[McMahon] Rockets hiring Chris Wallace, former Grizzlies and Celtics GM

Lmfao. Well done. Needed to be said.

 

The final call will be Cade or Green because both will fill seats and immediately lift revenue.

 

Thabeet was #2 in pretty much every mockdraft i looked up.


Hindsight is such a boring thing. Had he taken someone else and Thabeet would have been the next great thing he would've been ridiculed. Ricky Rubio was the other guy people thought was #2 worthy btw. Both picks would have been bad.

Possible scenario:

Evan Mobley gets drafted at #2, James Bouknight gets drafted at #8.
If Mobley is a bust and Bouknight ends up as the next great player, is Stone an idiot for taking Mobley?


This is also the guy that drafted Paul Pierce btw so there's that.

Wait and see before we start getting out the pitchforks.

 

Trash hire from a Trash owner. I'm happy for Bull though.

 

Based on this hire, I am beginning to think that my tongue-in-cheek prediction of a draft day trade of Jalen Green for Tyler Herro may come to fruition.

God help us all.

 

"
Morey, 35, is not in fact an android seeking to reduce basketball to stats and logic, although his manner of speaking might sometimes suggest it.

“Humans make much better decisions when they’re integrating information,” Morey said, momentarily sounding like an alien scientist.

Other times, he comes across as an insurance adjuster, explaining that his work is really about how to “better understand and manage the risk.” The statistical models are a tool, like any other, to find the right players, to pay them the right salary and, ultimately, to win games."

"
“The difficult thing to factor in is basketball is more of a collaborative, chemistry sport than baseball,” said Chris Wallace, the Memphis Grizzlies’ general manager, who worked with Morey in Boston. “Obviously, you need star power and great players. But a tremendous amount of your success is dictated by your interplay and synergy with the team — continuity, chemistry, feel for each other, those type of intangibles, which are very difficult to quantify.”

Even when a player is going one on one, Wallace said, he is still not entirely self-dependent. “The abilities of your team may dictate how much team defense is directed at you,” Wallace said.

 

Just read the below article about how the former Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley asserted control over the draft process with Wallace in charge, and the disastrous results that came out of it. Absolutely picture perfect example of how Chris Wallace manages to make horrible decisions, leak bad press to the media that conveniently absolves him, then somehow smooths out out with ownership so he can do it all over again.

For me, it's very hard to look at this move as anything other than a way for Tilman to eventually put a GM in place who will be a rubber stamp to whatever directives he desires. Chris Wallace is an ultimate ownership suckup who is going to undermine Stone constantly until he gets the top job, and then find a way to survive for as long as he can once he gets there by not being an independent voice, but by making sure that Fertitta gets what he wants. Imagine having a decade plus of Russell Westbrook trades; moves that might work in the short term and even produce results, but which hemorrhage value all over.

Unbelievably pessimistic about the move, what it signals for the direction of the Rockets, and how they want their management to be structured. I can only hope that some insider tells us that this is all wild conjecture.

https://nba.nbcsports.com/2010/06/20/tillery-in-memphis-heisley-is-the-decider/

In last year’s draft, the Grizzlies made what appears to have been a tremendous mistake by drafting project center Hasheem Thabeet over players like Steph Curry, Tyreke Evans, and James Harden. This season, the Grizzlies have a chance to redeem themselves with three first-round picks.

With that in mind, Ronald Tillery of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal decided to take a look at how the Grizzlies front office has made draft decisions since team owner Michael Heisley took control of the draft process in 2008:

Now, as the Griz prepare for their 10th draft since moving to Memphis, the organization’s preparation and mode of operation is described as collaborative at different levels — but with Heisley ultimately making the final call.

That means the team’s scouts, coaches and general manager Chris Wallace form opinions independent of each other. They feed information to Heisley, and whatever decision the Griz make Thursday during the draft — they have the Nos. 12, 25 and 28 picks of the first round — will come from their Chicago-based billionaire boss.

“But I don’t want people to think that I’m the guy who picks the player out of nothing,” Heisley said. “What I do is I take the opinions of various people. I question them. I try to evaluate their opinions. I put that together, and then Chris and I make a decision. Do we all sit down and take a vote? No. Somebody has to make the decision.”

According to Tillery’s article, Heisley’s two-year reign as the Grizzlies’ Draft Decider has led to the following:

— In 2008, Heisley was “determined” to trade the Grizzlies’ pick; after trying and failing to move into Miami’s spot and draft Michael Beasley, Heisley (with newly extended GM Chris Wallace’s approval) traded Kevin Love’s rights to Minnesota for O.J. Mayo, even though the majority of the Grizzlies’ basketball people wanted Love.

— In 2009, Heisley, with head scout Tony Barone Sr. supporting him, made the decision to take Hasheem Thabeet with the 2nd overall pick when “at least half” of the front office wanted to take Steph Curry with the pick.

Tillery’s article also gives some fairly explicit indications that Heisley’s front office personnel often serve as glorified advisors to Heisley rather than executives with the power to make actual decisions on their own:

“Everyone has an option to voice their opinion on players,” [Scouting Director Tony] Barone Sr. said. “My thing is, here’s the information. Here’s what I believe. If I was in a different role I might want more to say about it. But as the player personnel director, I’m providing information. You look at it and you make the evaluation based on what we say.”

There are indications that the team’s front office lacks strong voices — that those debates Heisley loves are often one-sided affairs.

Wallace would only say that “we can’t do anything that Mike is adamantly opposed to.”

And Heisley isn’t opposed to overriding seemingly sound opinions. Signing Allen Iverson isn’t the only move Heisley has made despite being vehemently opposed by his basketball people in recent years.

For his part, GM Chris Wallace doesn’t have a problem with his role in the Grizzlies front office or the fact that Heisley still consults fired Grizzlies exec Dick Versace and retired Grizzlies exec Jerry West when making decisions, calling decision-making a “fluid process” and saying that there aren’t many situations where a “czar-like general manager” has complete control of a franchise any more.

For his part, Heisley explained his role in the Grizzlies’ draft process with some absolutely dazzling doublespeak:

“We don’t vote,” [Heisley] said. “Somebody eventually has to make a decision.”

“But I don’t think I’m running the team. I’m more active than I have ever been. So people take that as I’m running the team. I take responsibility for the mistakes because the buck stops at the top. Just like President Obama has to take responsibility whether he makes the mistakes or not. With the Grizzlies, it used to be Jerry West, now it’s Mike Heisley. It’s that simple. That doesn’t mean Chris doesn’t make most of the decisions.

“I’ve deferred to Chris. I deferred to Chris and Iavaroni on the (Pau) Gasol trade. I’m not upset. I made that decision. But I think Chris would be the first person to tell you that they recommended it to me. Do I make the decisions for HEICO (his company)? Yeah. Do I talk to Stan Meadows (HEICO and Grizzlies lead attorney)? You bet your (butt). Sometimes I defer, and that’s decision making.”

There’s no telling what the Grizzlies will do with their three first-round picks. However, it is fairly clear who the man making the decisions that will decide the future of the Grizzlies franchise will be.

 

Sometimes I forget how knee jerk the internet is, then I get on here and remember.

 

LOL

This ride just got wilder.

 

Just horrible. Stone appears to me as being independent minded to some extent. I don't think he is going to tolerate that stuff. He might be fired if Tilman has his way.

 

It sure did. The other girt and grind player who might make it is Jalen Suggs.

 

I rarely fall into these traps but I’d literally beat your ass in public. Just name the place

 

Roh-roh

 

Have to agree with HD here. In my limited time here, you have proven to be quite full of yourself and quite the ********er.

 

Little confused at this hire. Track record isn't great.

 

It feels like they're picking Mobley, and Stone wanted someone to be the fall man if it doesn't work out.

 

I don't like this signing...

 

Who doesn't like Chris Wallace?????