Number 16, middle of the pack...here's his write up... Daryl Morey, Houston Rockets Pluses: Made no bones about his statistical bent when hired by the Rockets to work as an apprentice to longtime GM Carroll Dawson for a year. Since taking over this offseason, he fired coach Jeff Van Gundy, who was unable to come up with an offense to get his Rockets past the first round, and stole an unhappy Mike James from the Timberwolves for Juwan Howard, who is likely to fade from here on out. The Rockets are short on depth, so Morey's hiring of coach Rick Adelman is a good thing because Adelman won't use a 10-man rotation even if Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant were the third- and fourth-string shooting guards. Minuses: James could have been a Rocket last summer, without giving up Howard, had the Rockets granted James (who had played for six teams in five years) the trade kicker he sought. Bottom line: With Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming combining to make anywhere between $32 to $39 million over the next three years, the Rockets need to focus on limited-cost players who get the job done without needing a lot of minutes or shot attempts. Morey is the right guy to find those contributors. One problem: Can he persuade his ownership group to let him go above the luxury tax to chase San Antonio and Dallas? Notables: McHale rightfully so is dead last, Isaiah is 25th, and ofcourse our hated rivals Spurs and Mavs have the best GMs in the game according to them Link
It can still be a minus if there is no move made to shore up the PF and soon, imagine going into the season with chuck hayes being the primary pf with novak and battier playing spot minutes
I agree, getting Howard's crazy money contract off our books was a big plus. I like how firing JVG and stealing MJ puts a rookie GM in middle of the pack as far as rankings. I guess for now he's new enough not to have many mistakes on his record. Here's to Morey making more good moves to come in the near future.
This article has some Clutchfans ties - it's Kelly Dwyer, and he debated writing it in this thread. My beef with the "without giving up Howard" line is that the James negotiations were handled primarily by CD. But, I guess he had to come up with something negative to say to fit the format.
I'm fairly confident that any 6'10 scrub they choose to pick up from the NBDL is a preferrable alternative to paying Juwan $7million or whatever he was due to make for his current level of production.
Sorry but Mavericks don't have 2nd best GM in league. 1) 100+ salary cap - Only the second team in NBA history to reach that figure the other being the Knicks. All that money and still no ring on Mark Cuban's finger. I thought part of having smart management was to get most bang for the buck not pay 30 in luxury taxes. 2) Grossly overpaid garbage players: Michael Finley 17 mil Keith Van Horn 16 mil Raef Lafrentz $11 mil Austin Croshere 7 mil Shawn Bradley 5 mil 3) If those guys can get paid top dollar then how the hell to you let Steve Nash walk away for nothing? He then goes on to win back-to-back MVP trophies to rub it in your face. What difference would 10-15 mil extra have made when you already plan on spending over a 100 mil? In my books the Mavs are one the worst managed team and their bloated salary and no championships really hurt their case. Look at it this way the money Cuban spend in the last 2 year alone is less than what Spurs paid to the roster of their 4 championship teams combined.
J-ho was due $6,883,800 in 07/08 and has a player option for $7,375,500 in 08/09. Mike James has a longer contract but his tank is a lot fuller when compared to J-ho's tank.
If we had acquired Mike James in the off season, instead of making a trade for him now, would we have moved past the Jazz? I think thats a valid question.
Nice article Kelly. Nothing really made me ask, "What the hell is he thinking?" which is always a rarity in one of these ranking lists.
I didn't realize the article was by Kelly, who I respect as a great writer. Regardless, the point made in the article wasn't about "not having James" but rather "having to give up Howard" as the big negative. I totally would agree though that not having James killed us this year, but Howard is irrelevant.
I really enjoyed that article. It's great to learn about some of the lesser known and newer GM's. That's a side of basketball I find very interesting but gets very little coverage. Props to Kelly for coming with something different, and in particular, something that is obviously directed towards us die hard fans. I doubt casual fans would have much interest in an article like that, so I appreciate it all the more. And while the content was pretty great, I agree that the Mavs GM is ranked too high. I know Colangelo traded Kidd for Marbury, but that guy is still a bad mother f***er. I'd have had him in the top three anyway. You also seem to think a lot more of John Paxson than I do, but I suppose I'll have to defer to you on that because you, being a Bulls fan, certainly watch his moves a lot more closely than I do.
How can newbies like Presti and Morey be rated at all? Shouldn't they have their own category, no one, not even a distinguished SI NBA writer, can possibly know anything yet?
