Morey on 790 and 610 to talk about Chandler Parsons leaving

Except Chandler Parsons doesn't grow on trees. Go ahead and sign a bunch of great value guys at 3-5 mill.

Fans can then shut up about how player a,b,c doesnt deserve their money. But then you'll have a team go nowhere because those 3-5 mill guys dont make game changing impacts. Unless you got a coach that can utilize them in a way that does.

 

Dirk is a very good defender when they won the title. People thought he is soft, but he becomes very good. You can follow JVG comments on Dirk if you do the google search.

Shaq played defense too when he is needed.

Both Love and Harden refuses to play defense, so we know Love is going to leave, and Harden is not, so logically, our coach should be gone, why is he still here?

 

Yep. He's saying exactly what I and others have been saying on here. This star-chasing philosophy comes from Les, not Morey. And he also noted how we're approaching 2 decades of futility proving that this isn't working.

 

Right, if Morey ran OKC, that means he would've asked Ibaka to take a hike, who thinks that's a good idea?

 

Pure speculatin

 

Serge Ibaka is a better player than Parsons. I would guess Morey considers Ibaka to be in the elite category. Whatever metric you want to use, PER, VA, EWA, Win Shares, RPM, etc., Ibaka is a better player.

 

790: How does it feel this morning after you guys came so close to having Bosh Parsons and possibly best team in the NBA?
DM: It was a tough weekend. We are still in a good position with two top 10 players in the team. We were very close to having the best team in the NBA.
790: JVG was on Cp's show saying that if you got CB4 and mathced CP25, you would have the best team in the NBA. Did CB4's camp tell you guys that he would come to Houston if LBJ went to Cleveland.
DM: It was very close. CB's camp CAA was very professional. We had the offer out there, he seemed extremely likely to take that. While that looked likely, we had to deal Lin to make that happen. lakers had a time line and had to make that move happen. Chris was definitely coming if Miami does not put all 5 years and a huge offer at the last last minute. We are just focussed on winning the title. Disappointed in losing in the 1st round. We are trying to make an NBA champion, not 2nd round and exit, 3rd round and exit. We are focussed on putting together 3 elite players and if you look at nBA history that is what it takes to get a champion for the most part. We have now got a pick, a guaranteed lottery pick basically something like what we got James Harden. We are still a top 4 team in the West.
790: Are you more likely to add that 3rd superstar through a trade and not a superstar?
DM: We have huge flexibilty this year, we are just going to keep swinging. Every move we makes is to see if we can have a better chance to make a championsion. It comes down to whether Howard-Harden-Cp25 gives you a chance to win a title versus our chance without him plus Ariza and all the other things we cna do to upgrade the team this year.
790: I know you expected market to be aggressive for CP25, did you expect a max deal for him?
DM: I am very happy for CP25. He worked very hard here in Houston. I am very happy for him, great person, great player. The contract CP25 got, Mavs are a smart organization, they obviously wanted to get him. That structure they had was literally one of the most untraded structures I have seen. Comes down to whether Harden Howard Parsons core is good enough. Make no mistake I think Parsons is a trmendous player but we lose all felxibility. That core would have to be the core we have. If we ever wanted to go after a different core, it would never be possible. IT was that vs Howard, Harden, Ariza plus all other moves we can do. We would have to bet on that team or all the multiple other scenarios
790: How has Ariza improved?
DM: We realy believed in Ariza when we signed him. We felt like we had to move intoa different mode when the Yao Tracy mode broke up. We really believe in him. He is long, one of the good wing defenders, he has improved his 3 point shooting and a perfect fit next to James Harden. We need to pair Harden next to a perimeter defender so we have a chance to be a top 10 defense. Last time we were not a top 10 D because our perimeter D wasn't good. We now have 3 of 5 plus defenders in the starting line up.
790: When exactly did you start talking to Ariza's camp?
DM: We had to play out every scenario. We really felt like the Bosh Parsons thing was going to happen and we would have been the favorites to win the title. We went to 4/1 if you look at the Vegas odds on the title if that happened. We were sort of swining for the fences. We did it with Harden and Howard and sometimes you miss. The key for us to always be in the game. We basically talked to every FA because of the different scenarios.
790: In your honest opinion are oyu better or worse than last season squad?
DM: I feel like we will be a better squad when we get to the playoffs. We have young players who are improving - Daniels will be abck, Bev, Jones, Johnson, DMO. We have full mid level, BAE, lottery pick similar to Harden pick and a lot of flexibilty. We will be a better team come palyoff tiem than last year.
790: What expectations do you ahve for Nick Johnson?
DM: He looks very good at this poitn. We look for guys to be big contributors in their 2nd year. Looking for Canaan to be a big factor this year. Nick is looking like a pearl right from the go like CP25. Reality is if you want to win the title you need to be the team that finds the CP25 not the team that gives the Parsons' type a max contract. If you look at the Spurs, they got their big 3 guys and then find guys who are young and surround them well. They don't go chasing every big time agent. We can;t turn the great decision of drafting Cp25 into a bad decision by matching that contract of Cp25.

Transcript here: http://www.sports790.com/articles/houston-sports-news-478486/rockets-gm-daryl-morey-talks-free-12561208

 

Ibaka plays elite defense. His offense is ok and can be offset by Westbrook and Durant.

 

Elite defense is still elite. Parsons isn't elite at anything.

 

That is a lesson. We are very lucky to have Howard with the help of Kobe. Otherwise, Howard would be in LA. Houston is not a place for a big free agent. This year free agent market demonstrates it again. It is a time to do something differently.

 

Oh definitely. I was agreeing with you. :grin:

 

Recap of 610 interview?

 

While I agree this is on Morey, it's also on Parsons and his agent. This RFA blunder didn't happen accidentally. I think Parsons and Fegan set Morey up. Letting Parsons out of that 4th year was such a non-Morey move. Why would he decline that? Good question.

Morey could have kept Parsons for $1mil for 1 year but instead he chose to let him test RFA. The general consensus is that it was a calculated risk to keep him long term rather than let him walk in UFA. Others think it was a favor to Parsons and Fegan for engineering Dwight to Houston.

But is it possible that Parsons plotted with his new agent to get him out of town long before this all went down? Could that be why he hired Fegan in the first place? We know Parsons had been visiting Morey in his office for years, trying to figure out a way to get paid early. We know now that Parsons has a grossly inflated view of himself and it seems in hindsight that he's been wanting to be in Dallas all along.

Parsons felt slighted the Rockets didn't consider him to be the "third superstar" and had been wanting out. He admitted as much yesterday. Perhaps Fegan guilted Morey into letting Chandler out of his last year for getting Dwight to Houston. Knowing Morey though, he's all about value contracts. I think it would take more than that for him to decline it. My theory is Fegan basically told Morey, "Let my client test RFA early or else I'll make sure he walks as a UFA".

Morey's big blunder here could be either caving to that pressure or simply not realizing that Fegan was covertly orchestrating Parsons' exit with Mark Cuban. Fegan and Cuban are apparently close according to folks on these boards. Marc Stein reported yesterday that Fegan was pushing for certain contract terms specifically because he knew Houston wouldn't match. That doesn't sound like the agent of someone who wants to play for the Rockets. At all. If Morey had known Parsons had wanted out all along he never would have declined that team option.

While it's likely I have the circumstances wrong, it's clear that Parsons, Fegan and Cuban all played Morey on this one. That's what Daryl gets for having a moment of weakness and forgetting these contracts are assets.

 

Sorry I thought he was living off of trading Rafer Alston for Kyle Lowry. Dealing Lowry for a lottery pick that turned into James Harden.... trading for Dragic.... convincing Howard to sign.... finding Patrick Beverley in Russia... drafting Parsons in the second round.... trading for Artest... and another dozen things.

 

he is right
parsons doesn't worth the max
problem is ... spurs have their big 3
we don't

 

He says the Lin deal with the Lakers was about to be pulled off the table by Kupchak, which is why he sent that him off first without a commitment from Bosh.
He said Bosh was close to "ours" until that extra year came from Miami.

 

Still can't believe he pointed to the Spurs. The only reason Parker and Ginobili were considered part of a "Big 3" is because they won a championship with Duncan. Had Morey drafted those guys would he have ever looked at them as part of his "core" or tried to flip them for a superstar, max contract type? They weren't that great in their first couple of years.

 

I understand the sentiment here, but it basically just says that we'll never retain good role players, which also means the team will have a difficult time developing any sort of chemistry with a constantly changing lineup. The team will just constantly be chasing its tail.

 

Huh? How did you get all that?

We will retain the role players once we get the elite core of 3. If we had gotten Bosh we would have matched and have our team set for awhile.

And this chemistry stuff seems pretty overrated. We won 54 games last year.

What kills chemistry is signing bad players.

 

Quote is out of context. He was fine to pay whatever Parsons wanted basically if they got Bosh.