A Few Thoughts Regarding the Team's Approach and Morey's Tenure

This postseason showed that the Thunder's way is the way to go unless you have premier players on your team.......then you can make a trade for a second and third tier star.....
Les must be blind if he still wants to stick to the Celtics plan, they have 1 championship to come up with
The future of possible multiple championships belongs to the Thunder and the Heat

 

So if the team goes out there year after year and misses the playoffs you put absolutely no blame on the GM......you know the guy who actually assembled the team? Give me a break.

Look i am a fan of Morey, and i want him to be our GM for years to come but some of you apologists are making absurd claims.

 

Your post is very contradicting and confusing. You make it sound so convenient and the Thunder built success overnight and it may seem like that's the case but that's hardly it.

The SONICS/Thunder built their team on many years of sucking and having their lotteries pay off.

The Celtics built their success off of trades and drafts.

The Heat built their success by clearing enough cap room and going the FA route.

The Spurs built their success by doing a combination of those things and same for The Bulls.

If anything it just goes to show there isn't a clear cut way to build a contender win rings.

 

What does this statement even mean? That the Rockets should have traded Yao and McGrady after they were getting one and dones? In the early 90s, they took a chance on appeasing someone who was looking like a borderline headcase, and managed to get a championship. In the mid 00s, they took a chance that if healthy they had 2 of the top 15 players in the league, and struck out.

I think it's abundantly clear that the Rockets have chosen to be aggressive buyers until the chance to acquire a superstar by trade or free agency has passed. Once Deron Williams and Dwight Howard sign new contracts, the landscape of the NBA will be set for half a decade. They will be the last available game-changers for a long time; I can't fault the Rockets for trying to hold open their last avenue for competing.

Outside of Kyrie Irving, I could probably give you any 4 rookies from the last two drafts, and that team would still be inferior to what a healthy and motivated Dwight/Williams + super role player team.

Unless you're going to drop dead from cancer in the next two years, having a slightly longer rebuild phase isn't going to change much in the long run. I believe that they have remained consistent in their goal; a formerly disgruntled superstar flanked by the very best role players in the league. I will readily join the angry mob if the Rockets fail to get one or both of these players and do not start rebuilding through high draft picks, but right now, I can't fault them for following the only blueprint available for winning a title without a #1 overall pick.

 

They traded for martin because they thought he would wrk well with yao. Anyone with any sense knew yao was done when he hit the ground against lakers. Follow the timeline of what happened:

They let artest go to sign a younger guy in ariza.
They trade the younger guy( landry) for martin.
They resign the older guy in (scola).
They trade the recently signed ariza for lee
They trade the older guy (battier) a yr late vs a yr early
They trade for williams when they have a loaded position (sg)

All of these moves,and its not all equal to 0. The past offseason,they tried to trade for a clearly declining gasol and a so called great signing in overpaying for nene. The result would've been 34m for nene and gasol. Again no direction. Let me tell you about direction right or wrong.

Portland Trailblazers: They've had some bad luck (roy,oden) and some bad drafts (bayless). What they did is what morey,les and company has talked about doing. They want flexibility and young talent while competing for a playoff spot. They still have one of the top 15 players in L.A. and a solid young sf in batum. Matthews is a solid swing guy on a good salary. They were in playoff contention,but it was slipping away. Had they stayed the course,they would've probably missed,but it would've been close. They made a franchise decision to trade camby and wallace. Both moves had the near future and distant future in mind. They got financial flexibility for camby and financial and a draft pick for wallace. They got the #6 pick for gerald wallace. Isn't this the kind deals the rockets have been setting themselves up for? So now the blazers have the #6,#11 and enough for a max player. So they can essentially rebuild on the fly. Need another example? Ok, here you go.

Denver Nuggets: Here we go again. They were forced to trade carmello the yr prior. They got a pretty good haul in gallo,chandler,and felton. What they also did was manage to get rid of billups and his contract. They also turned feltons contract into andre miller. In the middle of a playoff run,they traded the same nene whom clutchfans were clamoring for in return for the high upside of mcghee. They also made the playoffs and have a very good cap situation. They did what rockets brass have been talking about. Turning young assets into something. Well,they turned nene into mcghee and cap room.

Clear direction is all most will ask. Don't give us excuses like the failed gasol trade set the team back 3 yrs. Name me another gm who would think gasol wuld set a franchise back? I didn't hear kupchak saying not getting cp3 set the franchise back 3 yrs. In fact, they knew odom wouldn't be the same,so they gave him away. The rockets should've just dumped lowry. It was clear and his body language was terrible. Anyone following martin and his career know he's a weak mental players. If he's not happy,he will suck

 

thank you

 

Great points, especially about the Blazers. Fans in Houston aren't dumb, and Gasol isn't going to help sell tickets, and no one is going to be impressed with a one and done playoff appearance. The rebuilding should have begun two Summers ago, but better late than never.

 

Wow! Reading some of your posts only confirms what I have suspected for quite a while. Some of you have your head shoved in an orifice where it should not be!!

Tanking works so good, we should try it. Really? Some tanking teams are only stuck in the cellar for 10/15 years. What did it take for the Clippers to strike it rich with Blake? How many years did Seattle suck before hitting the Durant ticket? Yes, most of you forget they sucked in Seattle for a while before they moved to OKC. It is working well for Charlotte, GS, Sacramento, Toronto, and Detroit. Detroit chose tanking after winning a title with an older team. How many years have they been "tanking"? Cleveland and Washington won the lottery!! It worked so well for them, they are back in it again. I guess they are hanging around down there til they get 3 "stars". Free agents always flock to those teams. They are the hottest free agent destinations in the league. Doesn't it seem like those teams are "always" in the Lottery? It seems that way because they are!!

I am not defending Morey here by any means. When the first pick went to the worst team, tanking worked for us and other teams. Today, Those teams stuck trying to use that philosophy seem more apt to be stuck in the cellar than to be struck by the jewel of the lottery.

I am as impatient as the rest of you, but, come on, do we really want to be like the Clippers sucking 15 years to catch lightning in a bottle?

 

-side note-Again Im seeing alot of Seattle/OKC examples on this board. I think this is a bad example to bring up because of their environmental changes they went through during their recent history that led to them getting Durant.

Dont forget that Seattle was going through an ownership change at the exact same time that they dumped the highly paid Ray Allen, and allowed Rashard Lewis to walk in free agency.

The Sonics sucked enough to get a high lotto pick that turned into Durant because of $. Not because of Sam Presti's genious.

Presti should get credit for building this team around Durant, but not for the team having the ability to be in the position to draft Durant in the first place. Lets set the story straight please.

I get tired of hearing about Presti's model for rebuilding the Sonics/Thunder as a way the Rockets should rebuild their team. Its just not possible because the Rockets aren't going into Astros/Drayton mode and selling off their higher paid players to soften the financial burden of ownership.

 

Not to belabor the point but Morey was in Houston for months by the time Rondo was drafted. The Celtics acquired him with a trade on draft night June 2006. Some of you guys scream when Morey doesn't get credit for what he's done for the Rockets. Heck, some posters go as far as to say that results don't matter. But at least give the Gm's that have had success in getting their teams on top their due respect. To say (or imply) that Ainge isn't smart enough to trade for the Big 3 or draft Rondo at the 21st pick on his own is silly. Especially when Morey was an employee of the Rockets when those things happened. To say Presti is just "lucky" and throw dirt on the job he's done for OKC is just petty. I understand that some of you love Morey (Though I don't agree with every move, I think Morey is a smart guy too) but damn sometimes posters go overboard. Now I agree with the theory that Les has to share in the blame because at the end of the day, the buck stops with him. After all, we haven’t had results like OKC and the Celtics for 15 years.

 

I looked yesterday afternoon for what i was referring to, and all that i could find was statements like "Morey was very high on Rondo" type of statements. Nothing truely finite on his role with Boston before 2006/07.

That could go either way I suppose, but its just an implication. I guess its only really safe to say that Morey had a role in Boston's success planning prior to 2007, but nobody knows to what extent.

Ainge deserves the credit for either creating the success himself, or surrounding himself with smart people who can have a positive impact on the organization's future. Maybe we do give Morey too much credit for Boston's summer of 07 success plan.

Some people give Morey too much credit, and some people give him none. The simplest answer is that its probably somewhere in the middle. He probably deserves a little bit of credit, but not an overwhelming amount.


As for Presti, I think he's done a wonderful job at building that team given the situation that they are in. My problem is with people assuming that it was Presiti's master plan all along to put that organization in that situation to begin with. Meaning, it was his plan all along to suck for a few years to get high draft positions.

Durant would have never happen had the team not been in the process of changing ownership, in turmoil that led to the franchise being moved, and selling off their two stars for draft picks to ease financial burden.

Again, I think Presti is amazing, and deserves credit somewhat, but people just need to remember that his master plan he started was done due the organizational shift in ownership, not necessarily because he was tanking the franchise to get Kevin Durant. Also dont forget that he had a trade piece of the best kind, an all-star player in Ray Allen that is in the prime of his career.

 

I agree with some of what you say here. The problem is approach which is decided on by the owner. Morey has been given his directive to stockpile assets with a pretty low risk factor (or so it seems). The problem that occurred is that forces beyond his control have sabotaged his possible moves that could have moved us forward. The lack of playoff wins is a direct result of that.... Who knew T-mac was going to have only a couple of outstanding years with the Rockets at his young age? Who knew that Yao was only going to get the two excellent years that he had? Who knew that Stern was going to stop that trade last year... which by the way.. the only team who truly suffered for it was the Rockets.

I think you are wrong about it being poorly run at this point. I think that as far as what they have been given to use, they have highly overachieved. We haven't had a star player on the court in three years. Heck, until this past year, our center was 6'5" because there just wasn't any opportunity to bring in anyone better/taller.

The hiring of Morey could have resulted in a championship... if Tmac and Yao hadn't gone downhill so quickly. The talent that has surrounded their names progressively improved. The problem is filling the talent gap at the top... and as you can see from the "power" teams that are in the finals this year... you either get lucky (Durant) or you have to convince multimillionaires to come to your town in a group (Heat).

There isn't a whole lot of room for anything in between.

I hate the idea of multiple losing seasons.. mediocrity isn't necessarily a bad thing when the alternative is a crappy team who never win and aren't any fun to watch. Professional sports are entertainment, as such, they aren't required to win championships, simply to get us involved. Crappy teams don't get people involved, winning gets people involved. So in that respect I agree with Alexander.

This organization just needs to pull a lucky rabbit out of a hat!

 

So let me get this straight because i think the direction handed down by les is way overblown and its a easy excuse by the morey clan. So the then asst gm can go into the owners office with a stat page and tell the owner they need to trade the #8 pick for shane, yet all of a sudden he doesnt have the ear of the owner? I'm not buying it. If that was the case, then morey should quit. Be a man and if you're as good as many think, you will have a new job with a better owner tommorrow. Either he has no principles or he doesnt have a spine. Either way, its a failure. He tried to force someone on adelman and he bounced. If you think you're incapable of doing your job at its highest level,quit. Its not that hard.

 

Rockets are both, being a mediocre team while having no fun to watch.

Being crappy, you can be rewarded by high picks.

Being Rockets, you got 2 total national TV appearance in 3 seasons, and 3 #14th picks.

Rockets are not crappy... they are the crappiest team, all time low in NBA history.

 

The logic here doesn't work. The Battier trade was exactly what the owner would want: win now. Sure bet veterans over young potentials. And this is exactly what the owner wants all along until the present.

Basically, Morey is not allowed to give up good veteran players in order to rebuild. Is that an excuse for Morey? You tell me. Should he have quit? Maybe. Maybe he wants the challenge to do what few GMs have done before? Maybe after a few more years of this, he will finally tell Les, "I've had enough. Unleash me or I'll quit."

 

Morey has been ok, not great, not bad, simply ok.

He is on the line though, this is entirely his team, his draft picks and trades, and his hand picked coach.

DD

 

Easily best GM in the league. Talent evaluation off the charts. Trade savy unmatched. Once we catch a lucky break like every other contender has in the past decade, all the pieces will fall into place.

 

Wow - best in league?

To me he is smart, but unproven.

Not even close to best in the leauge.

DD

 

While I agree that Morey is at a point where excuses for not putting a playoff caliber team on the court are getting rather thin, I wouldn't say that McHale was his "hand picked coach." I have always thought that it looked like a "classic" Alexander move. Don't like the coach? Want a coach that gets more media attention? Is a better interview? To hell with the current coach's accomplishments with your team... adios Adelman, and please let the door hit your arse on the way out. It wouldn't surprise me if Morey would have liked to have kept Adelman, and Adelman did want to stay. Guess we'll have to wait several years in hopes of a book from Mr. GM that tells all.