The ONLY thing that Morey could do to screw this (good will) up is draft that Duke kid who looks like that walking recycling bin full of unsorted dirty underwear, Ted Cruz. That kid should date no one's daughter and better stay away from my team. I did not sit through the WCF in 1997 only to wait for that kid to ruin my quinceanera. That kid is not my destiny.
Couldn't agree with you more. I love Morey as a GM, but he's not above criticism, no one is. Morey's biggest deficiency is that he does not have an eye for talent. Yes, we have a great team now, but the problem is that with our roster, we probably will have little staying power at the top. With the exception of Capela, most of our serious contributors are at least 28 years or older. That means we won't have a dynasty. We'll have a window of two years, three at the max, to be championship caliber team, but what's going to happen after that? Capela is pretty good at what he does, but he's rather one dimensional, someone who couldn't create his own shot. I see the Celtics, Lakers, Warriors, and 76ers as the teams of the future. They have a good mix of young talents plus veterans that are established stars. Of the three pro teams in Houston, I feel Luhnow does the best job building a championship team. The Astros are a dynasty waiting to happen. Luhnow does just about everything that Morey does well, AND he has a fairly decent draft record outside of Appel.
Hopefully we never have to see the day but if Morey had multiple first overall picks in consecutive drafts I have no doubt that he would have had the same type of success. Nevertheless I think we have a "pretty, pretty, pretty good" team right now.
I see your point but if the trade would've gone through on Gasol and had he signed Nene the first time, this team would've been in a whole for years. Not just that, we would have never had a chance to trade for Harden (all of the assets would have been used). And most recently, what if the Carmelo trade would have gone through. Like I said, biggest moments have been the deals that have NOT been made. I'm not saying he's the worst but he doesn't have 20/20 vision for talent either. I think he is a NAME GUY! He goes after the names and hopes that it mesh.
I wouldn't say that we won't have a dynasty necessarily. The good thing about Morey is that he can make deals and he is always ready. (I can imagine that he has a list of about 50 different trade scenarios written down somewhere in his computer and he looks at that list and make adjustments about three times a day. ) If by "dynasty" you mean the same group of players dominating for a long time, I agree that won't happen under Morey's management. But you can expect to have a contending team year in year out, with changeable parts. To be honest, this is not the style I would prefer as a fan. I want to be able to cheer for a group of guys having grown with us. But I'd take Morey's M.O. over sucking for years being stuck in the mud. Bottom line, I trust Morey for building good to great teams. But it is not likely that it is built through the draft. To me, draft picks are just trade assets for Morey and I'm fine with it.
I disagree that he's a name guy. He does his homework. He picks up guys nobody notices. But my beef with Morey in the past was that he underestimated character and work ethics. He seemed to believe that you just throw the best talents together and then worry about those other intangible things later. I think he learned his lesson through the Dwight experiment. To be fair about the Gasol-Nene plan. He was desperate for talents. He could not have seen the Harden deal at that time, nobody could. Luck plays a great deal in sports. We were lucky for "basketball reason" thanks for Stern. It's not just that we dodged a bullet. If Chris Paul went to the Lakers instead of the Clippers, history would never be the same. We also dodged the Bosh bullet and the Melo bullet. As the saying goes, sometimes it's better to be lucky than to be good.
I think Morey has a fine eye for talent . Where I think our organization lacks is in player development . Part of this is by design and is a necessary sacrifice to focus on winning . I think DM has done a fine job of identifying and drafting talent , but that we have done a poor job developing them . We often focus on improving one skill and I think that leaves out a lot of "feel for the game" development . I don't necessarily think going down to RGV and playing is a bad strategy , but I prefer the traditional approach of staying up with the big club to participate in practices .... Maybe our last two coaches haven't run a lot of practice . We haven't had high draft picks and we're hitting on a decent rate for the spots we've picked in . Everyone taken in the first round has considerable talent ... But it's up to the draftee, the team , and luck to develop into an NBA caliber player . He's had great success in the late first round in picking non-busts and even a budding star in Clint . His first drafts were very strong ... Getting AB , Landry , and parsons in late spots . We all derided him for Morris over Leonard , but who's to say how Kawhi would have developed under a coach not named POP . Also , Morris is having his best year right now and is definitely not a bust . In 2012 he swung for upside ... And managed to land James harden becuase of the potential of one of the players picked . TJ and DMO were good picks ... They produced well for young guys when healthy ... We had a bad bit of injury luck . Dekker looks suspect , but he's got time and he also suffered a back injury right after we drafted him . Harrell looks like a guy who will be an NBA player for 10 years ... That is amazing to get out of the 32nd pick
I was thinking about the baseball comparison. In baseball, you can stash 100+ guys through out the minor league system. Say 5% become good enough to be in the majors. That's 20% of your 25 man roster. Bring up 1 or 2 a year and it could be half your team. In basketball, you can only stash 15(?), 5% is 1 if you round up (.75). Since the Rockets rebuild on the fly and try to stay above .500 instead of tanking, your talking draft picks in the bottom half of the round. NBA draft seems to be the biggest crap shot anyways as far if a play hits or not. So hard to build through the draft. IMO. One good thing about Morey is he evaluates the process and parameters used when evaluating players and modifies the weights as needed. Even can admit mistakes (DJ and Dorsey).
Great players like Jordan and Baylor made poor GM's, but Morey has never played basketball. This is his biggest weakness. He can't judge a potential superstar in the draft, or team needs very well. Green came here, when Luc was down because of Harden. We still don't have a replacement for Wright. DM's picks in the lower lottery have been generally safe. He has also gone for guys who didn't have much upside, but he thought of them too highly. Marcus Morris over Leonard. I did like the Landry selection and Parsons was a good pick too. Brooks was cool too. He isn't all stats, but analysis isn't everything. He is a good GM, not a great one. His biggest success though is getting us a great player in Harden. However, he had already proven himself to a fair extent in OKC.
