Believe me if he didn't have to trade those picks he wouldn't have. He has been doing it at the direction of the owners Alexander/Tillman trying to win, and go all in every year. One of the down falls of having a gambling casino owner, as owner of a sports team.
You don't have to like how fiscally responsible Morey but he is a good GM. Not the best, but vey very good. Better than most. He is a better GM than MDA is a coach.
Trading for Westbrook wasn't a Morey move. It was a Tillman/Harden move. Morey was put in an unwinnable position. What could he have done differently? Stars don't seem interested in playing with Harden. After Dwight and CP3, can you blame them?
Just saying, his argument was that MDA will be hired faster than Morey will be hired. The two events have nothing to do with each other. Some people need to go to sleep.
His trademark will be building championship caliber teams, only for his stars to get injured, and him having to scramble to maintain competitiveness.
mostly thanks to Harden...14-15, 16-17, and 18-19 with all the injuries would be low 40 wins and 1st round exit with most other stars
and Morey is the one who took a chance on Harden when people in 2012 were saying the Rockets were crazy to build their franchise around a 6th man, who choked in the NBA Finals the year before.
since then, it’s been meh Harden is his crowning achievement, and that was 8 years ago Harden carried these rosters to heights they should’ve never achieved Morey is good, but I don’t think he’s “best GM in the league” like is constantly said on here...main reason we should keep him is because we could easily do much worse
Yes, I think it is, and I believe he would be better off for it, going to another club where he is better supported. I think the Westbrook trade was forced down his throat and the team is sucking because of it. DD
Since then he built a championship team around Harden, only for his running mate to blow out his hamstring, when the team Morey built was up 3-2 over the most talented team of all time, with the Rockets winning that game 5 to go up 3-2 with Harden going 5-21 (0-11 3PT) 6 Turnovers. Chris Paul's hamstring doesn't go out, and Morey's story is a lot different.
It's a tough call. Morey's efforts after TMac/Yao went down culminated in that '18 roster which was 100% a legitimate championship contender. That counts for something. Tilman's pinny pinching and the WB trade since then probably have closed the window on the Harden era unfortunately. I do think the no midrange philosophy has gone a bit to the extreme. '18 was a very good balance with CP3 bringing it out when necessary although Harden should have shot a little more (only when he needed to). The inability to adjust to defenses overplaying us at the 3pt line has been a hindrance in the playoffs the last couple of years but I don't think we have a good enough roster to win it all anyway. That also may be on coaching as well. I think Morey stays but I think it's time to move on from MDA. He seemed checked out all year honestly, the team had a pretty disappointing season all things considered.
It just doesn't make sense how Harden under Morey shot mid range jumpers, and CP3 and Westbrook have come in an instantly had free range to shoot as many mid-range jumpers as they want under Morey, and Harden doesn't even attempt that shot anymore now. Harden doesn't even shoot mid-range jumpers in the all-star game. I can understand the philosophy built around role players like Tucker and Covington primary being spot up 3 point shooters, but Harden should be able to show his versatility. Too many times for the past few years, i've seen Harden have a wide open mid-range jumper to just slowly dribble back behind the 3 point line.
People really need to be honest about it. Our greatest achievement is almost beating the Warriors. Harden is an all time great, I feel like we wasted this all-time great much like Twolves got nothing out of Garnett and the Sixers got nothing out of Iverson.
I agree, it's so available to him all the time too when he drives it in. If he's hitting a good clip from 3 it's not a problem, hell even an average clip. But when he's ice cold from 3 he just compounds it by continuing to force only 3s. Agree about role players minimizing midrange, but I think guys like Gordon and Covington should very occasionally shoot them. Especially Gordon since he's been such complete ass from 3.
it is a great achievement, but that’s pretty much been it the past decade sh*t, Harden is the one I give the credit to for CP3...he’s the one who put in the work to get CP3 to agree to come here, all Morey did is pick up the phone and tell LA to name their price yes, Harden will likely be wasted here, and then we’ll wait many many years for another player that’s even close to his level and try again I am tired of this Moreyball to the extreme...it gets shut down every postseason I am tired of all the low skill, limited role players and mediocre shooters while we jack up 50 threes by any means I don’t see the GM out there that we could get that would do better tho, and I don’t know enough about any assistant GM in this league to be confident they’d be better than Morey, so getting rid of him is a bad idea