Jerome Solomon completely owned Morey about calling players assets.

How did the word asset come to have such a negative connotation? Bizarre.

 

Kevin Martin took his weak mentality to a whole new level.

 

I'll put in my last .02 and I'm done.

Referring to players as "assets" in itself is not that bad a thing. It's making them FEEL that they are trade assets during the season that is very distracting. IIRC, even Battier, the most consummate professional of all, admitted that it had some effect on all of their mind when they played. You can call Kevin Martin a whiner. But as JVG used to say, "If you have issues with Battier, you have issues."

This is this "human" side, IMO, that Morey has underestimated. I am pretty sure he has learned by now.

I have been a staunch Morey supporter since he came. But the way the players dramatically turned around after the trade deadline had me thinking. Maybe the way Morey talked about players as trade assets did have negative effect on the team's performance. Maybe Morey had never realized how players' psyches work during the season.

 

How exactly has Morey been good? How does the Rockets roster rank in talent? (Getting my popcorn ready)

 

Can't believe Im taking the bait, but here goes.

Simply being the GM of the most talented roster in the NBA does not make that GM the best GM, nor does being the GM of the least talented roster in the NBA make a GM the worst GM. Ill further argue that having the most talented roster doesn't even necessarilly mean that a GM is good at all, and vice versa for a general manager in control of the least talented roster. Thus, I am saying you cannot judge the work of a GM soley based on the roster he currently has in place.

This is mainly due to circumstances outside of their control. A great GM can inherit a terrible roster and a bad GM can get hired to run a great roster. While it is ultimately a results-oriented position, we must respect the process of building a team and not simply judge a GM's ability off the roster he has at any given time. For instance, 5ish years ago, before the Garnett and Allen trades, the Celtics had one of the worst records in the NBA and an equally dismal looking talent pool. If you judged Danny Ainge soley based on his roster at that point in time, you would say he's a terrible GM and probably the worst in the NBA. A couple months later he made a pair of trades that gave him the most talented roster in the NBA. Danny Ainge didn't suddenly become the best GM in the NBA because of that, he was still the same guy, but if you judged him based off his roster at that exact time, you would have to conclude that he is the best.

In my opinion, you can only judge a GM by the moves he makes and the moves he fails to make. Thus, in my opinion, Daryl Morey is a good GM because I feel like he has made a handful of great trades as well as generally done a very good job of finding valuable players in the draft relative to the picks he had to work with. It's likely that he passed on some trades that I might have preferred he would make, it's definite that he's missed on some draft picks (generally 2nd rounders where you expect to miss most of the time, IMO), and I think he could have spent the MLE more wisely in the last couple years. BUT I think he has done significantly more to improve this roster than he has done to hurt it and I also believe that he's done significantly more to put us in a position to become a contender than the average GM would have done. For these reasons, I believe Morey is a good GM.

And I hope you enjoyed your popcorn.

 

i dont usually agree with solomons articles but why are so many people upset he called us a last place team? i knew right away what he was referring to. there is 4-5 teams in your division, if you finish last the chance of you making the playoffs is horrible. are divisional record was pathetic this year. he never said the rockets were the dregs of the of the nba, he said we were a last place team and we are.

 

When I hear "last place," the last thing I think of is a division standing. Repeating we're a last place team over and over, while meaning last in the division, is just Solomon cherry picking to help make his point. Most people prefer writers who will give them a story/facts without bias -- and in this case, there is an extreme bias against the Rockets. I don't have a problem with him calling out Morey and I'm glad he did -- but him referring to the Rockets as a last place team over-and-over is very annoying to me.

What if I wrote a fluff piece for the Suns calling the Phoenix Suns a second place team, over and over -- wouldn't you find that a bit disingenuous?

 

I wish we had assets. Seems to me that DM's assets are only assets to DM.

 

Is there any chance of the Chronicle trading Solomon? Perhaps for a good font off the bench?

 

Martin was the only one with enough balls to stand up and say something. You can bet everyone else feels the same way.

 

Yup, FWIW, I know for a fact that they do.

 

I hadn't thought about it, but the idea that Washington is more a city of wizards, and less a city of bullets, is astounding. It is hard to find a wizard there, but not so hard to find a bullet.

Houston Humidity!

 

So basically he said Morey did call players assets and then said it wasn't a bad thing....

 

So Ray Allen is cowardly and without balls since his GM went so far as to single him out as an "asset" and yet he kept quiet. Gotcha.

Truth of the matter is.. they are assets. If that hurts their feelings, toughen up. We didn't lose games because Martin was up at late worried he'd have to find a new condo in another city. Could Morey be on the radio less? Sure, I'll accept that as a valid criticism for him. But complaining about what words he uses when a lot of other GMs say the exact same thing? Please. We're grasping at straws to complain about there.

Also, we're talking about the same guy who whined that he had to be the first option and how he didn't come here to be the first option. We should make it 31 transactions in the last two years and bring in some players that are mentally tougher.

 

The better question is has that at all affected their play, and if we should care at all if it hasn't.

There are some people here who take offense to the way Morey handles player relations. That is a personal preference and I don't have a problem with anyone who thinks that. However there are others who suggest it is somehow hurting the team's ability to move forward. Obviously I am in need of enlightening because I just don't see it.

 

Yeah, that's my thing, it just doesn't seem to actually hurt the Rockets as a team at all. I guess you could say they DID play better after the all-star break when they didn't have that stuff hanging over their head anymore, but you could just as easilly attribute that to the "addition by subtraction" theory. Or I guess it could be a little of both, Ill admit that I don't really know. But Kevin Martin, who apparently was the biggest one bothered by it, was still just as productive or better this year than he's ever been, so he didn't let it hurt his game much. And props to him for that, as well.

 

Shane Battier also complained. If you want to ignore all of it, fine. If your contention is that it's all meaningless, okay. If you think those were just isolated incidents, and the rest of the team isn't bothered by any of it, that's your prerogative. Maybe it's just normal for stand-up guys to question their organization like that. I guess we'll see what happens.

 

Hot Damn that is one cold dagger! I can't imagine Morey saying something like that........

I still think it's trash journalism, way too personal, but you know what.. I understand :grin:

 

BINGO! If the players are so adversely affected by trade rumors and being called "assets", then they are mentally weak.