If Morey was fired today, he would have an offer to be hired on at least in a consulting role by another team (maybe even in non-basketball sports) by Monday morning - if not handed the reins outright and given full control. Who's out there who's going to do better than Morey? Who out there would have predicted that the core of arguably the 2nd best team in the league last year, plus Ty Lawson at minimal cost, was going to crater? Pretty much nobody - there's no obvious candidate out there with magic foresight who's better than Morey. Not to say that you couldn't hire somebody who could do a good job - you totally could, but it would be mostly luck, if you did, which is true for a lot more of life than we would like to believe. [/hinkie resignation letter]
Agreed!!!!!! Enough already For me the hiring of McHale was a huge mistake considering he fired JVG and Adelman. Compunded the problem by not throwing the kitchen sink at Thibs and get him signed. Instead going with a rookie coach that way out of his element and has cost the team, IMO, a playoff spot.
I dont think you can use both "last season was lightning in abottle" and "a team of this talent" in the same paragraph. You either have the goods or you dont. No gray area. Morey is da gawd. At least for one more season. Get over it.
Morey has flipped rosters over one off-season and had success, just look at 2012 and 2014. I have confidence he can do the same, as Harden becomes a FA in 2 years, and we will do anything to keep him.
Why don't we try to find out? Sometimes you find a great GM by discovering them after a long and arduous search. Who the hell thought Gregg Popovich was gonna be a great GM(and then coach) when he was just an assistant for the Spurs and Warriors? Who was Bob Myers before he took over the Warriors? A freaking college basketball player and sports agent. Sam Presti hadn't done much of anything before he took over the Sonics/Thunder. There are probably a ton of potentially great GMs out there waiting to be discovered. Is Les willing to go look for one or will he settle for mediocrity by sticking with Morey. And yes, I think mediocrity is a fair word to use to describe Morey's tenure with this organization. Since he was promoted to GM, we've gotten to the playoffs 5 times, been out of the first round twice, and been to the lottery 4 times(assuming we don't make it in this season). That's not an impressive record IMO.
So basically you start off that conceding that 1) forecasting who is going ot be good or bad at being a GM is impossible and that 2) most of being a good GM is blind luck (winning the lottery with HOF players early in your tenure a la Popovich/Presti tends to be a huge boost)- then you say that the current GM is mediocre, because he wasn't as lucky. Your post collapses on itself. First, the Presti comparision is an itneresting one. THe guy got ridiculously lucky early in his career for reasons too myriad to count, but his list of maneuvers since then is a comical list of buffoonery, culminating in the trade that need not be named - both in foresight and in hindsight. However, his early luck is enough to keep him employed...at least as long as Durant is in OKC, even after a playoff miss last year. So basically, all the Rockets need to do is hire a leprechaun. But Morey's irish! If Morey is burned out and his heart isn't in it anymore, or if he's succumbing to the biases that he tries to exclude, they should move on - otherwise you have to evaluate his moves on a year-to-year basis. This year was a damned disaster, but really was it crazily irrational to bring everybody back and add in Ty Lawson? Pretty much everybody (both fans and media) thought that was the right approach. Obviously it wasn't but nobody predicted it.
People who keep repeating the line "but who else is available" were the same people saying that when posters here where calling for McHale to be fired. Steve Kerr was available and they were like he has no coaching experience blah blah Sometimes you got to change when things are clearly not working. Insanity is doing the same things over and over and ....................
The biggest problem with Morey is his refusal to acknowledge the importance of coaching and system. I'm actually a big fan of 3 being better than long 2's, having said that there's no reason you can't run an actual offense to create those 3's. And defense, dear god the defense. I'm OK with keeping Morey, but if he doesn't hire an actual coach, that runs an actual system, this should be his last hire.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, while expecting the same result. Morey is CONSTANTLY changing this team, so I don't know what you are trying to say. Unless you want to keep shooting in the dark with new GMs until you hit something, and if that's the case I'd rather just stick with Morey than an unknown commodity.
I'm not saying it's impossible to forecast who can be a good GM. You don't throw a dart at a board. I'm sure the Spurs did their research on Popovich before hiring him. It helped that he had a history with the organization. My point is he wasn't a GM prior to that anywhere else. We don't have to just look at current or former GMs as replacements for Morey. There are people out there who are waiting to be discovered(like Masai Ujiri was by the Raptors). It's Les' job to go find them. And it doesn't need to be a complete unknown. There are plenty of former players who make solid GMs. Obviously Jerry West is the most famous one in NBA history, but we have current ones in the league. Ainge in Boston. Bird in Indiana has done alright. Pat Riley's done well in Miami. Don Nelson laid the groundwork for the Mavs before his son took over as GM. Again, Les needs to go get them. Don't be complacent like he was with Rudy T and Dawson and now with Morey.
Insanity is having the same lack of respect for coaching and hiring puppet coaches and establishing a gimmick offense and players who don't fit it while expecting different results (aka real contenders)
Another great example. Masai Ujiri was formerly with the Raptors, then went to Denver where blew it up and got rid of Carmelo but the team didn't drop off (and thanks to the moron knicks, got a lot more for carmelo than he was worht. Ujiri was hailed as a hero....Ujiri laid the foundation for the future... ...which ended up being the 30-win treadmill to nowhere. Could anybody have forecast that Ujiri set the nuggets up for three straight years of complete failure? if Ujiri had not left in 2013 would anybody be banging down his door to hire him today? Probably not, since the "fool's gold" analogy oculd not be more situationally appropriate than his tenure in Denver. BTW this is not a rag on Ujiri, he is good, but he's subject to luck as much as anybody else. Fortune smiled upon him before he could be tarred with the mess he created in Denver. Jerry West is a consultant, one of many voices, for the Warriors - probably the single most analytics driven org in basketball and the antithesis of the ex-jock -as- all-knowing -wise man model - aside from also being the best team in history.
This type of bull***** analysis is why so many poster here are stuck in some alternate reality. Too much BS becomes narratives around here. Too many people just assume things or flat out make up stuff and it becomes gospel. Morey doesn't value coaching = BS. Gimmick offense = BS.
What is an actual system? What do the Spurs and Warriors call their systems? To the bolded, are you watching some other Rockets team who doesn't shoot a lot of wide open 3s (and contested ones)?
What is a system? How about plays you run to get open looks at 3s? A simple pick and roll. Or running guys off of picks. Or penetrating and kicking out to the open shooter. We don't do any of that. We run ISOs for Harden either at the top of the key or in the post and we do a p-sspoor job of it.
You aren't describing a system below. We...do....all....of..... that..... Yes, at least a quarter of plays end up being a Harden ISO, but you must be watching some other team if you think we don't run plays getting people open 3 point shoots, we don't run PNR, or we don't penetrate and kick out.
