I have to say I never really thought of Ric Bucher as uninformed but wow. This is just sad. Looking at half the story to try and seem interesting. Very pathetic.
Bucher is good for repeating rumors/info that he hears from league "sources" and not so much for actual analysis and thinking. So, use him for what he's worth.
Incredible success in the draft? Are you kidding me? What draft pick are you thinking? Which of his picks ever made an all-star game? Brooks? Landry? Chase? Sure - nice picks late in the round. But that's "Incredible success". You guys just can't stand any kind of critical assessment of anything. And yes, James Harden still needs a mid range game.
for the average value of the picks that he had what Morey got can be defined as great success IMO. You have to look at the situation. If you get Aaron Brooks with the 6th pick it's considered ok. If you consistently get value past the 20th pick it's quite remarkable. You have to look at the percentages and the context of the pick.
He's got one point right in that we bungled the Royce White pick so far. That being said, it's a 16th pick. It's much different from messing up the 4th pick or the 2nd pick or the 6th pick. The reason why people criticized him so much for picking 2 PGs back to back is because you are basically saying "I think one of these guys will be a bust for us". Which is fine when it's the 15th and 16th pick because chances are they will, but at 5 and 6? And in a related note, he brings up all of the tweener 3-4 players on our roster. Again, if we had Josh Smith, Kevin Love, Danny Granger all on the same roster, that would be bad. But when they are run of the mill role players, you can afford to get away with that. He did it before back when we had Alston, Mike James and then drafted Aaron Brooks at 24. Turns out Aaron Brooks ended up being the starter in a few years time. Morey wasn't scared off from drafting who he thought was the best player at the time because we already were stocked at that position.
#1 What % of picks taken 14 or lower turn into all stars? #2 You are WAY underselling Chandler Parsons. #3 Harden needs a mid range game? I guess 26/6/4/2/1 with a PER of 23 isnt good enough? GTFO here.... Seriously.... Morey has been criticized in the past, and if you want to rip him for drafting White, go for it, but see the bigger picture.....
It's "incredible success" considering the team never had a high draft pick. It's "incredible success" in comparison with David Kahn blowing the 4th, 6th and (it looks like) 2nd overall picks. It's "incredible success" considering that he turned 2nd rounder Landry into Kevin Martin and then (combined with Lowry, acquired by trading Rafer Alston, and other smaller assets) into James Harden. The fact that the Rockets are batting over .500 in terms of getting actual starters and rotation contributors out of mid-first rounders, late 1st rounders and 2nd rounders is "incredible success" considering the overall % of players drafted in these positions who never get above fringe status. People can take "critical assessment" of Morey. We just disagree when the objective data shows such "critical assessment" do not mesh with reality. As I said, Morey's batting average with his draft picks as well as trades are well above the overall % of NBA teams.
That's like saying, "Shaq still needs to hit his free throws." Sure, it would help. But it's not really a NEED when the guy does pretty much every other offensive thing better than most players do.
Bro, he's the fourth leading scorer in the whole NBA. Clearly, he is doing something right, which is ATTACK THE RIM. Repeat: attack the rim. The most efficient shot in basketball. Oh btw, did you see the game yesterday. If I am not mistaken, he connected on some mid-range jumpers, and I guarantee you defenders respect his midrange game as well.
Basically... And I'm actually pretty impressed that Morey has been able to do what he's done without getting himself into a situation where he's stuck with a horrible contract. That seems to be the thing that screws over all of these other lottery teams. Take Detroit for example overpaying Gordon and Villanueva. Giving Scola his deal might be bad in hindsight, but that's probably the only one... and we didn't get stuck with it, unable to make any moves as a result.
Mid range jumpers are the least efficient shot in basketball. If you cannot a mid range jumper with consistency, might as well stretch that range to the 3 point line and just shoot those.
He can't get over that we haven't drafted Manu Ginobili & Tony Parker. Here's a list of all-stars Morey has passed over in the draft since becoming GM: Marc Gasol (2007, 48th) How he could miss out on all these all-stars is ridiculous.
They play different positions as well. Don't underrate Hornacek, though, as he was a great shooter, from all distances (midrange, FT, and 3-point), and a decent ballhandler and passer. If you really want to compare the two, Parsons is not yet as good as Hornacek at his peak, but obviously Parsons has potential and is not yet near his peak.
What sucks is that Morey will be judged by how good this team is and that's what will screw him. But when you think about it, taking over a team that basically had 2 all-star level players end their career at different times. Going from "contending" to "retooling" Lowry and Martin to "rebuilding" with all the young players and Harden all within the course of 3 years and never once going below .500. Contrast our situation to the Portland Trailblazers, who went through a similar thing that we did... and they still have one of their star players (LA) and we're going on like 2 seasons being a better team than them.
Ric is just hating on the Rockets as usual. The situation with Royce White isn't that much of a big deal to me honestly. The Rockets took a risk and drafted White because of his talent. But its not like Royce is that much of a lottery pick either. To me, lottery picks are top 10 in my opinion. I don't know why he compares Houston to T-Wolves. The Wolves have been in the lottery for years, while Morey has to work with a roster that was built around Tmac and Yao who careers were cut short. Morey was stuck in that situation, and despite not having both Tmac and Yao, he still manages to get the Rockets over .500. The Wolves have so many chances to get a great player out of the draft, Love, Rubio, Wes, Derrick, and Flynn. For the past few years, the Wolves have been getting the top 10 picks while the Rockets were stuck with the 14th pick. Between Khan and Morey, there is a big time difference. Morey completely took apart the roster, stock up on assets and changed the entire team over the summer. The Rockets went from an average team with no superstar and no upside to the youngest and brightest team in the League. IMO, the Wolves has had better luck than Houston over the past few years but Houston got the better end of it and has a brighter future. Ric mentioned that Morey didn't do a good job at getting Harden because he traded a lot for him but a lot of people failed to realized that Houston got the better end of the deal. Yes the Rockets traded 2 first round picks, one of them is for sure a lottery pick while the other one is non-guarantee. The Rockets traded Kevin who was an expiring and Lamb, who will never be as good as Harden. IMO, the team that gets out with the best player wins the deal. OKC got a lot of assets in return but the Rockets got a superstar.
