Reviewing Daryl Morey’s Record as Rockets GM

Man, did I nail that one or WHAT??? :grin:

 

yeah...like you really are smarter than the rest of us on basketball, just because you got 4000+ posts.

You know the old saying...a broken clock is right twice a day.

 

If you just stop posting, stop rambling, and stop making false statements, and maybe just spend a little time on reading...then you'll know that Adelman/Brooks had the Oregon connection going.

 

On this board, 4000+ posts in 9 years is considered pretty tame.

And you may be right about the Brooks pick being made by Adelman. Or maybe NOT. All I'm saying is that you probably read it here on CF and took it as gospel, like so many others have done. I'm still waiting for someone to post a link to anything that would prove that. Instead, I just get "everyone knows."

 

Good analysis. I do feel that:
1) it's hardly fair to call every player that you passed on in the draft a failure if they succeed. Call drafting Dorsey a failure, sure. Don't call NOT drafting DeAndre Jordan a failure. Applying this sort of hindsight, you can make up all sorts of amusing "mistakes". How about Charlotte's #3 pick in 1999? They were pretty dumb for not taking Manu Ginobili (who went #59) over Baron Davis, right? But if they had actually done that, it would have seemed like the worst pick in recorded history at the time. Anyways, I know what you were going for, but it's way too easy to call out mistakes if you call every single successful draft pick after yours a failure on your part.
2) You have to include free agency to get a complete picture. In that case, you could add the signings of Ariza, Brad Miller, and David Andersen to the failure pile.

However, your overarching point I completely agree with. Morey has done a good job, survived the crumbling of his franchise players into expiring contracts sitting on the bench, and only now has the chance to build a team with all the resources available to the average GM. He's okay in my book for another couple years.

 

Not good but not real bad. Some actual bad moves in there so far on top of the Tmac and Yao things though. Yao and Tmac are unavoidable mistakes. Some of his timing of his trades are starting to become common place missteps on when they happen and value at the time he gets though. Brooks was not Tmac or Yao yet like them a timing issue with when the optimal time to move him was. We would have gotten way more during the offseason after his best year ever. Battier? Do not know you could have gotten more but do know you wasted time trying to figure out to move him this year ultimately. Yao and Tmac just add to those trends but are omitted because Moreys hands were supposedly tied on them two. Or were they??? History is starting to stack up to paint a different picture right now. We will see what happens with Scola.

 

How can ANYONE think that Ariza for Lee isn't an absolute slam dunk win!?!? Lee is at least 90% as good as Ariza on defense and at least 90% better than Ariza on offense, all for 1/6th of the price.

That is what is called a WIN. There were 2 posts on page one of this thread that call that move questionable.

And don't tell me that Ariza's in the playoffs and Lee isn't... New Orleans is a better team.

My personal opinion: Even if their salaries were equal, New Orleans would trade us Ariza for Lee in a heartbeat.

 

An analysis such as this is done in hindsight. Marc Gasol isn't a miss because he wouldn't have helped right then and we would have had to wait, but Terrence Williams isn't a miss yet because we still need more time to judge? Weird.

 

Good work putting all this together. But, I think it's over-reaching to call this Morey's record. This is his transactional record. There's more to the job of being the GM than drafting, signing, and trading. He's also setting and executing the strategy, hiring the coaching and support staff, managing the roster, putting all the parts together, etc. Wherever people are critical of Morey, it usually is not on his transactional record -- it's over strategy or management.

and DeAndre Jordan.

Could we call this a failure of Morey's Best Player Available MO? Now, we'd love to trade for Asik, Jordan, or Gasol, but the cost is high. If we reached for them in the draft simply because they could play center, we could be sitting pretty right now. (Of course, you can say we did just that with Dorsey, and it didn't pan out.)

 

This sums it up so far. Morey has netted us significant good trades. He has yet to get the home run tier 1 superstar, not an easy task by any means.

 

0-for every player now according to Luis Scola's Dr.

Yao
Tmac
Scola
Brooks
Battier

 

What im happy about is that Rockets finished strong and players like Lowry, Budinger, Lee, Martin, Hayes, Patterson n Dragic shined, creating value for the team. Early on some struggled but later showed signs of great improvement and willingness to get even better. With this core, rockets has a good team but with few additions of a legit starting center, if Yao does not come back, and a backup center that can play 10 min or so for defense and boards purpose, this team will just get better. To be a legit contenders for the title, I think this team needs 1 superstar, maybe in a Center position. With players finishing strong this season, Morey has good assets to work with to acquire a legit center for next season. I just wish people could know Yao's status for next season whether hes coming back or not, so Morey can make moves easily. Even if Yao do come back Rockets still need a tough defensive minded center to backup Yao and give Yao ample rest.

 

I am guessing this doesn't "prove" anything to you. You're probably looking for the exact words that "Brooks is Adelman's pick".


Damien Pierce
Rockets.com Staff Writer
HOUSTON -- During his season away from coaching, Rick Adelman spent several nights watching then-Oregon star Aaron Brooks torment the Pac-10.

"I watched him all last year in college when I was in Portland," Adelman said. "He had his biggest games against the best teams."

Now, the coach is witnessing Brooks' emergence on the pro level.

http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/Brooks_provides_lift_off_bench-251281-34.html

 

i think all of the free agent signings at the time were the right move. the two that didn't turn out as we hoped were fixed right away (francis/ariza). i wouldn't say francis was traded for nothing, he was traded for cap space. getting under the LT means les has cash to buy draft picks or sign free agents. miller didn't turn out as we had hoped, so lets see how quickly morey can get out of his contract.

i think its more telling of a good gm to be able to quickly fix his mistakes, whereas some gm's make big mistakes in free agency that they can't get out of. i think morey has done a good job here.

also the cut list... i wouldn't want any of those players anyway. sure green was cut after trading snyder and a second rounder, but is snyder or that second rounder in the nba right now? seems like he gave up next to nothing for green, didn't work out, let him go.

overall this list looks pretty clean to me. morey is doing a great job.

 

Exactly

Its pure speculation.

 

This !

DM is risk aversive by nature and will always put together a mediocre team.
I do not know of any other team where the team sucks and fans brag about their GM.

Pathetic.

Morey is not bad, not good just low risk taking mediocre GM who is good at salary management.

 

Of course there have been a few bad signings, but another thing Morey has done a good job of is recognizing his mistakes and getting rid of them as fast as possible. A lot of GMs refuse to trade players they've signed because they don't want to admit that they are mistakes, but Morey dumped Andersen after a year as well as Ariza (and actually got back a better player, which is pretty impressive). Hopefully he can con someone into taking Brad Miller off our hands this offseason. What contender wouldn't want a 7-footer who can step out and shoot the 3?!

 

That deal isn't questionable at all. That was an amazing trade, simply amazing.

 

Very good stuff.

Morey has probably gone over some of the same hits and misses already. I fully concur that the failure to draft a seven footer who could protect the paint, giving you-know-who health history, has been Morey's achilles heel. If there are quality big men in the coming 2 drafts, you can almost guarantee he won't make the same mistakes again.

For those who say we should ALWAYS take the best player available, just be reminded how difficult it has been for us to trade for a capable center. If they are capable, the other team will keep them.

 

If that article is all you've got, that yeah it's a lot of speculation. I have no doubt Adelman watched him play and he probably even told Morey he liked that pick. But, I need a lot more to convince me that Morey abandoned his draft analysis to pick a guy Adelman liked (at a time when Adelman was coaching a veteran team and probably didn't care two licks about rookies anyway). Maybe Adelman's opinion was a tie-breaker at best.