Hang up and Listen is a podcast I regularly listen to among other Slate podcasts. If you're not familiar w/ it, it's a podcast that takes a broader perspective on sports. The topics range from PEDs in baseball to team handball (Simmons merely jumped on that bandwagon) week to week. This week, Morey shows up to talk about Rockets/Lin/Royce/etc. http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/hang_up_and_listen/2012/11/jack_taylor_138_points_hang_up_and_listen_on_the_resurgence_of_notre_dame.html
Nice find, and thanks for posting. The link has a full transcript of the interview, for those that don't want to listen to the podcast.
Yes, nice find and thanks for posting. On Royce White: DARYL MOREY: Basketball is sort of an interesting sport that, you know, the top player on your team makes so much more of an impact than the top player in any other sport. Any other of the major team sports, I should say. There’s no other sport where LeBron James can have a team winning three out of four games or 60 games out of 80, and then when he leaves, that basically the same team wins 20 games out of 80. That kind of a swing just shows you the impact. You need these elite talents to win in this league. We think Royce is an elite talent—top five talent in this last draft, which was very deep. Obviously if we’re getting him at 16 in the draft, there’s going to be something wrong, or something that’s a gamble with the player, and really you’re just choosing the gamble. Maybe they’ve got an injury history. Maybe they’ve got a particular part of their game that could be an Achilles’ heel that would make them fail. Maybe they’ve never gone against that level of competition. So there’s going to be something wrong, so you’re really just picking among things that are potentially going to derail that player and which ones you’re most comfortable with. Royce was someone who played every game at Iowa State, played it well. So even with his issues, he showed that he is very functional. We knew going in that potentially there could be issues and right now obviously things are bumpy at this point, I’d say, but you know it takes a little time for him to get going at the various stops he’s had in his career to this point. We’re trying to work things through with Royce, and hopeful that we can. That’s sort of the current state.
This was my favourite part. People just need to be patient with Royce. He is a handful but he has the potential to be a special talent.
some fans want to broil Morey for the White pick, but with 3 mid 1st round picks you can't play it all safe. dunno if White will ever justify the gamble but in our situation sometimes you swing for home run.
Gamble, people. High risk, high reward pick. Can't really fault DM for that. We knew Jones was going to be productive immediately, and Lamb was trade bait from the start. Makes sense to throw one gamble in there.
Light dawns on marble head... I hadn't really put this together before hearing it in this context. I thought Morey had referred to Royce as a "#5 pick" in last year's draft. Whether or not he said it before or not, I now understand that he thought he was a "top five" level talent. Later in the interview he says that a basketball team needs at least 2 "top five" level talents to win a championship, and that he believes James Harden is one of them. Basically, according to this interview, he hopes that Royce White and James Harden are the Rocket's version of Lebron James and Dwayne Wade, or Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. I think that means that all of the fan freak-outs and ranting going on about Royce are completely and utterly meaningless. Royce WILL NOT be traded, WILL NOT be cut, WILL NOT be mistreated, WILL NOT be dealt with in any way that might not be beneficial to his long-term plans with the Rockets.
You are right. He will not. There is both a legal and PR cost that could quickly become unmanageable for the Rockets. Two year contract? Two years it is.
The most interesting question asked was 'is it OK that the CBA works in such a way that teams like OKC can't keep Harden because of financial difficulties?' and I definitely feel it is a good thing for the league - it increases parity and star distribution in the league.
Technicalities are so boring. Do you think Knicks fans find that interesting? Yet, Lin is so interesting, still. See, like Royce White, Lin doesn't even need to be Asian to be interesting. Next