I looked at the thread title and thought, "Did Greece produced another guy named Giannis whose last name is Adetokunbo? Then I saw the date of the OP.
A lot of us thought DMo was gonna be a very good player .... he had size and a lot of tools that bigs generally didn't have at the time.
I saw the potential in the Greek Freak.....I mean who couldn't?? Morey is not good at drafting and he has been saved by the moves he tried to make and didn't! I still don't know why Morey didn't trade up. But each year it's the same story after the draft. " We were extremely close on a few offers, where we could've moved up in the draft but those offers didn't materialize."
I'm just as surprised as you are , can't tell if I was being sarcastic...I've always been super high on Giannis fwiw...
You two represent the two extreme views on Morey. He is great at trading, managing the cap and contracts, and doing his home work with great analytics tools so that he can pounce on opportunities when they come. He is also not stubborn. He quickly realizes his mistakes and gets rid of them. That's how he built the team we have now. But he is only average (not bad, not great) at drafting in the first round. I have said it in the past. I suspect that this is because the data he has for drafting high potential players are too limited for accurate prediction. He is not good at spotting potentials with the eye test. This is why his great drafts are mostly gems in the second round because those players typically don't have out of the world physical talents and therefore play longer in college or Europe that give Morey more data to work with. Picking out potentially great players by seeing it is not Morey's strong suit. These players usually get picked up in the NBA before they accumulate a large amount of statistical data. (Of course, a fair amount of these guys turned out to be busts.)
well he has said with where the team picks usually with the 14th pick, they were looking for stars and home runs with the picks. A lot of them turn out to be busts which Morey was expecting but was hoping he hit big on one. It's a crap shoot when we had to pick that high for so many years. He hit a lot on Lowry, Dragic, Parsons, etc. But anywho the other poster blaming Morey not getting the Greek Freak and not knowing if it was even possible to move up or what Morey was trying to do. Obviously Morey wanted or had interest in Gianis if he's over there scouting. We have a great team now and Morey always pick up players that are under value and can play like Tucker and Luc this year. Anywho rant over
He played point guard so he definitely had handles. What scouts weren't aware of was that he would grow 2-3 inches after the draft just like David Robinson who grew almost 8 inches after he graduated High School. If Giannis would have been 6'11-7' at the draft, he would have gone much higher, me thinks.
He didn't draft Lowry and Dragic, and Parsons was from the second round. That was exactly my point. Yes, he got undervalued players. That's his forte. He has an edge because of his analytics skills. He sees values beneath the eye test surface. But analytics only work well when you have good amount of data.
I know he didn’t draft them but what i was getting at was he didn’t get a fair share of really picking players. He had mid picks and Les wanted stars so he had to go for high potential high bust players, but he made it up for grabbing undervalue players and made a competitive team every year
Look, I am not denying Morey is a great GM. I just think that his worshipers feel the need to always defend him whenever there is a criticism of his so-so draft resume. Morey would readily admit his many mistakes in the draft. Yes, his defenders often point out that he needed to gamble for a star in the first round during those lean years. That still does not totally expiate him from his infamous blunder of taking Marcus Morris over Kahwi Leonard. But few people talk about one of the biggest draft day mistakes he made, IMO, was in 2009. He traded Batum for Donte Green and Portland's second round pick of getting Joey Dorsey. When he did that, these players were still available: Mario Chalmers, DeAnre Jordon, Omer Asik (whom he subsequently signed him with a substantial contract), Luc Mbah a Moute, and Goran Dragic. Another painful year was 2012 when he drafted three players in the first round and missed players like Jae Crowder, Draymond Green, and Khris Middleton. Of the three guys he took with top 18 picks that year, only one is still in the league having a very mediocre career. Yes, yes, I know. Other GMs had those misses too. And yes, the draft is a crap shoot. But that's exactly what it is. Morey is no better than other GMs when it comes to drafting. No need to defend him from being criticized for his share of the blunders.
so if he is no better or worst, then why is he being criticized to begin with? No criticism, no defense required correct?
Ha ha, Hell yes.. BTW... what happened to that wonder dude Sergio Llull, do the Rockets still own his rights? I know we have had some great overseas players in the past. Carl Herrera, 'The Ice Cream man' from Argentina, That 'not afraid of the Wolf's' dude from Lithuania (he was OK), Yao Ming, The finger wag dude, Hakeem Olajuwon,... How many players do the Rockets now have parked overseas? [COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)][/COLOR]
He does not have to be criticized in general because of his draft mistakes. But each mistake can be criticized, no? IMO, Harden should be criticized for a stupid play. You don't have to defend him from that criticism by saying, "No, that cannot be a stupid play because he is having an MVP season." That's just a dumb logic. If a great player choked away a game, then he should be criticized of that choke job. That doesn't mean his whole career is being criticized. And his fans don't have to defend him of that choke job if it is indeed a choke job.
How does criticizing something/somebody on something we know will happen productive? We know Harden and Morey (and all the GM's) will make mistakes. Every player in the NBA has had their own share of choke moments. The question is, is it a pattern?
How does talking about the Rockets by a bunch of fans be productive anyway? It's just a conversation. When we watch the game, we curse when a guy made a bad play. Is that productive? No. But that's part of spectator sports. We want to hug the players when they do well. And we want to kick them when they mess up. When someone points out one of our GM's mistakes, we can just shrug and say, "Yeah, that's a bad decision" and move on. You feel the need to give excuse or explain why it is not a mistake every time someone criticize something he did only if you want to believe that he cannot make mistakes.
