You missed it. Those guys weren't no brainer picks because of their limited film. Those guys,kobe,tracy,garnett were high school kids. Westbrook was a sophmore with incredible upside. I didn't say he was in position to draft those guys, I just don't know if he had the chance that he would draft those guys. Its easy to draft tim duncan #1. Its easy to draft allen iverson #1. What happens when you're the gm and you see kerry kittles in in the big east vs kobe bryant vs high school players? What happens when you see rasheed wallace vs duke vs garnett playing against another prep school? See what I'm saying in terms of being safe vs busting out? I don't know if its in his nature to take a big risk. The rewards can be just as high as the bust-ratio. As it stands right now and looking at the roster,patterson,parson,and morris are all safe picks. That's not the worse thing in the world and I've never said otherwise. I just think in any trade or draft scenerio, morey will always be safe with it.
Then it shouldn't cost a top 8 pick to acquire that type of player if he's so undervalued and demand isn't high. No need to bring up Stro's contract either, because MLE contracts are easy to move. This is what's the most troubling to me, especially when Morey has gone on record (at last year's Sloan Conference I believe) and explicitly said that he doesn't draft based on potential. You need to take some risks when drafting players with lottery picks if you want to hit it big. The risk averse approach will get you solid role players (not necessarily a bad thing), but it won't land you a star which is what this team needs.
Don't the Spurs use something very similar? I know the Spurs rely heavily on data and the biggest difference is that they have had Manu and one of the best big men ever to help them out. To me I always say if you plop Yao right in the center of this team you'd have a contender. Especially this year. Perhaps though for now the Rockets should shoot for 'potential' and forget about the data.
So by this logic, I can judge you to be a serial killer because although I've never actually seen you kill anyone, I don't actually know if you have the predisposition to kill people. If you're going to bash a person, why don't you at least bash him based on what he did real life, and not what you "think" he may or may not do in a hypothetical scenario that you made up?
This strategy works extremely well, to an extent. Simple fact is great players make all the difference, and you don't need to be a stat guy to know the best players. You need to acquire a star, but stars these days care more about markets than franchises. The other alternative is through he draft, but the lottery makes the draft nothing more than a crap shoot, and one the lottery is settled no team is gonna trade a pick that may be a superstar. I will maintain this, no GM in the league would have had any more success luring a star to Houston. And a lot of GMs would have made stupid signings that strapped the club while fruitlessly trying to build playoff team. Morey know this, he keeps us competitive and flexible. Blindly hoping to win the draft is losing proposition. Morey has the right idea, build a good team and maybe finally convince a star to come here. He knows who the great players are and doesn't waste his time with the Andre Iguodala's and Monta Ellis's of the world, unless he can get them on the cheap.
Are you sure that's what we said? It doesn't sound right, because I've heard him talk about the "potential" of the players he's drafted recently (e.g. Motiejunas, Morris). It may have been something more like raw potential tends to be overvalued in the draft. From that, I would infer he puts less weight on it compared to other factors. Not that he doesn't consider it at all.
I believe in money ball in baseball, foremost, and even with some applications to football and hockey. But in basketball where one individual athlete can have an unspeakable effect on a franchise's business operations AND be a severe ball hog for almost an entire game at a time, it stands to reason that money ball has to compete with super primitive team-building methods like blind luck or big city charm. This is the NBA cynic in me speaking. Generally speaking I am OK with money ball ideas.
Don't know if anyone said this, but the one person holding Morey back is Les, IMO. I think Morey has done a great job and I still have A LOT of faith in him. He is the first GM I have taken a genuine interest in. That being said, he DOES need to get a superstar to build around. Once that happens, he truly will have a chance to show us his magic.
I voted "no opinion" not because I have no opinion, but because none of these choices express my opinion accurately enough for me to be comfortable putting that as my opinion. Basically, I think on a case-by-case basis, the concept is extremely useful; this has showed up in the fact that Morey's list of clear win transactions far outnumbers the legit failure tranactions (as well as the fact that he usually acts quickly to erase the failed ones, e.g. Brad Miller, Trevor Ariza). It can't be used as a complete team-building strategy without finding a perfect balance between analysis and chemistry/traditional scouting considerations. However, I think Morey is much better at seeing this big picture than his detractors give him credit for. I also agree with the statement "superstars run this league", but I don't think that makes Moneyball a failure, merely a "best we can get" suboptimal solution. Since the "sit on our asses and wait for multiple max players to force their way on to our team" strategy is clearly not available to us, you can hardly fault our management style for not acquiring superstars in today's NBA climate, where literally every superstar transaction in the last 3 years has been driven by the players making the rules and not the teams.
Honestly, there is little rational reason NOT to use analytics. Player evaluation using heavy stats analysis is exactly the same thing that coaches use, except with more organization. No one would fault a coach for saying, "When Scola posts on the strong side, he's great at faking so the help defender can't double him while also cutting off the corner 3. Let's run more corner 3's." So there's no point in disliking analytic approaches that say, "Corner 3's are the most efficient shot in basketball." Analytics are very cheap compared to player salaries. If you hire 2 data analysts and buy data, that might cost you a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. That's like 2% of Scola's yearly salary. Sure, Morey has to be good at the softer stuff, too, like relationship building, personnel management, etc. But analytics is so cheap there is no reason not to do it, especially when Morey is good at it.
It seems a lot more concrete in baseball because only one stat really matters and that's putting up runs. You pair that with decent pitching and I can see the idea that the numbers will eventually bear out over time. In basketball it seems like a good way to evaluate players as individuals but it doesn't necessarily help when building a team. Basketball has more factors than just who can put the ball in the basket. And at some point the conventional wisdom about a players size and physicality have to come into play.
This is stupid. Considering when Morey has picked out a ton of talented players using lower draft picks I don't see why you could just randomly assume that he wouldn't be able to do the same with higher draft picks.
Since he's been with the Rockets, we've had 3 lottery picks. First time, we traded it for Shane Battier. Second time, we drafted a solid 4 year player -- Patrick Patterson. Third time, we drafted a 3-year player -- Marcus Morris. Even with the later picks, he favors players that have played 3 or 4 years in college. So, there's a pattern, don't you agree?
Not completely. Shane Battier was more of a CD pick. Marcus Morris and Patterson were dead last lottery picks. Yes, he has favored players who have spent a few more years in college (and I think we could agree, the majority of them were successful), but most of the "high upside, young age" players are near unobtainable in the 14th pick range. Also, weren't we trying to trade up to acquire DeMarcus Cousins? If I recall correctly, weren't we doing the same for Valanciunas? We also picked out D-Mo (although it wasn't a lottery pick).
Perfect example of how correlation does not equal causation. If you look at the players taken in the lower half of the first round in the past years, or really any given year, you'd see most teams draft upperclassmen. And the few "raw" guys they've drafted tend to be huge busts. The last time I can think of star players drafted 14th or lower was back when only the Spurs knew about the European market and got Manu/Parker. Since then, the stars have basically all gone in the top 5.
durvasa was pointing out the pattern. Correlation does not equal causation. But it does give you indication that there MIGHT be some causal relationship there. (e.g. They had found the correlation of cancer and smoking before they knew the cause. People had known about the principles of heredity before they understood genetics.) You can say that the sample size is still too small. But so far, all lottery picks (only 3 so far) have been spent on players with highly reliable data rather than traditional "potential" type gambles.
