Short thread. Dell Demps is held accountable for not knowing Stern would pull a veto. That is logical. I believe that Morey should be held accountable for the same mistake (although to a lesser extent) Why is he not held to accountable for this? If I remember the day the trade news began to break, it came to the national media about 9-10 hours before it was officially killed. It has always seemed to me that there was more than enough time for Stern to go down the backchannel to have the deal killed. We give Morey grace because of the fact that "Stern killed his baby". How could Morey have been suprised? Really? I smell a desperate move coming. The howls will crash the site. Sucking one of the last two years would have had us much further along than we are now. This abortion of a season should have been sacrificed for draft standing. Champion a winning team all you want but we all know it.
Don't you know that criticism of Morey isn't allowed on this site? In God...oh I mean in Morey We [Blindly] Trust.
Les is in the same boat. If he had let go of his filling his seats, go into the playoffs ideas, Morey would acquire even more draft picks, and Scola and Martin would be gone by now.
The failed trade cost of a team of. Lowry/Lin/ Flynn Lee/ T.Will Parson/ Bud / Morris Gasol / Patterson Nene / Hill / Thabeet.
Go All Lin on young players... instead of half assing with Scola and Martin, keeping busts on the pine, and good players with the Dleague.
The only real fault I can put on him is holding onto players for too long, but even that is a stretch. Look...he inherited TWO albatros contracts with Yao and McGrady, and has managed to turn that into a solid-to-good team while ranking in the bottom third of the league in cap. Could he have capitalized on Brooks sooner? Sure, but he still got Dragic out of the deal. As you mentioned, he tried to move Scola and Martin while their value was high, but the league put the kibosh on that. Honestly, what more could we expect? He's done an amazing job of drafting value, and is always very active on the trade market. He has to work within the context of what Les gives him, and I can't say any other GM in the league could have done what he has under the same conditions.
yeah ...i have to say, blaming Morey for the Stern debacle is like blaming a mugging victim in a good neighborhood.
Do you really think Morey or Mith Kupcheck (Lakers GM) would just waste their time with such a deal knowing they would never get it done? Kupcheck was furious and even a bit more outspoken than Morey. What you are accusing Morey of doing is baseless and you should be flogged by Greg Oden
Thing is Morey is trying to keep his job...and part of that is making the 8th seed apparently. I think the obvious choice for this team is to look to the future and not worry about sneaking into the playoffs every year. But I think as an organization (Les) we do not believe in tanking err rebuilding.
Thanks for your positive view and optimistic outlook. You know, I am so mad that Morey didn't consult with a psychic medium befor the trade with Hornets, that way he could have foreseen the outcome, that Stern would break all known rules of engagement to veto the trade. I am furious that he has built a team talented enough to be sitting at 4th seed in the west, with expiring contracts, that will give us enough cap space to go after at least two max players in off-season and then resign our young 'assets'. Absolutely gutted about that. Also the fact that he couldn't move Thabeet, Adrien and Flynn for LeBron or Dwight has astonished me, like come on D MOAR do your job, let's become the laughing stock like the clippers / Mavs of the 90's, tank in the hopes of landing that superstar in the draft that will make us legit contenders. It might take 10-20 years which is a long time, but we here on Clutchfans don't like your 5 year plan that has delivered a winning record and put us in a financial position to go after the big fish. ...just saying.
I really don't understand your logic. We should hold Morey accountable for not expecting an agreed upon deal to be vetoed by the league...after it had already recieved league approval...but then was later vetoed by Stern acting on behalf of the New Orleans franchise? A situation like this has never before occurred in the history of the NBA. Obviously the Lakers didn't have much of a contingency plan either... true to form, nothing of any value to add...
...btw: I am of the firm belief that Gasol & Nene would have been used as trade chips to bring Howard, had the trade with New Orleans gone through.
Every GM in the league was under the assumption that Dell Demps had complete say over the Hornets roster moves. In fact, GMs called the league office personally and were told that Dell Demps had the final say on every move the Hornets made. Stern didn't even think about jumping in and stopping it until after a bunch of owners complained about it.
And Hayes. And for the OP. I don't think many hold Demps accountable. That one lies squarely with Stern, although some point the finger at Gilbert and other owners. You can argue that Morey should have abandoned building around Yao and McGrady earlier. You can argue that we should have given away Scola, Martin, Lowry for scrubs to suck badly enough to land a top pick. You can argue that we should stop trying to find diamonds in the rough in the draft and instead pick stiffs who will guarantee losses. I disagree with all of those, although in hindsight I wish we had done the first and traded Yao and McGrady when they had value. But how the hell is the voided trade Morey's fault? How could he have predicted that Stern would act in an unprecedented way? I would have loved to see that team that he envisioned with that trade, and I do have faith that he will eventually get this team back to championship contender status. It won't be through a top lottery pick unless we strike ping pong gold, but he will find success with a free agent or trades with the assets that he is quite adept at discovering and developing.
I am under the impression that the trade was submitted to the league. This would mean any say Stern had as "owner" should have been gone. No one expects a trade to get nixed at league level...especially after the last Gasol trade....Memphis got really lucky with that deal.
Stern knew what he did... That's why Houston got an All-star game next season. As to make everything all better again. But, he messed with the Rockets very unprofessionally. Morey had contacted the league office several times to see if the GM for the Hornets had the authority to do such a trade, and the response consistently was yes. Stern likely used inside information on behalf of the Hornets. Very unethical tactics. But that should be of no surprise The crazy part of all this was that lots of people were against the trade in the first place.... I recall posters rejoicing that Stern had saved Morey from himself.
