Ariza was the scapegoat for the previous year... Luc was and is damaged goods... Knight/Ennis moves were to appease cheap Tilman... Smallball MDA is your coach - and wasnt Moreys choice.. Morey has his shortcomings... but this is a quagmire of stubborn mindsets running this team... imo...
Luc has sucked since he left Houston. Ariza wasn't worth $15 million and hasn't been the same guy since he left Houston either. And Tucker was pretty much the PF when they almost won the title in 2018, so I'm not sure what your point was there. If you want to fault Morey for anything, it should be the Ryno signing, which led to Knight/Chriss and losing a first rounder. If he's made a mistake in the last four years, that was it. But he was also operating in an offseason where no marquee free agents wanted to come to Houston and was trying to build a contender by gambling. The D'Antoni and Gordon gambles worked. The Ryno gamble didn't. But if he hadn't gambled that offseason and revamp the team to create one of the best offenses in NBA history, they never get Paul and they never become the team they became in 2017-18.
Each and every true fan's goal is to enjoy watching their team and being a fan. Winning a ring would be great, but the moment following the Rockets or any sports franchise becomes painful, I'm out. You don't get paid if they win a chip, so why do you care? I enjoy the hell out of watching this team on the court. Harden, WB, Tucker, the whole gang is awesome. I love watching Morey blow everyone else's mind with his moves. I love D'As creativity and the balls to try new things that no one else thinks will work (Harden at PG? Harden & CP3 in the same backcourt? ISO heavy offense when everyone else is passing? Getting WB to play efficient Rockets bastketball? Starting an entire team 6' 6" or less for the first time since 1963?). But most of all, I enjoyed when Morey, D'A and Harden decided to go all in trying to beat the unbeatable Warriors when everyone else was tanking for the future. This team has HUGE balls and is filled with winners who don't need our approval or permission to be great. A ring isn't necessary to enjoy that. Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE a ring to cement Harden's genius as a player and D'As genius as a coach and Morey's genius as a GM. But there was only 1 team in the past 5 years that made the finals out of the West. Enjoy the journey, not the destination. Because the destination for 14 of the 15 teams in the west for the past half decade has been an early exit from the playoffs.
Preach on. If your sports rooting interests revolve around "If we don't win a ring we suck and it's a waste of time" you're going to be really upset 99% of the time.
The only thing I'll really fault him for is his weird obsession with certain players: - Carmelo - key to championship formula - 2009 draft guys - bottom of the barrel guys like MCW, Knight, Chriss, - former players like Lin, Caboclo --> he really seems to have sellers remorse - short centers - Tristan Thompson
You don't sign Ariza for $15M, full stop. Hell, you don't even sign him for $10M. Luc has been complete **** since he has left Houston, so why are you bringing him up? Trading Ennis ended up kind of sucking, but it's not like he was solid while we had him. So many fans were frustrated by his undisciplined D. Lots of things went wrong last season, but very few of them were on Morey. DM was just trying to patch the holes on the ship.
Lol. The fish stinks from his head. If Morey had the picks and contracts to actually operate like pretty much every other gm had these days, he would've likely improved the team by getting some players. Too bad since Tilman has been here, he literally had to waste every single pick and contract to avoid the tax, it's not a coincidence Morey always made great trades, and as soon as Tilman has been here he suddenly started to lose every trade. In 24 months we literally depleted every single asset we had, and all in order to save money.
Feels like his goal isn’t to improve the team anymore but to either make a splash or get under the tax. Guys like Pat Riley are running circles around Morey.
Tilman needs to stop trying to play both sides. Just admit he wants to save money trade harden and Westbrook too. I can see the rockets being like the MJ hornets for the foreseeable future after these guys leave.