Moreyball Is Dead, Long Live Moreyball

For people that don't want eye cancer:

Over the past few years, Daryl Morey has carved up a unique niche among the NBA’s faithful servants despite his Rockets struggling to break through any meaningful stratosphere. Once Yao and T-Mac broke down, we all realized that he had been dealt a bad hand; however, many GMs were dealt bad hands and very few have managed to rise to cult status without actually doing anything of substance with it.

And yet, Morey had adulation around the NBA globe, with the middling Rockets being just that – middling. There’s something ideologically stimulating about playing it straight even when overwhelming evidence suggests otherwise, refusing to accept the reality of what Kevin Pritchard once called the NBA’s “treadmill of mediocrity” and insisting on improving your fortune the old-fashioned way: by improving it. Not by rebuilding or tanking or stripping down or whatever you call that oft-forgotten painful first step of the OKC blueprint. Morey acknowledged it, and declined, instead taking a chance with his actual skills at actual fair play.

Of course, there have been other GMs that have refused to accept the bizarrely counter-intuitive rules of improvement that the NBA offers its franchises. Most of them have been called, at best, delusional. At worst, just plain dumb. Morey Magic doesn’t come from his approach to team building; neither does it come from the way he has embraced, and at points been in the forefront of the league’s statistical overhaul – or rather, not directly. Because while it has been refreshing to see a GM that not only uses analytics but dons their colors, the true mark of Daryl Morey is that, be it those numbers or those guts, he seemingly wins every. Single. Move.

Sure, he hasn’t yet grabbed that elusive superstar, but riddle me this, oh mighty armchair GM: what has he done wrong? Martin for Landry? Brilliant. Throwing away McGrady for a Jordan Hill flier and some picks? Genius. Lowry for nothing, drafted Brooks out of nowhere and sold high on him to get Dragic, signed a young Trevor Ariza over an old Ron Artest and then moved Ariza for Courtney Lee when it backfired. Parsons in the second round. Budinger in the second round. Nabbed Scola from the mighty Spurs. Every. Single. Move. (Except for the Terrence Williams trade. But heck, who amongst us hasn’t fallen for Terrence Williams when circumstance and logic dictated we shouldn’t?)

Of course, the problem with cunningly gathering assets to eventually blow over another GM with an offer for a superstar is twofold.

1. It needs to work.

2. Players don’t like being assets.

Blame Morey or circumstance or David Stern or whatever for the first clause bumbling to the ground, but the facts state that no, it hasn’t worked. The continuous gathering of assets has yet to yield a trade that gets out of the “nice steal” realm and into “game changer” territory, and with that constant uncertainty comes instability. One can only run a train of on-paper goodies through town for so long before the entire structure collapses into a heap of insecurity and outrage. And once that original time frame goes from Chris Bosh in 2010 to Pau Gaol in 2011 to Dwight Howard in 2012 to Oh-Crap-We’ve-Got-Nothing, you’re already dealing with 3 full summers of baggage and a roster consisting of 15 rotation players, where only 9 can fit and only 5 are happy.

And so you get Kyle Lowry and Kevin Martin clashing with their coach, or you get Luis Scola denying that the trade to the Hornets had any effect on him as he submits his worse season to date, or you get an infuriated Marcus Morris basically being redshirted for his entire rookie year. And as feelings are hurt and anger accumulates, there goes Daryl Morey, keeping on gathering assets, except they are all combo forwards or mid first rounders and nothing makes sense anymore.

For all we know, the Morey plan can be going perfectly. Carl Landry and Aaron Brooks were both shipped out mere seconds before they stopped playing way over their heads, and this could be the same thing that happens to guys like Lowry or Dragic next season. We don’t know if he lost the Lowry trade. We don’t know what pick he’s going to get from the Raptors, and if that helps him get Dwight Howard, or Josh Smith, or The Star Behind Door Number 3. We don’t know that Royce White isn’t going to figure everything out and be an all-star. We know there is more to come, but we don’t know what.

After all, there is no way he trots out a roster where Shaun Livingston is the starting point guard, Omer Asik (if the Bulls don’t match) is the only center, and everybody else has to split minutes with the other 10 guys who can do the exact same thing. It’s not fair to the players, it’s not fair to the fans, it’s not fair to Kevin McHale, and mostly, it’s just plain stupid. Daryl Morey isn’t stupid. Heck, even the Dalembert trade can be argued to be a net positive. Remember? Every. Single. Move.

But winning every single move eventually loses its glamour in a league where the end-game isn’t being a bit more savvy than the other guys. Eventually, you have to integrate everything together, and at that point several fantastic moves in different directions are no longer louder than a few small moves with a designated plan.

For all we know, Daryl Morey could be really good at this one thing – this mystical asset gathering – and his only solution when it breaks down is to keep on going. Maybe this is just what he does. Maybe the Daryl Morey is just the brooms from the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, just throwing more and more water on a floor that has long been saturated.

Daryl Morey used to be a consensus fantastic GM; nowadays, we’re not sure. We know he makes good moves, but that wonder boy shine has faded, as a somewhat artificial sense of joy is no longer enough once it’s clear that it isn’t being vindicated by the rewards that matter. For the first time since he entered this league as an unknown MIT prodigy, Daryl Morey needs to prove to us that he knows what he’s doing. It’s incredibly unfair, but in this murky business, it really is the only way to judge him.

 

Great read. I felt it accurately summarizes the two camps here on cfans. Most importantly it establishes what needs to be done THIS offseason for anyone to take Morey seriously anymore:

Morey needs Dwight Howard more than the Rockets do

 

there goes Daryl Morey, keeping on gathering assets, except they are all combo forwards or mid first rounders and nothing makes sense anymore

nothing but the truth! Never seen a team gather so many average players and tries to trade them for more average players and hopefully a star players. TOp teams are willing to keep their star players because they bring in extra money. AKA Lin, Griffen, etc etc

 

Doesn't really read like any different perspective than half this BBS has already posted ad nauseum.

And I think it is true in one respect, and not true in another.

It is true that DM is probably the very best at uncovering hidden gems. I don't think anyone doubts this.

The problem with THAT is, that kind of a GM was perfect for a team which already HAD Yao, already HAD the centerpiece. You could afford to AFFORD the superstar and still be able to put unexpected-quality players AROUND him.

But when Yao broke down completely and left this team with no centerpiece, the double-edged-sword nature of DM's ability came into play.

See the problem with filling the roster with gutsy gamers is that gutsy gamers HATE to lose, and they play above their heads JUST WELL ENOUGH to keep the team at around .500.

But without the centerpiece, it's like being caught in an eddy in a river, you get stuck, spinning in a circle, unable to move either forward or backwards. Many posters have incorrectly interpreted this as 'Morey Sucks', of which nothing could be further than the truth.

We just need that centerpiece.

Even if we give away a lot of our gutsy gamers in order to get him.

Because that's what DM DOES - he fills in around a centerpiece beautifully.

So that is where I think the above analysis is wrong - he says that the only way to judge Morey is by, I guess, whether or not the team becomes 'elite' again through his efforts.

This is hogwash.

Sure, you could replace DM with some other up-and-coming GM, and maybe the new guy would be able to swing a deal for a superstar. Or maybe not.

But if so, do you trust anyone else as much as you trust Morey to fill in around an incredibly-expensive superstar?

Or put it this way: Who would you rather be RIGHT NOW: Orlando or Houston? Which team's future is brighter?

 

lulz!

 

Good article and I believe Morey will indeed just keep moving players until he's eventually fired, no way he lands that big star he can build around, I just don't see it happening. Morey would be great for a city that already has a great player and needs to get some cap space and get rid of some bad contracts, but Houston is not right for him. Since Yao and McGrady are gone, Morey should leave too and take McHale with him so we can start afresh.

 

fixed

 

With them possibly losing Howard, and us trading our vets and playing the young guys. I prefer our situation, specially with the high upside young guys we've collected in Lamb, White and Motiejunas.

Not to mention with the Toronto pick and our own possibly high pick, we could be major players come draft night 2013. A draft that has a promising good batch of young high upside centers.

 

Orlando is in a much better situation, they can get rid of a superstar who despite his ego, decision making, injury, and pouting will get serious value in return.

 

IMO, I just don't see a super-star coming to the Rox anytime soon. Morey was good enough at his job to bring in pieces to keep the Rox afloat in spite of losing two super-star. But, using middle-of-the-road players to land a super-star is not working unless you have a streak of magical good luck to acquire lottery choices that rise to the top-three slots in the draft. The problem is that is less than a 100-to-one long-shot. NO long-shot here. By all rights we should have collapsed and bounced along the bottom until we had the good fortune to draft a super-star or two like OKC. Our misfortune was that Morey was good enough at his job that it didn't play out that way and now we are stuck in middle earth.