The Houston Rockets’ demoralizing loss to the Los Angeles Lakers has sparked the latest round of the “this style doesn’t work” conversation, which crops up anytime a team tries something different and fails to win a championship.
For the most part, these discussions are reductive and silly. They came in droves when Mike D’Antoni’s “Seven Seconds or Less” Phoenix Suns lost, as if it was his offensive system that caused key players to leave the bench during an altercation and get slapped with automatic suspensions.
As it turned out, that “style” worked just fine — its major concepts were adopted by teams that ended up winning championships, including the San Antonio Spurs, Golden State Warriors and Dallas Mavericks.