What. Patterson. Jones. Morris. Parsons. Canaan. Covington (undrafted but signed by us). Lamb. These guys have been starters or significant rotation players for an (or many) NBA team(s), for multiple years and that's just in the past 5 years. just my opinion, but you can probably add Capela to that list by next year as well even though he's in one hell of a slump at the moment. Jury is out on Dekker. The dude had a back injury. Not sure what you guys think he should be doing to impress you at the moment. Anyway, I'm also not sure how many more "hits" you want Morey to have. Feel free to look at other GM's drafting track record in the same time span. Our drafting has been far from "bad" If you want to see bad drafting feel free to check out the Chicago Bulls in the early 2000's. Or Cleveland ever. Or New York ever (aside from this year). The Indiana Pacers in the last 10 years.
I don't care about Canaan one way or another. But the fact is that he is a significant rotation player and was a starter for an NBA franchise. Even if it's the lowly sixers. The point is that we've drafted or developed (because it's not all about drafting, we've gotten a number of young players who were raw) tons of guys who are significant contributors to many NBA franchises. It makes my head hurt when someone suggests that we're bad at drafting or developing talent. That's just a genuinely stupid take. We're above average at it for sure. The issue is that sometimes we don't keep the talent once we've developed it, continuously having a revolving door searching for that illusive "better piece" and all the while saving money (don't discount the importance of this). Think back to not keep dragic as an example of this. Further, the problem lies in these two things. 1) Morey fails to acknowledge chemistry (and a player with a certain skill set "fitting" a set group) is a thing - an important thing at that. 2) If Morey wants to pretend chemistry isn't a thing, then he needs to acknowledge that having a more traditional type of coach that can compensate for the mixture of players is necessary (think the "zen master").
Letting Morey go would be a travesty. It takes a whole lot of luck to win a ring. Let Morey keep churning. He is one of the best. In Morey I trust.
We had that conversation, letting him go would be premature but Morely isn't clearly the best. He has made dozens of mistakes, some are really silly draft mistakes.
If Canaan isn't with the sixers anymore I'm wrong, but if he is it doesn't really help. The sixers are basically a D league team tanking to get high lotto picks. Half of our D-league roster pretty much went to go play for them. Morey believes in paying for stars, and believes that the role players around can be molded from anybody. Using that strategy, and not spending much on role players he has struck gold in the 2nd round a couple of times, but he is not a good evaluator of talent closer to the top imo. If you look at the draft choices of teams like golden state/OKC/SA , you can tell they had an idea of what type of team they were building while selecting the best talent available. If drafting players simply amounted to quantifiable factors, no team in the NBA would have a problem. It's the evaluation of talent where you see nothing solid ,(that would lead you to project an improvement or rise in an area), but a gut feeling or vision based on certain intangibles. I hate uncertainty and prefer solid evidence, but will be the first to admit that there are scouts and GMs out there that can just look at a player from a short workout or video and see something beyond what the rest of us can, and not be able to explain how and why they feel that way. These people often have a close and personal connection to the game and seem to emphasize the human element. Morey is severely lacking in that area, which is why he has dismissed coaching and chemistry. I hope he can learn, we've already invested 7 years into him, would be a bad idea firing him.
Morey must be on the hot seat. He has to take a deep look at himself and realize this BS of hiring puppet coaches and managing them and how the team plays using a bunch of spreadsheets does not cut it any longer. That and he needs to vastly improve on his first round drafting - Enough of busts like Royce White, Dekker or stupid picks like Morris over Kawhi Those are two of the main things Morey has to improve on.
He should've been fired 5 years ago. His philosophy simply doesn't work. It's gonna take another 3 years to undo the mess he created. Rockets firmly in the midst of the treadmill of mediocrity and still not any closer to see title after the bazillion changes Morey has made over the years
If you have a roster in need of a serious overhaul why would you fire one of the best proven GM's in the league at overhauling a roster, and finding gems on value contracts? The only reason to fire Morey at this point is if he was dug in on this team, and the style of play. If he's willing to recognize the issues, and willing to make the tough decisions to retool or rebuild this team why would you fire him??? Makes no sense. Presti, Buford, Ainge, etc. aren't coming to Houston to clean up this mess. You already have one of the best GM's here. If he's not stubborn and dug in, then he stays.
Morey went n got players but forget to get a competent coach. Operation was a success but the patient died.
The team has been in overhaul mode since Morey took over 7-8 years now LOL. Like I said this team is firmly in the middle of mediocrity treadmill
Lot of over complication here. You can get granular with the argument but let's simplify it. Morey's team made the WCF. Said team was bolstered by adding Beverley (healthy), Howard (healthier), Lawson (playmaking), Thornton (shooting), Capella (natural improvement). If anyone genuinely thinks any other GM would have seen this coming you're delusional. What you're saying is that a more competent GM would have come in and either immediately made significant changes to the roster and/or fired Kevin McHale. Yeah right.
Answer me this. Do you like the direction of the team right now? Instead of simply just adjusting goalposts, look what his team's have accomplished...a couple of lottery years, 2013 I forgive, 2014 choke job to POR, I can go on and on...the direction of the team is not good under Morey. Last year's WCF looks more like a fluke than the supposed norm
Same dance every year. All these years and where has he gotten us? Constantly looking to the future when the stars all align and we have super team. LOL
Another year of, "Oh shut up you stupid heads. You watch what Morey does this summer when he gets [insert top free agent's name here]!" It's idiotic. If this team had a good season, yeah I could see Durant coming here. At this point, why in the hell would he want to waste any of his valuable basketball years on this train wreck of a franchise?
By going through a broken Mavs team that should have been lottery and the Clippers collapsing in one of the greatest chokes in NBA history.
You know that team last year was on the same level with the Clips sans healthy CP3. Borderline 3rd round WC finalist. The result was there I admit but we were not that good. We had lot of luck back then.
