Let's see what he does in Summer Sixteen. He better be playing dirty, not clean and bring in those big FAs that he's talking about.
Morey is great at managing cap space and maintaining flexibility. That's a very important skill to have. It puts him in the position and gives him the ability to make no brainer moves like trading for James Harden and pursuing Dwight Howard in free agency. He also has shown the ability to find players with the ability to contribute to the team late in the draft. That said, it appears that Morey's strengths begin and end there. No GM will ever excel in everything, but Morey leaves much to be to desired with: - Finding a Coaching Staff - Player/Professional Development - The ability to fine tune a roster and find players that match the Rockets' intended style of play I was a fan of McHale, but everyone knows that this team hasn't had a legit elite level coach since Adelman. The bulk of this team's current issues, IMO, can be directly attributed to a lack of a defined system and clear cut roles and expectations. Not to mention, the pieces just don't fit! They don't fit each other OR the system. I once heard Morey say on 790 (in a nutshell) that adding an elite 3pt shooter to a team that shoots 3s as much as the Rockets is overrated. Reason being, that the team's shooting statistics usually don't noticeably shift upward and that often times the elite shooter doesn't shoot lights out as expected. I like stat analysis. And I like the idea of using it to make informed decisions. But statements like that is where the line needs to be drawn. There's this thing called consistency. Good shooters tend to have it and streaky shooters don't. Yeah, a streaky shooter like Ariza can give you 38-40% from deep. But he'll also give you extended stretches of 20-25% shooting along with games here and there where he's unconscious and can't miss. Add that to a team full of guys who do the exact same thing, and you get the Houston Rockets. The stats say it's working, but what the hell is wrong with the win/loss column? I don't know Morey personally, but based off of the problems this team is facing. I'd say his biggest weakness is pride and ego. Just unwilling to admit that he doesn't have it all figured out.
Next to no one outside of Houston and Morey's fan club think he's a top notch GM. I would rank him around middle of the pack. Not horrible but not very good either. Just average. Morey is trending downward though to a bad GM imo.
The "ball club culture" is a crucial component of building a championship team, no dissimilar to office culture. I've worked and continue to work organizations where we hire bright people that can crank out projects and manipulative large amounts of data in a million different ways to extrapolate some kind of analysis. But at the end of the day, that won't achieve high profits for the company or ROI. It just simply means you're good at crunching numbers and making analysis. A successful organization always starts from the top, with a grand strategy. Corporate culture also starts from the top - how you treat your employees, how you talk to people, how you behave, ethics, etc. The people at the bottom then go ahead and executes. I think we have a strategy. I'm not sure if it's the right strategy. But we're missing that ball club culture. Camaraderie, openness, team work, etc. Morey is a brilliant analyst but that is not translating to business decisions. Ultimately, that's an outsider, like Charles Barkley said once. He understand numbers but he doesn't understand basketball. People like McHale, Riley, Jackson, and Ainge are ultimately better GMs because they've been around the game of basketball their whole lives. They know how players think, feel, and play. This is a crucial.
This website is so obsessed with this guy - I have no idea if it is because his fanboys followed him here or that people drank the kool-aid of analytics, but this guy has no where near the respect around the league that he does on this forum... Middle at best with a few pen strokes of luck.
Hard to rate. Wish we could have seen him do a true rebuild instead of the "stay competitive all the time while you rebuild" mandated method. Knowing some of the guys he wanted with higher draft picks like Lillard, Drummond, Brandon Roy, etc. is interesting. He did miss on Kawhi. I disagree with him on coaching pretty significantly and think the decision to let Adelman go was terrible. For the most part though I think he is a good GM that makes smart moves without handicapping the franchise with bad decisions like many other teams do. I'd say if you made a cut line below the "elite" guys he's at the top below the cut.
I would rank Morey pretty highly in the rankings. I think overall he has done a good job considering he hasn't had the luxury of being able to draft high lottery picks. Obviously "right now" with the team struggling its hard to think he has done a good job, but overall I feel he has. He can turn things around this summer. I do agree that one of Morey's biggest failings is properly handling the coaching (head and assistants) issue. That's on him. Morey needs to get this right.
Run the most 3pt centered offense in NBA history but refuse to sign competent 3pt shooters? 4 years in...?!? Yea I'm sorry, but a lot of the people are supporting him at this point are straight up dumbasses.
Morey has his moments of brilliance and he has "brain neutral" moments. I think overall he's above average, but a lot closer to average than the best GM's are. The Royce White pick, his coach signings, the Terrance Williams trade, the attempted DMo trade....those kinds of things tarnish what would be an amazing record.
- Doesn't respect coaching. Says stuff like coaching doesn't matter and we lost a coin flip - Poor first round drafter with a history of busts - Trying to arm chair coach the team through Moreyball and yet getting having some bad 3 point shooters - All spreadsheet and number crunching - doesn't value heart, leadership etc - Kicking the can down the road .... :grin:
18 teams have been to the conference finals since Morey took over. He made his first last year. Why is he an exceptional wizard of numbers again? Because we made one conference finals in a decade and he scapegoated the coach after he built a team of slashers, dunkers, and non-defenders that don't have any on-court chemistry? Fire this train wreck and let's get someone who doesn't Billy Beane the players in a game that does not have near the correlation to stats as baseball.
Seems extreme. Definitely not infallible and has his share of shortcomings, but seems extreme given his overall track record.
It depends, he has some great qualities and some really poor ones...so probably right in the middle somewhere, which is where the org is as a whole. DD
Meant to be responding to LPH in the Riley thread but fits here as well... THIS! Haha, thanks. He's at best an average GM. He's been on the job for what, 9 years now? Is Houston any closer to winning a championship? Sorry, you can't keep clinging onto he went to Yao/Tracy to Harden/Howard in a short amount of time and gave up little. Yes, that is great, but at some point, he & they have to do something. 9 years -> 5 playoff appearances; 3 first round exits; 1 2nd round; 1 Western Conference Finals They win a lot of regular season games. They do nothing in the playoffs. Congrats I guess? Are they gonna hang a banner at Toyota Center? Is Houston any closer to winning a championship? His drafts are average at best. How many of his picks have been kept past their rookie deals? Coaching has only gone backwards. Van Gundy-->Adelman-->McHale-->Bickerstaff He tries to force an assistant coach onto Adelman, only 5 years later to not even promote that guy to interim head coach. You can deny it 'til you're blue in the face: he's a micromanager. He sticks his nose in coaching. He has this <strike>stupid</strike> philosophy which he force(d/s) on his coach(es), which may or may not work, but doesn't even acquire the right personnel for it. You can tell me the Warriors run it, that's nice. Let me know when Houston acquires two of the best shooters in the game and one that will go down as one of the best, if not the best, ever. No [self-respected] coach wants to be micromanaged or forced to run this or do this or do that. Not Tom Thibodeau. Not Jeff Van Gundy. Not any other dream candidates you have. If he wants to take a step back in roles/duties, great! Otherwise.... He's been here 9 years. What more do you need/want to see? More of the same? Spinning their wheels as a good regular season team?
