Morey on Golden State: We feel like we have closed the gap

Everything Morey is doing creates more visibility for the Rockets. Whether the press agrees or disagrees with Morey, everyone is talking about the Rockets on a near daily basis - primarily due to Morey's aggressive activities as a GM and his frequent interactions with the press. This visibility helps with ticket sales, ad sales, team valuation and most importantly, it helps position Houston as a preferred destination for free agents.

Morey is building a national narrative that the Rockets are closer to competing with Golden State. Lot's of people in the media are parroting those exact words back to their viewers / readers. Whether we believe he's right or not is irrelevant. The narrative is beneficial to the Rockets as a franchise, so Morey will keep on doing it, as he should.

 

Daryl Morey of Houston Rockets says team 'obsessed' with beating Golden State Warriors

Daryl Morey: Beating Golden State 'the only thing we think about'​

The Houston Rockets boast an NBA-best 25-5 record and have the league's top offense based on offensive efficiency, but general manager Daryl Morey said those achievements aren't especially important to him.

Foremost in Morey's mind: beating the Golden State Warriors, who have won the Western Conference title the past three seasons, including two NBA championships, and eliminated the Rockets from the playoffs in 2015 and '16.

"It's the only thing we think about," Morey said on ESPN Radio's The Ryen Russillo Show on Thursday. "I think I'm not supposed to say that, but we're basically obsessed with 'How do we beat the Warriors?'

"Last year the Spurs knocked us off, so we're very worried about the Spurs, they're always one step ahead of every organization and guard us better than anyone. But we calculated it -- it's like 90 percent if we're gonna win a title, we've gotta obviously beat the Warriors at some point. So we're extremely focused on that. A lot of our signings and what we do during the year is based on that."

Morey is regarded as one of the NBA's leading proponents of analytics and co-founded the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in 2007, one year after the Rockets hired him to run the team's basketball operations.

With Morey as the team's architect, the James Harden and Chris Paul-led Rockets have scored 115.3 points per game, second in the NBA to the Warriors, but they are No. 1 in offensive efficiency at 113.7, just ahead of the Warriors at 113.4.

Few teams can hang with the Warriors in 3-point shooting, but the Rockets might not be far behind. Though Golden State leads the NBA in 3-point shooting percentage (.398), the Rockets' offense is tops in both made 3-pointers (16.0) and 3-point attempts per game (43.2).

Houston's defense also ranks seventh in the NBA in defensive efficiency.

Morey said his obsession with beating the Warriors boils down to the fact that winning a championship is the primary objective in the NBA. And in order to win a title, the Rockets will probably have to get past Golden State.

The Warriors eliminated the Rockets from the playoffs in the 2015 conference finals and again in the first round the following year. Houston lost to the Spurs in six games in last season's conference semifinals.

"I don't know why you'd do anything else," Morey told The Ryen Russillo Show. "Like, what is the point of this league except winning a title? So we'd love to get the 1-seed, we'd love to win more games than any in Rockets history, which is 58. Those are all nice things, but frankly we spend most of our time just figuring out how we might just knock the Warriors out in seven games. Because we're pretty sure that's what's going to define our season."
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And this is why DM values Ryan Anderson.

 

I wonder if clutchfans.net will appreciate Morey's candor without any sarcasm... let's watch.

 

Ryan Anderson needs to make 3's and score points though. Without that stretching the floor doesn't work for him because he isn't a threat to make shots. So If he isn't doing those two things then where is the value come playoff time?

 

Yes and no. Just the perceived THREAT of him being on the court stretches the floor. Defenses don't even want to leave him. But if he's 0-10 then the threat dwindles. Ryan just needs to hit open shots

 

@txtony was being funny.

 

@txtony was being funny!

 

MVPs, duh.