Morey Talks Latest Roster Moves & Much More on 790

CLUTCHFANS SHOUTOUT!

 

Hmm, who could be this free agent he is talking about?

 

Wait did Morey really just say Luhdow has a hotter wife than him?

 

Type up recap 4 LIKES. Thx

 

Paging the machine @J.R.

 

Naw I think he was saying Luhdow brings in players (Verlander) who have hot wives, still a weird ass thing to say

Also, didn't know the Green addition was all Hardens idea.

 

Lets you know that Harden truly is devoted to the Rockets. Look I know his playoff "struggles" but man this dude wants to win it for the Rockets.

 

Ok that makes more sense but yea that was awkward.

 

J.R. must be down for maintenance. Or he's got us so spoiled that we cant' abide the absence of a transcript.

 

(Have you disciplined Chris Paul for taking/making mid-range shots) We let our players be free flowing in the offense. That's why we have the #1 offense ever right now. We have good players. I don't get involved. Mike does everything.

(He seems to be pretty good at coaching) He does seem to be. I remember some skeptics.

(When you do something like this, is it more for you guys or as much to keep them off other rosters?) More for us. We do think about it at times. There was a free agent we were pursuing this year, that was part of it. They always have to fit with you. If another team that's important you're going against doesn't get them, that's the cherry on top.

(Role for Joe?) Good player. Mike coached him, knows him well. Sometimes the analysis doesn't have to go beyond that. Obviously it's not a trade, not a free agent signing so no constraint you're working against, there's no trade off so generally when we can get a player who can help, we'll add him. Mike is one of the best at making it all work together.

(Nothing against the guys you let go.) We're all in on this year. We have a good development program, young players like Zhou Qi, Hartenstein, R.J. Hunter, we have good young players but right now we're focused on this year.

(Retire Bobby Brown's jersey?) Bobby did a hell of a job for us. I only have good things to say about him.

(There's a love affair between this organization & him) We love colors so start with that. He's close to James, Chris, Trevor, others on the team. Did a nice job all year keeping the group together. We would have loved to keep him the entire year but when you have a chance for Joe/Brandan, that squeezed that opportunity.

(Did you get a kick out of how many people took what you said about being obsessed with the Warriors & ran with it?) He's right, anything you say now, it's a gotchya. You go on shows, people don't listen to the shows, but what gets the widest play is someone listening later, finding the gotchya moment, putting a very misleading headline on it & that's it. They should at least link to the original podcast. You have to get used to it. If it happens, it happens. I just want to have multiple rings & I can come into work and be like "What the hell am I going to do today? I don't know. I'll just let someone else do my job today. Today, I'm just gonna look at trophies." I'm looking forward to that day if it ever comes. I'm still waiting for #1. I'm jealous of the Astros who had such a great year this year. ... Someone pointed out today, we have the #1 offense ever. The Astros had the #1 offense ever. Verlander was pretty good down the stretch. I have failed relative to the Astros & Jeff Luhnow in the spouse area. Jeff Luhnow in most ways is better than me. Has a title & also beating me in this other area.

(Close to making any trades?) We were actually but mostly minor stuff.

(Morey says we like colors. Does he include Royce White in that?) Vander Blue is available. There's many options out there.

(How was Gerald Green sitting on the couch?) Failure by 30 GMs including myself. Harden gets 90% of the credit. James & Gerald are tight. Gerald is someone James wanted to bring in for awhile. I know Gerald well. I was in Boston when Danny drafted him.

(Did you trade for him the first time?) I was. Give Gerald credit. He's playing the best ball of his career. It's awesome to watch. I should have brought him in much earlier. It's on me. Kudos to James & his personnel skills.

(Gerald has lived a bunch of different lives.) He's at a different place in his life & a different player. Defensive intensity is at a whole different level. Credit Mike who...his shot selection is so much better. Chris & James give him great looks as well. I will say I prefer when he looks at the rim when he shoots. I feel better although I think he makes it more when he doesn't look at the hoop at all. It's been a remarkable run. He's one of our best stories this year..

(Team defense) It's been a synergy with everything. Coach Bzdelik does a good job. I probably didn't give him the best tools last year to put a good defense on the floor. He now feels he has those tools. Between veterans Tucker, Mbah a Moute, Ariza, Paul, Nene - all who care deeply about that end & the conversations they have are getting us to a better place. It's ended mostly in a simple defense: switching but switching well is hard. Teams run specific things to make those switches hard & confusing. I've been happy with that communication. To be ready for the playoffs, we still have a little ways to go in terms of execution on base defense, which really has become switching, getting better.

(We know how last season ended) Not winning the title like 29 other teams.

(When people try to explain it, team hitting a wall & missing Nene. Is the team in a better spot to avoid the letdown physically?) James specifically, we had him doing too much last year. He was our best player by a wide margin. One guy has never won the title. It's too much to put on one guy. Now we have multiple big dogs with Chris Paul & on top of that, depth. Not only do I think we won't hit a wall, if we take a bump in the road with injuries, we're ready to handle those as well.

(Did you ever at your best predictions see it working out as well as it has?) No, it's better than we thought. We thought the key thing would be Clint taking another step forward. Most don't take another step forward but he did. He took the leap we needed. The Chris/James partnership, we felt much better than the general public but it's hit on every positive note. We knew we could stagger them & have it work amazing. We knew there would be 20 minutes together & thought those would be very good minutes because they're good off the ball. We did not realize that it wasn't just they work off the ball, they were gonna make each other better in the 20 minutes. We thought it could happen but don't go into it for sure it's going to happen.

(Zach Lowe said Rockets org. knows who did/didn't vote for Harden. Do people think you guys are this petty?) Aren't there only 100 voters? I think our people know because ClutchFans did like a survey. I don't think we did anything. I do think ClutchFans did some kind of survey & isolated the offending voters. Shout out to ClutchFans.

(62% chance winning this year) Well he was like 80% last year so I don't know if we can count on that.

(Confirmed that is Joe Johnson & not Andre Johnson?) I've seen that meme. I think that's sorta racist, isn't it?

 

Mentioned CF several times. Nice!

 

(Zach Lowe said Rockets org. knows who did/didn't vote for Harden. Do people think you guys are this petty?) Aren't there only 100 voters? I think our people know because ClutchFans did like a survey. I don't think we did anything. I do think ClutchFans did some kind of survey & isolated the offending voters. Shout out to ClutchFans.

______________________

You are welcome Daryl!
(May have been someone else. Shout out to you!)

Spoiler

 

Tampering. Fine.

 

GM Jimmy doing work!

 

Either I'm terribly misreading this or @J.R. made a typo or Morey is soon to find himself in the doghouse at home.

I love Morey and his wit and wry humor, but this one he probably will be made to regret. What, he didn't have a good Valentine's Day with the wifey, so is surly today? You can't publicly compare your wife to a colleague's wife....sheesh.

That's something Trump would say.

I mean, the joke wouldn't even work if he said he's failing in the spouse area relative to Verlander.

 

I took it as he was referring to a thread that was tracking pre-vote commitments by the voters. We had a thread where people were contributing what the media was saying as their pick in the last few weeks leading up to the vote.

Otherwise, I don't understand the big deal Lowe was making becomes the votes are published after the fact.

 

To be fair it was reddit that compiled the list of voters and who they went for.

So when the first NBA writer gets stalked, blame reddit not us.

 

Yea the way he said that it was super awkward....btw does Harden not get credit for his strippers?