And if he goes on a crappy 2 game streak its.... "Back to the D-league!"... "fools gold!"...."off with his head!"
Nah I think he's had a long enough string of good games that people won't react like THAT. It's more likely to be "sell high Morey!" "trade him while he still has value!" "waive this scrub!"
Just that this time last year if you told me Morris was going to be telling future NBA rookies how helpful the D-League is and not to view it as a demotion, I'd lol. He had a huge stick in his butt for the first few weeks after he was sent to the D-League, and certainly viewed it as a demotion.
meh, I neither liked him nor hated him. Too me he was just somebody riding the pine. The first 2 games this season I didnt like him much for missing passes on a fast break but I knew it was because he had the jitters starting the first game of the season. I'm really enjoying watching his confidence soaring as the games go on. I initially saw it blossoming in the Heat game when he drained that 3 as a defending Lebron was right with him. It was nice to see him have some words to say to Lebron. All in all, GO MOOK!
gave up on him last year, love him this year. Should crack the starting rotation soon, although Patterson has improved as well.
I think that the futures of both Patterson and Parsons will come down to the development and consistency of their jumpshots. At this moment, I agree that they're pretty much 4th or 5th starters on a contender; role players on the level of Thabo Sefolosha, Shane Battier or Metta World Peace. But this discounts the fact that this is their age 24 season, and a jump shot is by far the easiest skill to develop. Already we've seen Parsons improve his FT% dramatically in just one summer; while his form is always going to be ugly, he has at least shown the capability to be a respectable floor-spacer. Patterson is the same way; one of the reasons everyone was so excited about him in his rookie season was that his jumper off the pick-and-pop was all but automatic; I'd love for him to work at improving that shot rather than trying to extend his range to the long line and develop post moves; right now he's pretty diverse on offense but isn't good at any of it. Regarding Morris, I think his lateral quickness is adequate as long as his man is in a neutral position and he's allowed to get set up. I have real concerns on whether he has the speed to chase speedy wings around floppy screens and close out on weak-side shooters. I also haven't seen Morris fight through screens when his man is the ball-handler; most of the times I have seen him guard perimeter players, it's after a switch as the shot-clock is running down. One thing that infuriates me about the McHale/Sampson defense is that no pressure is ever put on the ball handler in a pick-and-roll; all too often guys simply switch, and this creates tons of mismatches. In this regard, Morris is perfect for the system; he's got enough strength to hold his own against bigs, and enough lateral speed and instincts to stay with guards who only have a few seconds to make a move. I would suspect that this is one of the reasons why Sampson insists on removing Asik in crunch time; he plays the pick and roll extremely aggressively due to Thibodeau's coaching, and tries very hard not to switch, which is counter to what everyone else is doing. With either Parsons or Morris at the 4, the Rockets can switch everything and not be too mismatched.
