DD even for you this is so incredibly insane. "saves us money" and "cheaper" has nothing to do with it, and you know that. It just doesn't make your b****ing as catchy. -Make a case for firing Morey for his insistance on keeping cap flexibility so he can continue to make moves. -Make a case for firing Morey because he got raked over the coals by Fegan in the Dwight negotiation which forced Parsons to be let out of his contract a year early -Make a case that Lowry was better for the team to keep than trading for Harden (Lowry is really good now & more popular in the media than Harden as the underdog star player) -Make a case that Morey should be fired for not waiting 7 or 8 seasons for ROLE PLAYERS (albeit good ones like Carroll & Livingston) to develop. But what you are doing here is just throwing every little piece of narrative into one big s#$% bag, lighting it on fire, and throwing it on our doorstep to step in. All of your points have a VERY valid base discussion to be had, but your package it all up together, eliminate anything around place, and reason in the timing, and sell it as one big flaming pile of sh#$ we are supposed to eat.
It is not about Livingston ONLY it is about all the players we flip because our ability to recognize talent, or develop it is broken. DD
Well lets go through you list. Lowry was dealt for the lottery pick central to getting James Harden. So you can take him off. Brooks is terrible and was how we got Goran Dragic. Livingston was let go by 9 teams in 8 seasons. I am not going to fault anyone for not holding on to Livingston. Dragic? You can have a valid gripe about him. He was let go because the owner had a hard on for Lin and Dragic wanted a player option. I will point out that this season Dragic has been rather mediocre. Thornton? You cannot be serious. Parsons? He was a terrible defender and has been injured more often than not in Dallas and is opting out of his contract. Dallas got very little out of him. His defense has been so bad that he is sitting out the end of close games. Morris? He provided the cap space to get Dwight Howard. He also hasn't really been anything special. Carroll? He has played on 6 teams in seven seasons. He was on the Rockets 6 years ago and have played on 4 teams since the Rockets. He also did very poorly this season, shooting 38% on 2 point shots, 38% on three point shots and 60% from the free throw line. Scola? He was amnestied to have space to sign players such as Howard and Ariza. He also has been an average bench power forward the last 2-3 seasons. His offensive and defensive advanced stats are literally even. Landry? Carl Landry is a solid bench player and would help the Rockets. His defense is below average but his offense is above average. The Rockets made the move to get Kevin Martin, a player than Rick Adelman coveted. Guess where Kevin Martin ended up???? OKC in the Harden deal, satisfying the Thunders need to deal Harden and have another good 6th man.... Kevin Martin. Whiteside? The same player that couldn't make multiple training camps? The same guy that could not make a SINGLE NBA roster in for two straight seasons? The same player that played a total of 20 games in the NBA in the first four seasons after being drafted? Yeah.... not going to blame the Rockets for not getting Whiteside when every single team in the NBA didn't want him for two straight seasons. Asik? Have you watched Asik? He checked out as an NBA player around the time we traded him. He has been a bad contract for years.
Inability to look in a crystal ball to see which role players will go from bad role players who get cut from multiple teams after the Rockets to solid/good role players. If you look at their career trajectories with other teams, neither Livingston nor Carroll would have been impactful ROLE players for several seasons after the Rockets cut them. Morey had alot of pressure to deliver STARS to the Rockets and their fanbase to remain relevant. Its just job priority #1, 2, and 3 at the time. What's more important in 2012.... waiting 4 years on role players that might or might not improve or make moves to get a star player to build around? ...... And again.. I think there is a valid argument to be made here, but you are losing me with your baseless generalities, or using insults like being cheap. Could the Rockets have been better by STOPPING to search for second and third stars, and kept continuity with the solid role players they had at the time like Livingston, Asik, etc.? At the time though if you polled everyone here (yourself included whether you'd admit it or not) and you said who would you rather have- -Livingston, Carroll, Lowry, Asik, Lin, etc. etc. etc. or Dwight Howard 99.9% of you would have said Dwight Howard. The balance of continuity with role players and superstars gets lost in translation after the fact when its so easy in hinesight to say we should have done this or that. Morey deserves the criticism but we can all b**** and complain a whole hell of alot smarter than folks like yourself are displaying now. I think we learned alot this season about our franchise, and hopefully Morey learned alot too to help in the future. My hope is that he did learn alot, and can benefit with future moves. Maybe a guy like Motiejunas is one of those Carroll/Livingston type of players that IN THE PAST would have let go for Cap flexibility, and maybe he keeps this Summers as a RFA because of his experiences with the Livingston/Carroll types. If Morey refuses to learn and change, than yes... he should go, but we only have recent developments to judge and we have to put ourselves back in time & place of the past to understand why things were done the way they were, and how we will need to make moves in the future to make sure we don't create the mistakes of the past again.
This forum is polluted with Murphly fanboys this summer. He pay you all in FORTRAN code for your undergrad or something?
How Many MINUTES a game did he get? Was he lightening it up then? where the hell were all you CAPTAIN HINDSIGHTS when he was cut? Rocket River
Yes we are cheap, please name me one player we drafted that we have kept beyond their rookie deals? A single one under Morey. I understand taking risks and bringing people in, but I don't think the Rockets have been very good at finding and keeping talent under Morey, nor do I believe they have any sort of plan or understanding of how game styles fit together. More of a - hey lets grab a bunch of talented individuals and the coach will find a way. And yes, they are cheap - you don't let Parsons go, and sign Ariza a lessor player - to save money, you don't let Patterson go because you don't want to pay his 2nd contract, or you don't let Dmo go because you don't want to pay him either. Le$ Alexander is the definition of cheap as an owner. DD
Name one we SHOULD HAVE KEPT? I think it is more an indictment on our poor drafting than anything Rocket River
There are always threads like this: Why did we let Jeremy Lin go? Why did we let Hassan Whiteside go? Why did we let Shaun Livingston go? Guess what - most NBA teams didn't even see enough potential in them to even bring them into their organization in the first place. The same is true of guys like Patrick Beverly and Michael Beasley who we have held on to. Sometimes they won't fit in within our system or they won't fit the roster needs we have at that given moment. Sometimes he and the coaching staff just won't see it. Nobody bats 1.000%. And sometimes Daryl misses the mark. But I'm thrilled we have a GM who is bringing in these kinds of players and giving them a shot. And I love when it does work out. There are only a handful of teams who are even finding hidden treasures like Beverly, Beasley, etc at all! Be grateful we're one of them and quit blaming the organization for not being infallible. That's just dumb.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Shaun Livingston is shooting 57% on turnaround jump shots in the post, 62% on floaters, 60% finishing, & 45% on pull up jumpers, this season</p>— Synergy Sports Tech (@SynergySST) <a href="https://twitter.com/SynergySST/status/727714208209580032">May 4, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Rockets were 5th in the NBA in payroll this season. They were 4th the year before. Anything else you want to discuss so we have point out how you are wrong?
I really hope younger/more impressionable followers here aren't drinking your Kool Aid. You continue to ignore when people like myself point out the way you are selling narrative rather than actually discussing/debating objectively. Le$ is cheap??- -2015/16 Roster was FIFTH in the NBA at close to 100mil after LUXURY TAX payments -Le$ is on the books for paying the highest amount ever for a 2nd round pick & have given millions more for multiple other 2nd rounders -The Rockets are one of the teams that construct their 2nd rounders with the maximum amount allotted to lock in more years. -In 2012/13 Les paid over SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS in empty salary (players that were traded for only to be waived) to make the Harden trade happen. -Which owner took on the Jarred Jefferies contract again? -Le$ is paying Kevin McHale for two more seasons to NOT coach the Houston Rockets -Le$ used the Amnesty Clause to eat Scola's salary -Le$ paid over market value for Jeremy Lin Daryl Morey however is a GM that utilizes Salary Cap FLEXIBILITY to maintain the ABILITY TO MAKE TRADES... this has NOTHING to do with being cheap... its about TRADES.... Stop trying to sell rump roast as prime rib. We all know what you are trying to do here. Trying to manipulate the F out of people to get them to join your boo hoo club. You think you are trying to rally the troops for some cause to overthrow the empire when all you are doing is making us all dumber. I don't think that you don't understand the difference between using cap flexibility as an edge to improving your team vs. simply being cheap, but I do believe you are trying to blur the lines with others on here to create & continue narrative like the DD of old... the DD I thought that had a change of heart when he came back after a long hiatus. And I hate to say that since this is such a hot topic for you with Les that is totally without base that there has to be some stereotypes you either have or are trying to infer into the discussion here. You've been the cheerleader for the Le$ is cheap bandwagon for years and years on here, and I have to ask... Why are you so passionate about this? I don't want to make this a race thing but you make it really hard to not think there might be something there.
It's about not keeping solid veterans and professionals because youth, potential, flexibility and cap space are more important to Murphy. It is not about Shaun Livingston being the franchise savior or star. People are conflating these two while belittling a guy who is playing very good playoff basketball for a title contender.
It's a fair criticism. I do think there's something to Les being willing to shell out for star players, but undervaluing the supporting cast. But in his defense, how many role players should he have paid to retain in recent years? I'd argue that Parsons was not worth over 15 mil a season, and that's before he became injury prone. Not saying Ariza is a suitable replacement, but better to save that money for a better option at the 3 somewhere down the road. I think that picking Lin over Dragic is a perfect example of how Les prioritizes paying players. He wasn't being cheap since he did give Lin a huge contract. But he perceived Lin as a star and someone who would generate ticket sales, ratings, and interest in China and threw all that money at him instead of holding onto Dragic who was far less popular in the media, but coming off a terrific season.
