I agree overall with your sentiment that picking a winner at #16 is tough. I'm guessing DM thinks that taking a risk on a guy who clearly was a head case and had off the court issues was probably a mistake at that point of the draft. Yes he gave us assurances that all was fine but what college kid wouldn't to guarantee himself a payday? Personally, I think DM's biggest mistake was bringing in McHale. We had a great coach in Adelman. He didn't want to leave and was doing great things with the mediocre team that we had. McHale on the other hand was 20-43 the season before we hired him. His Timberwolves were actually pretty solid with a core of Love, Jefferson and Foye and Mike Miller still in the better part of his career. Throw in Craig Smith and Sebastian Telfair and that's a pretty good first 6. I guarantee you that Adelman, JVG or even Rudy T could've done more with this squad than McHale has and that's DM's biggest blunder.
Actually, that is a good point- letting Yao play season after season of non-stop basketball was a mistake. I know he couldn't break the agreement with the Chinese team but we could've given Yao a break and let him skip preseason and rested him in back to backs or skip a few games like the Spurs do with Duncan. Off course, this is all in hindsight. Who would've thought that letting a 7'6" giant play professional level basketball all season without a break in the offseason would result in him having foot problems? Oh wait Damn.
The player option. It's pretty well documented that Morey doesn't hand out player options to non-superstars. Dragic would still be a Rocket if he/his agent did not demand it.
I suggest you read this article: http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2013/7/...d-houston-rockets-daryl-morey-nba-free-agency Tell me how many GMs pull this off?
Morey's mistake is establishing a philosophy that coaches should follow.... In this case "Moreyball", the layups and threes offense that only works if the opposing defense isn't so good. The coach should be able to establish his own philosophy... Morey's other problem is he acquires star players that don't necessarily fit his philosophy.... If it weren't for James Harden (who happens to fit Morey's philosophy very well), this team would really be in bad shape. Chandler Parsons was maybe Morey's most brilliant acquisition. But Jeremy Lin, Dwight Howard, and Donatas Motiejunas don't fit his offensive philosophy well at all.
I didn't like reading that last part, probably because it is true...but we can still make it work imo. Good post though.
It's funny how we keep getting killed by teams shooting lights out on mid-range jumpshots .... when those are supposedly the most "inefficient shot in basketball" according to Morey.
not doubt morey has made some bad decisions buy every GM does so. overall i think morey is one of the best GMs out there. the guy cam in with huge guaranteed contracts like tmac and yao that prohibited growth of this team while they were injured. after they were gone everyone wanted to TANK, but morey played the flipping game and flipped so many damn players it was somewhat frustrating. what is impressive is that he kept a mediocre team competitive for playoff contention and for 3 season our team barely missed the 8th seed. from an owners perspective it is crucial to keep people in the seats of toyota center. im not gonna lie, those teams post yao-tmac era were fun teams to watch, they scrapped every night and IMO fought harder than this seasons current roster night in and night out. morey successfully rebuilt a roster in 3 years, after yao tmac and never tanked to do it. that is crazy. he never jumped the gun and signed sub par all stars even though it was tempting and when stars seemed to not want to come to houston. just because you tank, doesnt mean you will be OKC many teams tanked and failed for years IE clippers. i will say i was disappointed to see adelman leave, although morey seems to have taken the reigns of this team and that is something of a rub between GM vs. Coach. the signing of mchale did have some major ups though- i think he is a guy with a name, when we needed people with names to come to houston when there were none. and i think he is a good coach for developing young players, he has that about him. although i think now if we have the opportunity to get a coach with championship experience we should do it.but by no means to i think mchale is a bad coach, just mediocre IMO.
Worst Morey moves: 1) traded Shane Battier for Hasheem Thabeet. 2) lied to Omer Asik by signing D12, and so now the guy won't play for us
battier trade really pissed off adelman i remember. hasheem thabeet was a questionable move, but he is your typical morey move- low risk- high yield. as far as asik, and i like asik- i thought he was very underrated by this board when we first got him. if you are a GM, and you have the chance to get a big name like dwight (best center in the league) you dont pass that up. sadly this leagues stars are all about pairing up with names in glamorous cities. houston is not a glamorous city, and had hardly any names. now players want to come to houston, and people want to see the rockets play because of the names we have.
Not trading Asik when we got Dwight,and for those saying there were probably no offers,not true here a report from Marc Stein where he said there are a lot of teams interested because Asik had a strong season and noone thought of that last 15mill. [youtube]RV2_TsVoXb0[/youtube]
Tuning into that game this past week against the Pacers, watching Dragic dominate made me think how he'd look on this team with howard and Harden. Chills down my back on how much better the team would be.
