This season is on Morey. How did we know these free agent signings sucked and he didn't?

If it's the Laker version of Gasol, it would be at least interesting.

 

but he knew that when he traded half of the team for him

 

my God just stop it, everybody plays within the same rules and refs go bad both ways

But it isn't given and smart GMs make team DEEP. I hear about those injury excuses from 2004 maybe singing not injury prone players/over the hill burnt out ones or switiching medical staff/conditioning couaches would help? Health is a trait and CP doesnt have it we all seen it game 5 against the warriors. IT doesnt matter we were up, age of our players simply folded against big physical stress and it isnt LUCK

 

The signing of MCW was a complete mystery to me. The guy is a certified scrub who cannot shoot 3s. I just could not wrap my head around that one.

 

I love Morey, it pains me to agree with OP. Morey/management totally screwed Houston. At the time I though Melo + Ennis would provide enough to where we would still be #2 seed and a 55–60 win team. Clearly Ennis is a bench player and Melo is unplayable. Gary Clark & Hartenstein are great RGV players but regulators minutes in NBA? Give me a break. Hartenstein in particular is just absolutely terrible.

With as much money as Harden & CP3 make, you can’t get cute. You’re either all in or you’re out. Now we are hamstrung to a team that has no bench and can’t defend with no real assets to upgrade. You can’t trade a first round pick when you’re looking at a top 10 pick at the moment, particularly given the transcendent players at the top. Should have just focused on retaining the team we had.

Morey is great to have as a rebuilding team but let’s not kid ourselves - Parsons got Howard, Harden got CP3, CP3 got Tucker & Luc. He’s been massively overrated by Rockets fans.

 

I think the worst part about this **** show is there really is no feasible way out.

We don't have picks or players on reasonable contracts that anyone wants outside of Harden.

I never would have thought that with all the great moves Morey has made in the past to include the Harden trade and subsequent moves to build a contender that it would all end up with us being in cap hell with an old nonathletic undersized team.

 

I don't entirely agree with what the poster you're quoting said.

But not everybody plays within the same rules. That is blatantly obvious.

 

Which means DO NOT trade any first round picks.

 

People want to place blame. I get it. But, it is what it is.

Every year is different. Players get older. Players go out, players come in. Players will overachieve, players will underachieve. Players are healthy, players are unhealthy. Sometimes the pieces fit, sometimes they don't. Every year is different.

Morey did his best. It hasn't worked out very well up to this point. But, we saw in the playoffs last season how important it was to have a healthy CP3 in the lineup. CP3 goes down and we lost.

We have most of our money tied up in a few players. If any of those players are out , then we probably struggle.

 

Pretty much this. We lost Ariza, Luc, Black, Ryno, and Joe Johnson. We've replaced them with Ennis(who's a serviceable backup at best), Melo(who was a bad fit and is gone), Knight(who has yet to suit up), Chriss(who sucks), Carter-Williams(who can't shoot), Clark(an undrafted rookie), and Hartenstein(a 20-year old 2nd round pick).

Essentially we have no depth. That'll improve somewhat when Knight and Nene return and Green and Paul each get over their "sore leg", but bottom line, it was a terrible offseason from a personnel standpoint. And if the aforementioned players continue to be plagued by injuries, I don't really know what Morey can do to remedy this. If you're gonna build your team around fragile guys, this is gonna be the end result. See the T-Mac/Yao era for example.

 

Sure the signings sucked but our defense sucks even worse.
Bad signing ,bad defense, Bad team.

We can blame Morey and the Tillman for the offseason but MDA is to blame for this crappy start.

 

I'm trying to get over it. But it's hard when YOU GUYS blamed our early struggles on Melo, and now the team's having the same issues without him. How wrong were you guys?

Fun fact: We have the worst scoring bench in the NBA & waived our best scorer coming off the bench

 

Freedom of movement didn't "kill" our D, coming into the season unprepared and a lack of effort and focus did. We all saw for 10 game the Rockets exhibited great defense and they went 8-2. A truly good defensive system will still be effective no matter who you put on the floor.

This team is not putting in the effort on that end and that is the biggest issue here. Would it be nice if we had a healthy roster? Sure it would, but that's no excuse for these pathetic defensive performances.

 

I honestly figured the Rockets would make some adjustments to their offense while incorporating Melo. The signing made sense. We need more firepower playing in the west. Melo brought a different style of scoring that would've made us harder to guard. MCW was a dumb signing, so was Marquese Chriss.

 

This season is more on the coaching staff for not getting these guys to play defense. 27th in defensive rating is unacceptable, I don't care who's out there.

 

This is the truth. At some point its about the players. Morey can't make the team remember how to switch and Morey can't help Gordon make open 3s.

 

Yes, definitely still good. But definitely not championship worth good. As often happens with fans on this board, we only look at our team. If only our guys were healthy, we'd be half a game out. Except we're not the only team that has injured players.

Beyond that, its clear the team has regressed, while many other WC teams have improved. Improved to the point they passed the Rockets, IF IF IF IF IF the Rockets are healthy? Probably not, but maybe. More to the point, the Rockets have been for two decades now an iffy playoff team. This is not a team you expect to win a series on the road. This is not a team you even expect to hold home court advantage. We've seen way too many examples otherwise, be it in the Harden era, or TMac/Yao era, etc. Sure, those eras don't relate, and there's been cultural organizational change all the way to include a new owner, but these things have a tendency to permeate and stay, imo. But beyond something something so qualitatively undefinable, the point is, even if 1,000% healthy, there'd be a much tougher playoff road, and when we are so reliant on CP3 staying healthy, that's a HUGE HUGE HUGE problem.

In short... this season is FUGAZI!!!

And relative to the thread title... this is absolutely on Morey.

For example, the Rockets STILL lead the league in 3PA per game. But they're like 7th from last in 3P%. That's insane, and a trend we've all seen coming. The guy refuses, for some reason, to do what's obvious - get dead eye 3 point shooters on the team. More often than not, he's traded them away. Anderson, Troy Daniels, Bev, etc. For example, he's never valued the forwards position - or at least not properly. No, I'm not DaDakota. DMo was solid and on a good path and losing him wasn't the "end of the world"... but he had 2 serviceable PFs in the style he liked in TJones and DMo and lost them both. He had Parsons on a super cheap deal and just let him walk. He's been on a decade long quest for a small-ball 4 (with the attempted Bosh signing being as close to an aberration from that as you'll get). He's chased talent at the expense of everything.

I mean this is harsh, he's CLEARLY a WAY above average GM. It's just when he's done some of the above stuff so steadfast, even in the FACE of what you'd think all of his computer analysis says, it's a bit confusing. Chase talent? Freaking AMAZING!! Carmelo?? Wtf?? While I know the Melo saga, which lasted a good 15 months, didn't prevent Morey from making other moves, it was clearly something they infatuated on potentially at the cost of improving in other ways. Small ball 4?? Well, yes, if you can find a GOOD one. If not, it's a huge liability. And I love Tucker. But he's the type of impactful role player that is kind of useless on a "meh" team, and SEEMS way better than he otherwise is on a great team, because indeed he does provide a lot of defensive versatility and is very useful, but that's only relative to how he otherwise is such an average player.

Again, this is harsh stuff. Overly critical, of a team that won 65 regular season games last year and indeed gave the GSW as good a fight as any in the last 4 years.

He just seems like he took his eye off the ball this past offseason. He didn't see the winds a changing. Those winds being the rest of the NBA catching way up, and doing so with better shooters, and younger/longer/taller players. Sure the Rockets had historic offenses the past few years. Small sample size, but the Bucks are currently leading the league with a 116.3 ORtg, "dwarfing" relatively speaking the Rockets 114.7 of the last few seasons.

Look at Ariza. Was he worth $15 million? No. Is he even a slightly above average forward in today's NBA anymore? Debateable. But we've heard rumors of the Rockets not even getting a chance to discuss the offer with him. I mean isn't part of DM's job to be prepared for this stuff?

What WAS DM's plan going into the offseason? What happened to the "Big 6" rumors? Was there any plan at all? It's confusing.

 

Follow up in March

Rocket River

 

People like you are the reason refs are allowed to get worse and worse every year.

The fact that you can actually watch a basketball game and NOT notice the refs handing out preferential treatment to whoever makes them more cash is completely amazing. Even a 12 year old level of comprehension from most fans would stop it from happening. Unfortunately, you are representative of most fans, so it won’t stop.