Which Rockets benefit most with CP3 running the offense in place of Harden?

The Houston Rockets have an extremely unique situation:

1. They have one of the most powerful offensive systems in the NBA, designed by offensive guru Mike D'Antoni, that is built on the idea of a central offensive engine that is surrounded by high-efficiency finishers.

2. They have a team full of players who either shoot the 3-pointer or finish at the rim on a large variety of their possessions, but who can't do much to create for themselves. This personnel was brought in by general manager Daryl Morey, utilizing one of the most analytics-heavy front offices in the NBA.

3. They currently have two MVP-caliber offensive engines on the roster, both of whom are also excellent finishers, to give the entire unit both redundancy and added potency.

The Rockets have played 21 games with both of their MVP engines, James Harden and Chris Paul, in the lineup next to each other. They are 19-2 in those games, and the two losses include the last game in which Paul got injured and left after 25 minutes, and the first game in which Paul was back after that injury, when he played only 26 minutes.

Thus, the argument could be made that the Rockets are actually undefeated in games in which both Harden and Paul have been able to play at full strength for an entire game. That's heady stuff when you're talking about a quarter of a season's worth of data.

However, the Rockets currently find themselves in a different situation that is unique for them: playing without Harden. Harden had played 81, 82 and 81 games in the three seasons before this one, and he had played in all 35 of the Rockets' first games this season before his hamstring injury. Thus, for the first time in the Rockets' D'Antoni era, we get to see what they look like for several weeks without The Beard running the show. But again, their redundancy means that their current team is still being run by an MVP-caliber lead guard. So, the question is: How do the Rockets, and their fantasy fortunes, change with Paul at the helm instead of Harden?

Let's start with how they are similar. Both Paul and Harden are ball-dominant ball-handlers, which means that they each tend to spend a large part of a possession dribbling the ball and trying to create team offense off their own handle. Both are also excellent as the ball-handler in the pick-and-roll/pop game, and that play is a mega-staple of the Rockets' offense. According to Second Spectrum, Harden's 1,668 picks in the pick-and-roll/pop game are the most in the NBA, and Paul's 833 pick plays in only 24 games has him consuming pick-and-roll/pop picks at almost the same rate.

Thus, whether Harden or Paul is running the show, we'd expect to see them with the ball in their hands, creating the majority of the shots for either themselves or their teammates and operating a large percentage of the time off the on-ball pick.

However, where they differ is that Paul is a true point guard in the traditional sense of the word, whereas Harden is a lead guard who can handle the ball and has court vision but is first and foremost a scorer. These differences are apparent in their individual box score statistics but also play a big part in what to expect from their teammates with each at the helm. Here are their individual stats this season, normalized per 100 possessions:

Harden: 43.1 points (12.7/28.2 FG, 12.1/14.0 FT, 5.5/14.2 3-pointers), 12.1 assists, 5.9 turnovers

Paul: 26.2 points (8.8/19.6 FG, 4.6/4.9 FT, 3.9/9.8 3-pointers), 14.1 assists, 3.9 turnovers

Harden is a mega-volume scorer who scores heavily from behind the arc or at the rim (read: free throws) and is also a very good playmaker with strong volume and about a 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Paul, on the other hand, is a mega-distributor at very high volume with an absurd assist-to-turnover ratio of more than 3:1 who also happens to be a very good scorer but provides more action from the midrange than Harden. Paul is one of the best midrange shooters in the NBA, and he has expanded his 3-point profile to fit more into how the Rockets play. But he just doesn't score at the same individual volume nor efficiency, because he doesn't shoot as many 3s nor draw nearly as many free throws as Harden does.

These differences translate faithfully into how the Rockets perform with the two of them at the helm. Because the D'Antoni system is the same, and the personnel is the same, we'd expect that the team would continue to shoot a lot of 3-pointers and operate primarily as finishers. But with Paul, who provides better skills as a floor general but lesser individual scoring volume, we would expect that more of those 3-pointers and shots would be spread among the other players on the team, with more team assists and fewer turnovers. And, through the first three games of Harden's absence, we've seen that play out.

On the season, the Rockets have averaged 15.8 made 3-pointers on 36.5 percent shooting, 25.8 free throw attempts, 22.4 assists and 15.1 turnovers.

In the three games without Harden, they're averaging 15.7 3-pointers on 35.9 percent shooting, 18.0 free throw attempts, 24.7 assists and 12.7 turnovers. Thus far, spot-on expectation. And since Paul's scoring production hasn't increased to fill the vacuum (17.3 points, 3.0/7.3 3-point attempts), it means that he is setting up the other Rockets to increase their scoring volume from downtown. And thus far, it's been the new guy who is getting the lion's share of the new looks.

Gerald Green, who has been on the Rockets for only six games, has averaged a whopping 12.3 3-point attempts per game since Harden went down. He has translated that to averages of 23.7 points (7.7-15 FG, 2-2 FT) with 6.3 3-pointers and four rebounds per game. He has joined Paul and Eric Gordon (20.7 points, 7.7-17.7 FG, 2.7-3.7 FT, 2.7-8.7 3-pointers, 6.7 assists, 3.7 rebounds, 1.7 steals in past three games without Harden) as the primary fantasy impact players on the Rockets thus far.

However, again, it must be pointed out that the Rockets are full of finishers who could work off of Paul, and it has been only three games thus far. According to Second Spectrum, when Paul plays pick-and-roll/pop with either Clint Capela 1.098 points/chance, 284 picks) or Ryan Anderson (1.024 points/chance, 139 picks), it generates more points per shot than either do when they are running the play with Harden. Thus, they are two other candidates to potentially up their production while Harden sits, with Paul running the ship.

On the whole, when a team is missing the likely MVP front-runner in Harden, they are going to experience a falloff in overall quality. However, when it comes to fantasy fortunes, replacing Harden with Paul for a few weeks could actually lead to boosts in the production of several of the Rockets players. So far, it has been Green who has received the biggest bump in value, but there are other finishers on the roster who could end up benefiting from playing next to CP3, so keep an eye on the upcoming box scores.