I don't know what you mean by that. I can sense frustration though. From what I understood you're saying Boston is the more exciting team to watch and I wholeheartedly disagree, and I think a lot of people would agree with me. I'm sure some people would agree with you too. Be cool
Luck being that his closest friend in the NBA was an established heat player. Lebron wanted to play with his friends. Doesn't matter what any other GM wanted. Hell, the players got together and discussed it before any teams GM was in on the action. And then Riley is so great he couldn't keep him there right? I guess now the Cavs GM is great now since Lebron decided he wanted to go home. The cavs GM is the new Pat Riley.
It's actually a little more "lucky" than that even. Lebron WANTED Bosh to join him in Cleveland instead of going to Miami and Bosh said no. That made Miami the only viable fit. Lebron hadn't won a title yet and had failed to get Michael Redd to join him as well. He jumped to Miami because he couldn't get a star to join him.
I think the comparison thing is a bit silly. You're either a good GM or you aren't and both are good. Pat has had monster luck as a GM (he also made a lot of great moves), you could argue that he lost Lebron and could have had 2 more championships. Lebron was pretty irritated with Pat when he left. Who isn't happy with how the Rockets have ended up? Also, keep in mind that Leslie didn't allow Fat Daryl to tank and get great draft picks and they still where able to plug away and be decent. The Harden trade might be the most lopsided trade in NBA history and Fat Daryl did that.
I'd imagine Riley running the Rockets would be similar to how he ran it when with Harden in place of young Wade. He'd be a bit more successful in recruiting big name guys due to his legacy but who knows if the Rockets would be any better than they have been in the past few years with Dwight and Harden? One thing is for certain, Riley has proven just as cut-throat as DM. He cut ties with Shaq when Shaq was done. He knew Wade was in the last legs of his career and basically cast him off with low-ball offers. It's looking like for the short term they're positioned well as Miami is headed to the lottery (especially with Winslow being out for the season) in one of the deeper years while Chicago is completely imploding as I expected them to. Morey emulating Riley's heavy-handedness in negotiating doesn't keep me up at night.
I sure hope we win it this year! I know you do too, we are all (mostly) Rockets fans here. The thing is, you took an unfair and inaccurate stance, comparing the accomplishments of two GM's without factoring in circumstance. It isn't like Riley is bulletproof. Riley has a history of trading away draft picks, Morey values them. That's how we have Harden. Morey takes advantage of trades, not so much with Riley. Riley once traded a 1st rounder for a horrible Ricky Davis rental. One of the rare picks he kept, he used on Beasley. The Heat have just four 1st round picks since 2007! Winslow is looking good (before the injury) but Moultrie... ok. Hairston... you can catch him watching the RGV Vipers. None of those picks were used to get Lebron or Bosh, they were squandered on Ricky Davis type desperation win-now moves. Without Lebron, they would have been riding that mediocrity treadmill for the last decade. In fact, take out the Lebron years, and they have basically been meh. Seriously, 6 years of fluctuating between being a .500 team and a bottom dweller. Now that Lebron has left, surely they will rebuild for the future right? Nope. They didn't have a 1st round pick this year. The team really sucks now, which is funny considering Riley keeps trading away the future for this awful present. He's traded away two future 1st round picks to the Suns for the privilege of overpaying Goran Dragic, and those are probably lottery picks! If Riley isn't to blame for Lebron leaving, he can't really take all the credit for his coming, can he? The thing is, he tried to keep Lebron. He drafted Napier... ok. He signed Granger and McRoberts as incentives for Lebron... ok. Not only did those moves not work in keeping Lebron, they have all panned out poorly for the Heat. I'm not saying Riley sucks, far from it. If you want to argue that Riley the recruiter is better than Morey the recruiter, that has merit. If you want to say Riley the GM is SOOOOO much better than Morey the GM, maybe slow your roll a bit. Perspective is important, and making unfair claims of which GM is better without taking into account history and circumstance shows a lack of perspective. Last year sucked, but it makes this year that much sweeter. Enjoy the ride Rockets fans and stop hating on a GM that is starting to show everyone he may know more basketball than you think.
The Rockets are kicking ass right now. That's all I care about. The usual suspects keeping b****ing and moaning about BS.
Luck, circumstances and his own skill helped Riley build a championship team. Add everything together and you can say that Riley is a great GM because luck is when opportunity meets capacity, opportunity knocked on his door and he was able to take advantage of it, period! However the future of his franchise currently looks very bleak and he is responsible for that as well and the "he was just lucky to have Wade and get Lebron" narrative will continue until he can prove that he has the skills to once again build a team from scratch. Although he already has rings and may not need to prove anything else, maybe these new circumstances he faces are a great opportunity for him to prove that he really can do anything. On the other hand we have Morey that has also had good and bad moves, and one could argue that in contrast he has also had very poor luck. The superstars he inherited when he started his tenure quickly broke down and he had to go on this painful long rebuild for years without being allowed to lose, and then years and many many many moves later when on paper we were once again supposed to be contenders with 2 and half supestars everything turned to $hit for reasons that are known to everybody here. On hindsight we can argue that Morey screwed up, but the reality is that NOBODY here expected what happened last season to happen, and when Lawson was signed people were getting the bottles of champagne ready. Bottom line is that although so far he has not been able to achieve greatness, he has been able to keep us mostly competitive year after year and our future looks very promising, a lot more promising than the Heat's. Just like years ago the circumstances were on Riley's favor and he managed to do what he did, one could argue that now the tide has turned in our favor and MAYBE Morey will be able to have a shot of achieving something historic, if not this year maybe the next one, or the one after that, but his moves have at least given us the hope that our team might one day soon make us champions again.
Morey is the greatest GM in all of sports. Morey has never missed on a top 5 draft pick. I would go as far as saying Morey has never striked out on a top 10 draft pick. Unappreciative bastids.
The cHeat were a collusion team, had little to do with Riley other than the fact that he drafted Wade because his team sacked for many years. Without Wade, they don't get Bosh or LeBron. Right place, right time sorta thing.
