Those wings Morris is "chasing" around in the NBDL are not NBA wing players. The best way for a guy to learn is to play in the NBA. Let him bump his head. Our wing players are average at best, and if the Rox really believe this guy is "special", its ridiculous to let Budinger & Parsons stand in his way. Don't tell me he's special if he can't beat out those two. If they are better then so be it, but you're killing me with the company line. BTW, there was a long stretch against the Spurs where the Rox had a serious problem scoring the ball and a good offensive player would have come in handy. They've invested heavily in this minor league team and seem determined to use it. Even if a "special" lottery pick has to sit behind two inconsistent players at his position.
This is a great feature. In case Jason Friedman is reading, I hope he can put out more stuff like this in the future (analysis from the basketball operation folks).
from what i see he has a complete offensive game. theres nothing he cant do as a sf. If his game translates well to the NBA he's a star for sure. If he scores 10 less pts and grabs 6 less boards in the NBA that's 20 and 6.
Are they better then Morris.... not exactly talent wise, but Parsons/Bud gives McHale the best chance to win right now. These are role players we are talking about. They HAVE BEEN consistent when performing their roles actually. Its all about team defense right now when McHale makes roster decisions. Position transition is no easy thing at that level and McHale will not sacrifice defensive breakdowns at this point. Im not sure why people on here dont understand that. Just boggles my mind. Obviously you and others like DD have a "trial by fire" philosophy that the team does not share, but they have their reasons for making first year rookies earn their way through the DLeague for their first couple of weeks. You dont have to agree with it, but every rookie they bring in will have to earn PT this way. Just get used to it or root for another team.
Parsons had Bud have beaten him in the rotation, plain and simple. This isn't some crazy agenda by management to utilize their D-league investment. Not everyone develops rookies by throwing them in the fire. The Lakers thought Bynum was a "special" player as well and kept him on the back burner behind Kwame Brown.
Bynum was 17 when he was drafted from high school. Major difference. Morris was at Kansas for years and is 22years old. But this is why I laugh at all posters who "wish" the Rox had Ricky Rubio. If Rubio was a Rocket he'd be with the RGV Vipers behind Lowry, Dragic & Flynn "figuring out" how to play in the NBA instead of being one of the league leaders in assists.
DID SOMEBODY SAY CONSPIRACY THEORY?! Usually I'm all down for that but not really this time.... The best answer to the conspiracy theory is Patrick Patterson. P Pat was a 4 year player for a solid program and quite mentally and physically mature coming into the league and he was given time to develop. Correlation at the least... Changing positions isn't always equal, generally moving up a spot is easier for your concept of team defense but isolation you can be a liability. Moving down a spot is usually harder because you have a liability on both fronts, on & off the ball... So it's understandable, even if not justifiable, that they would rather him play for 30 minutes in 15 DL games than get 5-10 min/game in the NBA and potentially losing confidence and not getting the full workload of defending this position when you're fatigued. There's your causation.... repetition when you don't have much practice time due to the lockout makes sense to me. If Morris wasn't injured and played 10 more games at this level, he would be sitting on the bench right now with the Rockets. So we won't have to wait long to see the kid play and that has nothing to do with Parsons/Bud's level of play but it could have a lot to do with the trade deadline.
Rep'd. The irony concerning Morris' ability or inability to defend when 2/3 of the roster play swiss-cheese defense.
Morris is not a 3. They can say what they want and try to believe it, but he's a tweener. That's not the worse thing in the world,but as I've said, he needs to play alongsde another tweener.
He doesn't have a good enough handle to do damage from the perimeter as a 3. Sure he can spot up and slash to the hoop occasionally, but at this point there's no way hes the offensive Juggernaut some people think he is
Morris has not been in the D-League for the last 2 weeks. MM had a bad ankle sprain. He was called up to the Rockets team to be evaluated by the medical staff. Yeah yeah, it could be a fake injury and the Chronicle could be pulling the company line. These conspiracy theories are a bit crazy though. It didn't look like Morris was faking the injury, when he came down on that guy's foot. http://blog.chron.com/ultimaterockets/2012/02/rockets-coach-mchale-dismisses-adjustment-talk/