Of course every single decision or mishap should NOT be attributed to Les Alexander. Les Alexander only gets involved when he feels strongly about something or wants to get involved. Les made the decision to hire Adelman, McHale and D'Antoni. For the most part Les has stayed out of draft decisions other than wanting a few draft picks like Zhou. Les was fine with the Rockets remaining flexibility in the cap, and with most of the free agent decisions the Rockets have made. Les wanted Lin over Dragic.... however Les has let the Rockets front office pursue free agents they want for the most part and make trades. The situation this off season was different because Les made it very clear he was going to get more involved. He met with D'Antoni when Morey wasn't in the meeting. He made the decision that the Rockets would be spending free agent money regardless of flexibility. He has given more of an ear to D'Antoni than prior coaches. Les wanted D'Antoni in the past and is a big fan. If you want to blame Morey for not drafting Leonard; that is fair. It was Daryl's call and he choose to go a different direction. If you want to blame Morey for drafting White, and letting McHale have such a strong voice in the draft room; that is fair. If you want to blame Morey for going after Howard and Bosh; that is fair too. As it turned out, Howard and Bosh have broken down. What isn't fair to blame Morey for is the lack of lottery picks (he was instructed to not tank), who the head coaches have been (Alexander makes the decisions) and now the lack of flexibility in payroll (Alexander wanted the money spent and wanted specific type of players). I suppose you can criticize Morey for not quitting when he has an owner that is so involved, and a head coach that wants to strip him of his power.... but from a practical stand point, a lot of people would have stayed. Sadly, I don't think we will see a change in philosophy until Harden, Morey and D'Antoni all are gone. At that point Les may finally allow for a proper rebuild.
I just want to talk about this for a bit . Kawhi is likely the second best player in that draft . He is definitely a top 1-3 player from that class . By your logic , everyone that picked before San Antonio made a "huge blunder" . This is faulty logic on many levels and I'll explain a few of them . 1. Does kawhi become kawhi in any other organization / system than the Spurs ? While the answer is unknown , a logical guess is that he becomes no where near as good . 2. Our situation at the time . We did not have harden yet , we ( along with most other teams that don't have stars) drafted weighing upside more heavily . At the time these two players came out , Morris had more size and was a better shooter. 3. You are lucky if you even get an Above average NBA rotation player in the draft . That's just raw statistics , the amount of players that bust far exceed those that excell . Draft position is correlated with this to a certain extent . 4. Morris is absolutely not a bust . We traded him in part to open up cap space for the offseason ... Which we then used to sign Dwight Howard. Morris averaged starter minutes last year ( on a bad team ) this year so far he is averaging 17.5 and 6 ( on a bad team ) It stings we didn't get Leonard , but the Spurs are the best organization in the NBA . Our win totals and success in the draft for where we've picked Suggest that we are a pretty good organization too .
What's the point? Are people that much more confident that the next yet to be named rockets GM will have better success of attracting another elite player to pair with harden? Are people that confident this unknown GM will draft better? Manage the team's contracts? Seems like some people are willingly to take on more risk, not me. It's very hard to win in the NBA.
People need to accept some things, it will make their life and the rockets much more enjoyable. Morey is a mediocre GM that pulls a rabbit out of a hat sometimes. It is fun to watch and the team becomes fun (Harden). The rockets will stay a mediocre team that will also be fun to watch, that doesn't mean you have to be upset and compare them to winning franchises like the spurs etc., it just means you continue to love the rockets as the screw up child who you can still take pride in.
Kawhi Leonard is an anomaly in the same way Dirk is an anomaly and Porzingis is an anomaly...some people are just special and break all norms. Most posters here who criticize passing on Kawhi didnt follow his college career, nobody on the planet knew he would turno ut this way, most probably not even the Spurs themselves mainly because Kawhi has not been a scorer at all in any level before, he was like a poor man's MKG all the draft sites had his ceiling as high quality role player because of that, even citing reasons like he had a hard time shooting since his hands were so large. Thats why I dont really hold it against Morey for passing on Kawhi, Morris projected to have better star potential and to be fair if Morris had his head on straight he would have blossomed in the NBA. The rockets were in desperate need of building blocks and they cant waste their picks on guys with low ceilings. Every draft people with Kawhi's body type appear but very few of them manage to become prolific scorers.
he's put out yet another unbalanced roster for the coaching staff to deal with. zero two-way players. 1/3 of the roster cannot even be put on the court they suck so bad. huge holes in rebounding and playmaking (outside of harden). $80M for a one-dimensional decoy who is streaky as hell at that one-dimension. corey sewer. i don't know if he should be fired, but i would rate his performance this season below average. if not for harden's incredible brilliance, our record would also be below average.
Out of the roster of 15, at least 7-8 are not ready / scrubs Hassh Brown, KJ McDonalds, Tyler ANus, Corey Sewer. Whiteljer, Chinanuanua Onuanauna uanku, Harrel and Dekker That leaves you with 7 NBA ready players.
Thanks for being a voice of reason. I attended college in the Mountain West conference during Fredette and Kawhi's careers. Watched both of them live a few times. Nobody could've predicted Kawhi would go on to be a 2nd tier star on the San Antonio Spurs while Fredette would end up bench warming in China. I mean --- San Diego State University? He was a guy with decent physical tools putting up 15 points with 29% three point shooting in a mid-level conference. Crazy things happen in drafts. To me they can never be the primary case made against a GM. Dekker and Harrell are both rotation quality rookies / sophomores and Chinanu is still a prospect... those three guys have value. The rest I agree with, though. I don't understand why KJ, Brown, or Ennis rot on our roster.
I'm mad. Right now I'm pissed off at all greasy fatties weighing 25 stone and up JJ Fatt, Daryl Maury. @Mr. Motiejunas, Keith Jones, James Harden
