Nylon Calculus: Who plays center for the Rockets now?

The Rockets pulled off a big trade to land Robert Covington. But how do they man the center position without Clint Capela?

The Rockets celebrated the NBA Trade Deadline a few hours early, helping arrange a four-team deal that sent Clint Capela to the Hawks and returned Robert Covington. It’s a fairly significant shift for Houston, sending out the one true center who had been playing meaningful minutes. (Tyson Chandler is on the roster and could see an increased role, but he’s only played 219 minutes this season.)

As The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor pointed out, Capela’s role in the Rockets’ offense as a screener and rim-runner has declined over the past few years as the team has moved towards isolation. Putting four shooters around James Harden and Russell Westbrook makes sense but it presents a number of defensive concerns. Houston has allowed 115.8 points per 100 possessions in the minutes Capela has been on the bench and this leaves without any real option for going big against certain matchups.

The Rockets might be able to pick up another big off the buyout market but if that doesn’t materialize they’ll obviously be relying on Covington and Tucker, collectively to handle bigs on defense. They already do this plenty. Covington has spent almost half his defensive possessions this season matched up with 4s or 5s — 34.9 percent on 4s, 15 percent on 5s, both career-highs. Tucker’s defensive position splits are similar — 34.5 percent of his possessions on 4s, 16.8 percent on 5s.

However, spending more time on centers, specifically, is a different animal. Especially when thinking forward to hypothetical playoff matchups where it’s easier to repeatedly target a specific weakness. The tables below cover the past three years and show the defensive matchup stats for Tucker and Covington when defending some of the bigs the Rockets could run into on their way to a Finals appearance.

These are small sample sizes, especially for Covington but the numbers are … not pretty, like to the point of absurdity. The individual scoring numbers for the offensive bigs here aren’t as relevant as the team scoring numbers. The issue isn’t just the ability of Covington and Tucker to keep opposing bigs from scoring, it’s how the entire defense can be compromised by trying to stop those bigs. This is a particular concern with an elite passer like Jokic, who has averaged 13.2 assists per 100 possessions over the last three years when defended by Tucker or Covington. The Rockets have split their four games with Denver this season by are minus-8 in the 25 they played with Capela on the bench while Jokic was on the floor.

Given the evolution of their offense, Covington is probably more valuable to the Rockets than Capela at that end of the floor. And he’ll instantly be the best defensive tool they have to deal with bigger wings like LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. But it’s going to take some enormous developments in luck, strategy and execution to not give that value right back to a dominant scheme-warping big at the other end.