with the NFL, it seems that through his collaboration he will be able to make a large impact on social injustices.

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junker-town · 7 years

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How the Rockets made the wildest scheme in basketball analytics work

By Tim Cato | Published

Patrick Beverley talks to everyone. Go to a team practice, and his voice can be heard pinging around the floor. Find him after a game, and he’ll turn a weak question around on an unsuspecting reporter. Tell him a teammate attended a Beyoncé concert, something he says he would never do, and he’ll spend several minutes trying to figure out who it was. (It was James Harden, he finally deduces.)

Ninety minutes before the Rockets and the Grizzlies face each other in Houston in early March, Beverley starts talking to me.

“You going to chapel?”

Beverley is upbeat, even buoyant, as he sweeps through the locker room like he owns the place. In a sense, he does: the five-year veteran has seniority as the longest tenured Rocket, drafted in the second round a couple months before the Harden trade. Clearly, he doesn’t want me to feel left out.

I ask if I can be his plus-one.

“Yeah, come along!”

We both know it won’t happen. Media members aren’t allowed within the sacred confines of a pregame chapel service, typically a 10-minute affair involving both teams. But Beverley’s invitation was in good faith. He really wanted me to attend. He tries inviting a few more non-athletes in the room, before giving up and heading out the opposite door.

This expression of faith seems a bit antithetical in the context of the Houston locker room. After all, the Rockets aren’t just known as one of the league’s analytical pioneers, but have fully built their team off unfeeling data. The space where the players reside on game day is a reminder of those beliefs.

A long, continuous LED board stretches horizontally above the players’ lockers, alternatively displaying the league leaders in several advanced statistical categories. Where most teams play chronological footage of their opponent’s most recent game, the Rockets group various plays together, like pick-and-rolls and screens, and even show tendencies for the referee crew assigned to this game. It’s all a reminder that hard evidence is valued.

But faith has its place in the Houston locker room. Without the Rockets trusting that the system will yield results, they don’t believe their 55-win season and No. 3 seed could have happened.

“Our guys believe in our system,” says Monte McNair, the team’s vice president of basketball operations. “We hope there’s some grounding to it with our shot selection and the way we play. But certainly having our players believe not just that their shots are going in, but that their system can take them to the championship, is huge.”

Seconds after Beverley bounds out, Ryan Anderson strolls through the locker room. Where Beverley spills out infectious energy, Anderson is earnest and unassuming. He couldn’t have heard Beverly’s earlier invitation, but he sees me standing standing off to the side and extends a similar offer.

“You wanna go to chapel?”

The Rockets are not just the league’s most surprising team. They are a basketball laboratory conducting bold experiments beyond the boundaries of modern offensive efficiency. These are boundaries, mind you, that the Houston franchise has played a part in establishing over the past few years. This season’s Rockets have shattered three-point records and eschewed mid-range shots even more than years past. The league has been trending in this direction for years, but the Rockets have taken the movement and fueled it with nitrous.

Two seasons ago, Houston set the league’s record for three-point attempts, only to obliterate that record by attempting nearly 500 more this season. They have taken only 579 mid-range shots — inside the arc, outside the paint — total this year, by far the lowest among all 30 teams. In fact, four players around the league have taken more shots from the mid-range individually than Houston has as a team.

None of that inherently matters, except for the fact that it works. The Rockets have the league’s third-best record and would be on course to set a new standard for offensive efficiency if it wasn’t for those pesky Golden State Warriors. What’s fascinating is that the Rockets have doubled down on their offensive approach while retrenching around a singular star.

It was only a year ago that the Rockets were unceremoniously ousted from the postseason by those Warriors after a long, dismal season of infighting and disinterest. Harden and Dwight Howard resented each other, which essentially forced their teammates to choose sides. The reaction once their season mercifully ended could be summed up in a phrase: good riddance.

The team felt it necessary to conduct a top-down evaluation of their entire approach in order to regain their footing as one of the West’s top teams. General manager Daryl Morey has always viewed basketball through a progressive lens, but with a struggling defense and a dismal conclusion, common sense pointed to the Rockets taking a more traditional approach after last offseason’s debacle. Instead, Morey ripped up conventionality, lit it on fire, and launched it into the Gulf of Mexico. Still, McNair told me even the Rockets weren’t expecting the team to be this good.

After chapel, once congregating players revert back from parishioners to competitors, the Rockets launch 42 threes and make 18 of them, pushing Memphis and their traditional big man basketball into a quicker pace than they’re accustomed to playing. The Rockets score 123 points in a double-digit win and that isn’t even Houston’s best ball.

“We can play better,” Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni says post-game.

D’Antoni’s hiring last May put this year’s experiment in motion. You don’t hire the virtuoso who conducted the famed “Seven Seconds or Less” offense for the mid-2000s Phoenix Suns to play conventionally. In D’Antoni’s last two coaching stops with the Knicks and the Lakers, players hadn’t bought all the way into the quick-tempoed dogma. But the success of the Warriors, who played a similar style, inspired D’Antoni to give it another try. With Houston, he found the perfect situation.

“They’d been playing this way for a while and they wanted to go to even another level,” D’Antoni tells me after a shoot-around. “They know that’s what I believe in.”

With D’Antoni on board, the next item on Morey’s agenda was free agency. Morey had no qualms letting Howard walk, replacing him with a platoon of Clint Capela and Nene. He then doubled down on the offensive end by signing Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon, two shooters hardly known as defensive stalwarts.

“This is the team we have,” D’Antoni told the team in one of their first meetings. “These are the weapons we have, so let’s utilize them.”

The most important piece, however, was already on the roster. One of the first things D’Antoni did was broach Harden with the idea of playing point guard. Though the 6’5 guard had consistently handled the ball throughout his career, he had never been given total autonomy over an offense. D’Antoni used every trick in the book to convince him.

“Groveling, begging, I’m old and he felt sorry for me,” D’Antoni says. “I thought it was good for him and his career, but also mainly, because I thought we could win that way. And he wasn’t reluctant at all.”

Two seasons after coming in second in the Most Valuable Player award voting to Stephen Curry, the move has made Harden a leading MVP candidate again. He posted career highs in points (29.1) and assists (11.2) while still tying his most efficient season ever, with a True Shooting Percentage of 61.3. His 53-point, 16-rebound, 17-assist game in December revealed the ceiling of his ridiculous play, but even Harden’s off games still helped the offense.

His presence and playmaking benefit players like Anderson and Gordon, who often can be found spotting up several feet behind the arc. If a defense shifts too far in hopes of containing Harden, he can find shooters within moments. Stay home, and Capela is an effective dunker on the roll. Mess up on defense even for a moment and Harden has his choice between the two. The results have been exactly according to plan: open threes and easy dunks.

“James has really brought out the best in everybody,” D’Antoni says. “He’s the key. You can’t do it without him. You can have all these nice ideas, but it can’t be translated without him. He’s been terrific.”

Instead of standing pat or looking for more defensive help at the trade deadline, Morey dealt for Lou Williams, one of the league’s top bench scorers. The Rockets ramped up their offense even higher, finishing the season scoring even more points and launching more 3s at opposing defenses.

In making the trade, the Rockets said: Screw it, we’ll just score even more.

They have bought in fully to Morey and D’Antoni’s system, putting their faith not just in the numbers, but themselves.

Morey once believed multiple superstars was the only way to a championship. It’s why the team originally signed Howard, and the reason they appeared to be hours away from securing Chris Bosh in 2014 the following summer. That mindset changed and Houston accepted Harden as their sole superstar. Now the second best player on any given night is, “Whoever the other team doesn’t want to guard as heavily,” as Anderson put it.

There is, however, a downside. One game later when facing the Spurs, a likely second-round playoff opponent, Harden has an extraordinary first half before he is swallowed up by Kawhi Leonard in the second. When Harden struggles in the fourth quarter, San Antonio narrowly wins. Harden refutes that the Spurs — or anyone — can bring the Rockets away from their quick-paced, fast-moving style. Houston did manage 110 points in the loss, after all.

“We’re going to get shots,” he says. “We’re going to play our game no matter who we play.”

D’Antoni introduced a mantra into the locker room when he arrived in Houston, and it has stuck with his team all year. So what? What’s next?

As it happened, what came next was another loss, this time back at home against the Utah Jazz. But D’Antoni isn’t flustered after the game, and indeed, it was one of only four times all season that the Rockets lost consecutive games. Later, D’Antoni compares his team to a casino table in Las Vegas.

“It’s a little bit like a pit boss,” he says. “You’ll have runs against you. You’ll have people who start winning hands. But your odds are, you keep building hotels. You’re the winner. You’re not going to beat the house. We don’t feel like they’re going to beat us. In one game, yeah, they might win, we might lose a game, this and that. But we think, over the long haul, they’re not beating us.”

That’s the science. But D’Antoni knows as well as anyone that championships aren’t won without all the cards falling in the right order a few times. His Suns teams never even made the finals, something that requires the ultimate convergence of luck, timing, talent and chemistry. Not all of those are factors a team can control.

The myth that jump shooting teams can’t win championships is dead, dispelled by the Warriors (and really, the 2011 Mavericks before them). Jump shots will ebb and flow in the regular season, but the Rockets trust that their mathematically proven strategy will win out over the long run. Threes, after all, will always be greater than twos.

Houston’s three-point approach, the team believes, puts them in a position to beat anyone in the playoffs. The rest is out of their hands, especially against opponents that might be slightly better on paper than them. Catch the Warriors or Spurs on a good shooting night, and anything could happen. Can it happen over a seven-game series? It’s a final test that they only partially control.

That’s why the Rockets allow every player to find their own way to fit into Houston’s scientific, data-driven approach. Basketball can be viewed through numbers, but it isn’t a computer simulation. The Rockets, as brought together by Morey and D’Antoni, push boundaries supported by tangible evidence and are as grounded in mathematics as any team we’ve previously seen. Still, it couldn’t live without the players who collectively provide the team its heart.

To answer the age old question: can science and faith coexist? In Houston, they’re proving it must.

Before the team played San Antonio, I received one more invitation to join the team at chapel, this time from Sam Dekker.

“If you care to join, come on down. It’s a good time.”

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