I suggest you become a fan of a different team. I guarantee that you could not do a better job than Morey. Heck, I'm not even a huge fan of his, but you're judging everything in hindsight and forgetting about the reality of our team in previous years. It's not like we have been the Clippers for the last decade.
I dont want to become the Clippers. Its a reality built on excuses and not doing the right things when necessary which also falls onto the GM.
Some mentally r****ded people are b****ing about Morey when he's batting .400 because he failed to bat 1.000. When he drew walks rather than hit home runs, they characterize the fact that the opposing pitcher threw 4 balls well out of the strike zone as excuses.
Ok. I'll get on it. I will be contacting Morey to let him know we want that star player or top 5 lottery pick by Thursday, no excuses.
I was wondering why I was reading posts from thetatomatis when I realized I wasn't signed in.... Ahh...much better....love the ignore option.
-Trade attempt for Chandler failed. -You would've traded a healthy Yao for a rookie Noah? Smh -What team would've given up a high pick for an injured Yao? You bash Morey any chance you get. Stop being dumb by thinking being a GM with over 40 mil in street clothes is easy.
Good!:grin: I hope he does. You know guys like Moreys career start like this where they are loved by all. After a honeymoon period of about 4 to 5 years? Say like Kubiak, Rick Smith, Frank Bush(after 2 years), Adelman, they start to hear people like me perhaps??? Perhaps some others who dont like whatthey are doing. Then they get moved along for someone else if the owner starts to hear more people talk like that and think that way. I am just going through the natural order of things in sports. Which is result or fan outcry. Natural in sports of all levels.
That means say about year 1 or 2 from now? All of you giving me heat over Morey will start to join in if things dont change. Then? Well nobody will apologize to me for blasting what I already was talking about. They will just adopt that mindset. Now if Morey turns it around??? Starts to hear people on his hide about things in the media. Needs to make a move and finally does? You get to gloat even though it was fans like me who put pressure on the organization to succeed. It works out for you alot better than me. Just dont kill the messenger too much.
Can you give us examples of great centers or star players that were available in the spots we picked in the past 5 years, or could have been acquired via trade with our assets? TIA.
I did in early posts. I know its a hot topic about Morey and the job he is doing. I just like to go places some posters wont at times on my own teams. Just to get the elephants out of the room and focus on our weaknesses at times. Ill get off this topic if it displeases some. Sorry guys.
Cool. They debunked them. Then we are fine right? I cant get too worried about what happened in years past. Just hoping Morey moves forward now and gets what he is looking for finally. Highlight our weak areas. Star and 7ft defensive rebounding center. Chuck is a fan favorite and hard worker but would like another defender/rebounder with size. At least, if not a potential star.
I'll be odd-man out and agree with thetatomatis. If there is a fault or failure on Morey, yes, it's he hasnt been able to bring in a servicable center over 6'6. We all love Chuck but 6'6 isnt gonna cut it. One can say we didnt have a need for this guy or that guy at this time or that time, but at the same time, did we have a need for Terrence Williams when we traded a 1st for him?(Had Battier/Budinger) Did we have a need for Patrick Patterson when we drafted him?(Had Scola, Hayes, previous lottery pick Jordan Hill. Where was Pat going to see time?!) Did we have a need for Aaron Brooks when we drafted him?(Had Rafer, Francis, Head, Jackson, James) These were all positions where we had guys yet we drafted guys at those very same positions so I'm not sure I really buy the "We had [insertname/positionhere] at the time so we didnt need for [insertname/positionhere]". I'm not necessarily going to fault him for failing to get Chandler. With that said, one said we didnt have this need or that need at this time or that time. The Mavs didnt have a real need for Tyson Chandler either. They had just signed Haywood to a 5 year or 6 year 55 million dollar deal(I believe). What do they do? They go out and get Tyson Chandler. We'll see if they re-sign him Past Rockets centers: David Andersen Hilton Armstrong Jackie Butler Marcus Campbell Jordan Eglseder Dikembe Mutombo Frederic Weis Loren Woods Missed out on for one reason or another: Omer Asik - couldnt agree w/ Chicago on a deal. Tyson Chandler - another team pulled out Erick Dampier - Rockets walked away Marcin Gortat - Mavs offered Gortat, Magic matched Mavs offer Kyrylo Fesenko - ???(Was a target, unsure if offer was ever made) Amar'e Stoudemire - Rockets walked away(?) Current Rockets centers: Brad Miller Marcus Cousin Yao Ming Hasheem Thabeet Jordan Hill Chuck Hayes These guys arent stars by any means but why no _______? Semih Erdan(via trade-- 2nd rd pick) Aaron Gray(via trade/FA(RFA?)) Zydrunas Illgauskas(FA) Nenad Krstic(RFA/trade) Jermaine O'Neal(FA) Shaquille O'Neal(FA) Theo Ratliff(FA) Kurt Thomas(FA) Easy to look back now but 2007 draft: Kyrylo Fesenko Marc Gasol Aaron Gray 2008 draft: Nikola Pekovic DeAndre Jordan Omer Asik Semih Erdan 2009 draft: Had no official picks 2010 draft: Hassan Whiteside(I guess) But it wasnt for a lack of trying!! If you fail, try, try again they say! Just gotta keep battleGMin'!!
This is a pretty solid point. And honestly, as devout a Moreyite as I am, it could be taken as a flaw in their drafting philosophy. They always take the best player available. It is an exceedingly rare circumstance when centers are the best players available. I once saw a break down of how common it is to be of a certain height. 6'0, 6'1, 6'2, 6'3, all the way up to the tallest man alive. As one can imagine, the shorter the height, the larger the pool of people. The larger the pool, the higher the probability that you will find someone who is a top notch athlete who is actually a skilled player. When you get into the 7 footers, the pool is so small that is no surprise that the league is full of 7 foot 'stiffs'. As such, it's going to be a relatively rare instance in which we draft at, for example, 26th (where we took Brooks) when a point guard, shooting guard or small forward isn't the best player available. If there happens to be that freakishly rare combination of height, athleticism, skill - they'll likely be a lotto pick. Yes, there have been some notable exceptions, many of which have been listed here - but personally I think even guys like DeAndre Jordan and Andre Blatche are going to have less than stellar careers. Marc Gasol was definitely a missed opportunity for us and every team not named the Lakers. And Omer Asik looks like he may be a promising defensive center - but mostly, you end up with stiffs and r****ds late in the game. And so it's easy to pass on them for a promising guard who can actually play the game of basketball AND walk and chew bubblegum at the same time (I'm not sure DeAndre Jordan can do that). So yeah, I'll allow that Morey may need to adjust his philosophy on drafting the best available player some - because obviously we need to gain a legit 7 footer somehow and we're not doing so well in free agency. That said, of the following players (all mentioned above), I think those in bold are the only ones who stood a real chance at beating Chuck out. The rest either aren't as savvy/good or are too old to play many minutes. And of them, Asik is the only player I think we've ever really had a chance at (other than if we drafted them). We certainly tried for Chandler and Gortat. Omer Asik Tyson Chandler Erick Dampier Marcin Gortat Kyrylo Fesenko Amar'e Stoudemire *not a center and made it clear he had no interest in being one Semih Erdan Aaron Gray Zydrunas Illgauskas Nenad Krstic Jermaine O'Neal Shaquille O'Neal Theo Ratliff Kurt Thomas Marc Gasol Nikola Pekovic DeAndre Jordan Hassan Whiteside
Here's an intersting question: do the Rockets make the playoffs if they would have signed Dampier? After all, there's a growing number on here who think this is a 50-win team that's just missing a shot blocking presence.
First, good post/reply. Hard to refute much of anything you said but I'll try. While yes, many wont be Chuck out, I see it more as splitting time. Say 20/20 for each(or even 30/10). But again, you may be right that some of those [older] guys might not even be able to give you that. After all, some of them didnt even make it the entire season/playoffs. With that said, even if they dont beat out Chuck, how many of those guys would you take over our backup center(whoever that is. Jordan Hill?) Regarding Stoudemire, not to question you(although that's exactly what I'm doing), did he say he didnt want to play center? I may have missed that(in fact I did if he did say that). I know Bosh said he wanted no role in that and wasnt going to play center. Again, great post/reply. Hard for me to refute much of anything you said. I dont know. Maybe they still fall short, I dont know. Does Rick play Dampier? Put a gun to my head and make me give you a straight answer? Yeah, even if they sign Damp, I think they still fall short. You mean guys like Rick? Is Dampier(or insert shot-blocking-presence-name-here besides Dwight) worth ~7 wins? I dont know! I'd lean towards no. Maybe they are. Not that we care what Richard Justice says but has repeatedly said that the "computers at the TC say Dalembert gives them 4 more wins or 4 extra wins".
Hell no. Only because Dampier probably wouldn't have made the rotation. Chuck/Scola/Patterson are all significantly better. At best he takes Hill's minutes. I think with a LEGIT shot blocking presence -Chandler/Asik/Gortat- they are about a 50-win team. Still without a realistic shot at a championship though.
The questions is, even if some of those guys give you an extra 4 wins, 7 wins, or whatever, does that really change the outlook of the team? Does winning 47 games last year change anything besides giving us a worse draft pick? We would still be looking for the exact same things with the exact same needs. An elite shot creator and a legitimate shot blocking center who isn't old and breaking down or a fringe NBA player. The reason why we are still starting Chuck Hayes is because 1. Until last year, we were still banking on Yao Ming to return. It was a low % bet, but the HIGHEST % bet we had for winning a championship. 2. It wouldn't make sense to tie up future flexibility on players who would make no difference in the long term outlook of the team, just for the sake of getting a center. Point 1. is no longer the case, so I wouldn't be surprised if we "paid up" in our next attempts. In fact, I would be extremely surprised if we did not start next year with a legitimate shot blocking center on the roster. You have to realize, our REAL push for a center started 5 games into last season, not 2 or 3 years ago.
