If the reason for Adelman's departure boiled down to Morey vs Adelman...

I believe that Morey not acquiring superstar is more a product of his situation rather than his own doing. Morey has talked A LOT about how fruitful tanking is and how bad teams are hugely reward. The guy understand the concept very well.

The problem with Morey is that his directive from the owner is not a rebuilding process. Hence, he can't tank for the next Lebron because it violates his directions. But I honestly believe that Morey can tank better than your average crappy GM. As evident by his skipping out on the horrible 2011 tank, and seems to be going in for the 2012 tank.

Put Morey in Cleveland, Minnesota, or any other perennial loser not named the Clippers, and I feel he can duplicate OKC's tank job just fine.

 

If Morey is a good GM in a bad situation, you should have no problem with having him gone, just like Rick. Less isn't leaving. It still doesn't matter how good he is - most success in the NBA is the result of luck.

 

Pray tell, how many lottery picks did Elgin Baylor had in LA? How many top picks did Minnesota have before and after KG era? How long did Atlanta mire in crappiness until their current surge?

The list of teams with gazillion top picks that never go anywhere is pretty big. So no, not any dumb GM can pick Durant over Oden, or CP3/DWill over Bogut/Marvin Williams. There was a GM that took some kid over Melo/Bosh/Wade. And ones who feel Ty Thomas better than LaMarcus Aldridge, or Randy Foye better than Brandon Roy. Or for that matter, trade 2 1st rounders to move up 5 spots and draft Eddie Griffin.

If and when the Rockets do suck enough to get a top 3 pick, there's no GM I'd rather have picking our next franchise player than Morey.

 

Unfortunately you have no proof that the GMs you deride wouldn't have made the same decisions. There was a GM who took Yao ahead of Amare. There was a GM who could have had Rudy Gay but wanted Battier AND Sefolosha instead. That's the guy you're pumping up here.

 

And Morey tried to bring in Dampier

 

I thought that the Erick Dampier courting was more the Morey-type move than getting Brad Miller.

We're criticizing the NBA "Moneyball" approach, but really it can't be utilized fully until you have the COACH on board with it as well. An old school/new school approach would seemingly hold back on the full Moneyball utilization.

 

you need to stick to substance. The side tracking and personal attacks makes you come accross as an *******, which I slightly doubt you are.

What he claimed was the truth. Holding the GM position above the coaching position is foolish. Not sure if morey could last a couple of seconds at the helm of a team making minute decisions and rotational changes at a quick enough pace with his calculator. Theres a reason coaches are revered as they are and you don't hear squat about a GM in history.

 

hypothetical scenarios used to justify a non existant point in this post are baffling.

Tank better?

Morey said he wanted to draft rubio and said at the same time...we will probably win 20 games next year though. There's something called intuition and an understanding of the game that extends beyond stats, that people with credentials, experience, and the proper mindset are far more valuable and irreplacable than someone who signs the players, doesn't even play a part in how to utilize them. So far its all been about the "Big spash" that was supposed to happen, how he would use all the assets he had been collecting to land a star player. What makes him think other teams are interested?

Maybe banking on Yao being healthy this season when anybody's gut would scream bad move is enough to show how out of touch he can be with reality sometimes.

I credit him for the earlier acquisitions, but he has been growing more and more of an ego as time has gone on. Leaving the basketball side of things out is just not smart. His stats system should be a supplement, not the single driving force behind his decisions.

 

Well said

 

I've never had a problem with him giving Yao one last chance, given what he meant to Rockets basketball and it was the last year of his max deal anyways. I mean, what were we supposed to do after he rehabs for a year? Show him the door? Trade him? Nah. So just try one last time, and now a new direction will be taken.

 

You know that the stats systems ARE just a supplement and not the single driving force behind personnel decisions, right? The Rockets have interviews with prospects and their coaches, hold private workouts, watch lots of game film, and take measurements just like every other team. Morey, Hinkie, and every other front office exec have said over and over in interviews that quantitative analysis is just one tool out of many that they use to evaluate players, and the stats usually confirm conventional wisdom.

Honestly, I'd rather not choose. Adelman does things I don't agree with, but he's gotten results everywhere he's been. He's much better than the median NBA coach, and I don't know of any coach that could have gotten appreciably better results from this squad. But a good GM is much, much more important to the success of a franchise than a good coach. Great NBA teams with mediocre coaches can have great success, but the reverse is not true. If I had to choose, I'd take Morey.

 

Dawson drafted Yao.

 

Not to mention this "Amare over Yao" is just silly. You have to look at context. Saying that we should have drafted Amare over Yao is like saying the Bulls screwed up picking Artest over Manu, or that the Nuggets screwed up by picking Anthony over Wade, or that we screwed up picking Hakeem over Jordan. Go look back at the Clutchfans discussion files before the 2002 draft - there's one topic over Stat, and everyone agrees that it's not worth using a #1 over him. It was Yao or Jay Williams.