The Rockets have won 4 out of 5 games that Ben McLemore has started this season. This fuels my theory that McLemore might be the “secret sauce” for Houston. If you are not familiar with the concept of “secret sauce”, “secret sauce” is when you have a really great sauce recipe that you use to knock people’s socks off at potlucks and when they ask you how you made your tuna casserole so good you say “that’s my little secret” while smirking like a douchebag. God dammit Linda. Just tell me how you make your god-damn tuna casserole so god-damn addictive.
“Secret sauce” can also refer to a player who may not seem vital to a team’s success, but is secretly a key cog of the team’s machinery. Is McLemore that kind of player? I don’t think we have enough data points to say for sure, yet. I tend to lean towards James Harden being the “secret sauce”, except his scoring exploits are no secret, so I guess he’d just be the “sauce”.
In any case, McLemore seems to be a totally different player when he gets to start. He’s now had three 20-point games this season, as well as a 14-point game, all of them while starting. His highest point total in the 15 games off the bench? 14. I like Danuel House a lot, but it doesn’t seem like he’s as reliant on being a starter as McLemore, so I would move him to the bench and start McLemore from here on out.
Which would complete the redemption story arc of McLemore’s career, from top pick to bust to out of the league to barely back in the league to starter on an elite Western Conference team. If someone, you know, wrote a novel about all that (not a memoir though), I’d totally read it. And it can’t be me writing it, before you get any ideas. I can’t write anything longer than a thousand words or so.