Here's how I would define it, I'd look at every championship team since 1980 and write down the name of their three best players. Not a perfect formula, by any means, but it's a place to start. There would be outliers, of course, Dreams' first Championship and the 2004 Pistons come to mind, but it should give you a general idea.
80 : Kareem, Magic, Wilkes/Nixon (could say rookie magic was lower pre finals) 81 : Bird, Parish, Maxwell (rookie Milk Hair) 82 : Magic, Kareem, Wilkes/Nixon 83 : Moses, Dr J, Toney/Cheeks/Jones (this team had 5 all stars) 84 : Bird, Mchale, Parish 85 : Magic, Kareem, Worthy 86 : Bird, Mchale, Parish 87 : Magic, Kareem, Worthy 88 : Magic, Worthy, Kareem 89 : Thomas, Dumars, Dantley (+Laimbeer/Rodman) 90 : Thomas, Dumars, Laimbeer/Rodman 91 : Jordan, Pippen, Grant 92 : Jordan, Pippen, Grant 93 : Jordan, Pippen, Grant 94 : Hakeem, I don't want this argument 95 : Hakeem, Drexler, Ditto 96 : Jordan, Pippen, Rodman 97 : Jordan, Pippen, Rodman 98 : Jordan, Pippen, Rodman 99 : Duncan, Rodman, Elliott 00 : Shaq, Kobe, Rice 01 : Shaq, Kobe, Fisher (i hate myself) 02 : Shaq, Kobe, Fisher 03 : Duncan, Parker, Robinson 04 : Wallace, Chauncey, Rip 05 : Duncan, Parker, Manu 06 : Shaq, Wade, UD (?) 07 : Duncan, Parker, Manu 08 : Garnett, Pierce, Allen 09 : Kobe, Pau, Bynum (Odom) 10 : Kobe, Pau, Bynum 11 : Dirk, Chandler, (Terry, Matrix, Butler, Kidd?) 12 : Lebron, Wade, Bosh 13 : Lebron, Wade, Bosh 14 : Parker, Duncan, the entire roster? Over half these teams have at least 3 hall of famers, every team except us, the 99 spurs, the 01 & 02 lakers and 04 pistons and 06 Heat (do we notice a trend for the nba being somewhat weak at the top?) have at least three players who made all nba or all defensive teams and were still very productive, and in only 1 case, 04 did those teams not have someone who was a league mvp and still in or near their prime.
Reading this made me think if Bledsoe is Morey's definition of elite. I think he is right on the verge of someone who is elite by Morey's standards. Does he deserve max? In a vacuum I think not, but with current market prices you probably can't have it for less. And it's interesting how noone pursued Bledsoe, but Parsons has been offered the max while both teams who owned them made it clear they will match any offer.
IMO he think this way: A guy on someone else team, highly payed ,highly chased & willing to move to another team...
The question is whether the 94 Rockets, 04 Pistons and (arguably) this years Spurs proves that you don't need three stars. I don't think so. I think the big three is still the formula you try to emulate. Still, the Rockets can't wait forever. Like I said in another post, Dwight isn't getting any healthier.
Lots of good contributions in here. When you look at the exceptions to the rule that are cited you can come up with: 94 Rockets 04 Pistons Miami Heat first title Lakers trilogy (Some say this year's Spurs team but I dismiss that personally) With the exception of the Pistons (who I'll address later) those other teams have something in common. Absolutely dominant MVP players. Dream for the Rockets, Kobe and Shaq for the Lakers and then Wade and Shaq for the Heat. Neither Harden nor Howard is in the class of prime Dream, prime Kobe, prime Wade or prime Shaq. I think when you have the absolute best player in their prime you can clearly compensate for not having the "Big 3" model. We don't have that. The Pistons are sort of a fluke to me. They were in the weak east that was producing teams like the Nets, Pacers, etc. that were getting bounced in the Finals with ease. The year they finally go there they ran into a perfect storm. A Lakers team that saw Malone blow out his knee and that was struggling to work together with their new parts. Th
Morey said there was very few exceptions to that formula. If he was just talking about the past 10 years or so, then his sample size would be terribly small. There were at least 2 exceptions after the Shaq-Kobe Lakers. That's a 20% rate of exception. As a statistics expert, I don't think Morey would make that kind of erroneous claim.
Bev, Canaan, Johnson Harden, Daniels, Hopson Ariza, (Papanikolaou), Covington, Gee Jones, Motiejunas, Powell Howard, Dorsey, Capela
I don't have an issue with his opinion that Parsons is not elite. I do however think that you can win with 2 elite players and quality role players. Morey apparently doesn't feel the same. I think if we would have signed Ariza and a quality back up big like Birdman then matched Parsons we would have the potential to be a championship contender.
I think the question should be, can Morey recognize elite talent when he sees it. He guessed right with Harden, that's for sure. But how about Lowry and Dragic. Morey had both of these players and he traded one and let the other one get away. He then sign Jeremy Lin. Morey is not a basketball man, he's a numbers man.
This. I mean, sort of. I'm sure the Rockets have their own proprietary version of PER, WAR, RPM, etc; an advance stat that measures the difference players make on the court, taking into account offense and defense, then adjusting for situational variables. They have a big spreadsheet somewhere that ranks everyone in the league. They can sort by position (but probably by positions they made up), by value of contract measured against production, age, etc. By studying the trends of past winning teams, they have come up with a number that each player must hit to be considered "elite." Not a sexy answer I know, but it's probably closer to the truth (but I also bet anything the trust is wayyyy more complicated than that).
Once you look at the 3 elite players... Then you would have to look at the crew around them including the bench players. And also the quality of the head coach. I really don't think there's a perfect formula. 3 elite players is just the formula Morey wants to use.
The thing wrong with this argument is that Morey was the one who recognized Lowry's and Dragic's potential in the first place. They were back-up players before Morey picked them up. And they became "stars" while on the Rockets.
You are right on Lowry, but the rockets have to trade him for a pick to get Harden, there is no a problem here. As for Dragic, Morey said on the radio that he made a mistake, would not let him go if he knew that he is that good.
Maybe he needs to listen to coaches a bit more but overall he is pretty good In a sense I think the 3 Elites = Minimize the impact of coaching i.e. Spoelstra Rocket River
As I said, it was contingent on having an mvp, which we don't have. But at the same time, the odds are low, we might have been able to win with Parsons, but listening to Morey I get the feeling he views 30% or so as a somewhat safe bet to win a title and we would have been nowhere near that. How good does a 3rd player need to be? well he feels that Ibaka is, but then Durant's mvp influence moves the needle further, so I don't know
I think a player 'elite' if, a. He is better than most at his position, both offensively and defensively, or b. He is a dominated player on one end, and average on the other end. Both Rodman & Harden are very close to the category b, most others fall into category a.
This...furthermore, once you get 1 or 2 elite players, criteria for what he considers elite may have to more with how he fits...case in point, I doubt after seeing bosh in Miami, that morey would have offered bosh max if we didn't have Howard and harden already on the roster...I'm not a fan of bosh and think he's been exposed as a third wheel at best in Miami, but considering playing next to Howard would likely bring out the absolute best in him, I agreed with us potentially overpaying him. Also, parsons is not elite and never will be.