Over the summer the Houston Rockets joined in the free-agency frenzy by adding three new players to there rotation in Eric Gordon, Nene, and Ryan Anderson. Nene and Eric Gordon have turned into helpful role players for the Rockets, but the former New Orleans Pelican stretch forward has been a different story. Ryan Anderson was the biggest splurge of the summer for the Rockets, signing to a 4 year/$80 million deal, and was the player Rockets fans were most excited for.Anderson has been an every day starter this year and was expected to be the strongest compliment to James Harden, but early signs this season show a downgrade in play from last year. Although it is still early in the season, the metrics for Ryan Anderson’s performance this year merit concern.

New Role

Let’s start with the situation last year in New Orleans that earned Ryan Anderson an $80 million dollar contract. Anderson served as a backup to Anthony Davis, one of the league’s premier big men, and was very productive in his role coming off the bench. He averaged 17 points a game with 6 rebounds in 30 minutes coming off the bench last year. The situation Anderson was in was that when he was on the floor with the bench as part of the second unit. He was one of the highest usage players and produced as such as part of the bench, but when he was on the floor with Anthony Davis, a high usage player, his usage dipped as well as his production. Let’s put that situation into perspective for this year, as the 553 minutes Anderson has played as a Rocket, he has shared 511 of those with James Harden. James Harden is one of the highest usage players in the league and since Anderson’s playing most of his minutes with him, his usage has taken a significant step down as well as his production. Anderson is is averaging 5 less points, less rebounds, and less assists, all while averaging the same number of minutes as last year. This is a new role that must take adjusting for Anderson playing in a similar situation, usage-wise, that he played with last year when Anthony Davis was on the floor with him, turning Anderson into a much more of a supplemental piece than the main man on the floor. To summarize this, some of Anderson’s setbacks as an offensive player this year can be explained to his new role in always playing with a high usage player (Harden) rather than being the primary figure in the second unit last year.

Statistical Downgrade

More worrying is, Ryan Anderson has also been struggling in categories that have nothing to do with what type of usage he has in the offense. Using ESPN’s defensive Real Plus-Minus stat, we see Anderson ranked as the fourth worst defensive power forward in the league, a little worse than last year in that metric. Another ESPN metric, John Hollinger’s Player Efficiency Rating, show that Anderson is the ninth most efficient player on the Houston Rockets out of eleven eligible players. Even K.J. McDaniels is averaging a higher PER than Anderson’s 11.92, compared to last year’s rating of 17.3 for Anderson. Ryan Anderson is also averaging a a 40.3 field goal percentage, which is lowest of any of the first or second unit players on the Rockets.These numbers could be signs of adapting to a new team, but still, these numbers,with almost a quarter of the year gone are becoming increasingly alarming for a player held in high regard coming into the year.

Going Forward

I’m not suggesting a move to the bench for Ryan Anderson is what needs to happen, but whatever gives the team the best chance to win in the long haul is the play that needs to be made. After all, Anderson performed his best last year coming off the bench with the second unit, but you still don’t want to be paying that kind of money for someone not a starter. I would give it until the new year before any kind of move should be considered by head coach Mike D’Antoni, and some positive regression should hit the 8 year veteran to improve his stats. Ryan Anderson needs to start performing at a level closer to last year to leverage some of the weight of the offense off of James Harden and not Harden’s performance dictate the outcome of the game so much. I’m not sure what role Ryan Anderson will have in this offense come April, but he needs to become a bigger piece of this offense and start producing as such to make the Rockets title contenders.