Are you fed up with Moreyball yet?

What would beasley give us that Parson doesn't? Chase Budinger and Marcus Morris can't even find time on the roster, and you want to trade for yet another SF? Secondly nobody got Okafor+1st pick in NO. If it was available at that price how come nobody pounced on it?

Morey would have been an idiot not to do the Okafor deal, I think it wasn't on the table to begin with. Why else would he trade expirings+2nd rounder for Cambyover Okafor+1st rounder?

 

I think this thread is interesting because all the excuses are neatly lined up:

* Morey did get his blockbuster trade with Gasol; it just got killed by Stern. No, he didn't. Stern axing the deal is one of the contingencies he should have addressed. The trade wasn't executed, so it's just another failed trade.

* It's been less than a year since Yao retired. So what? He didn't play the season before that and the writing has been on the wall longer than that even. Morey has been attempting to find his new franchise player for a few seasons now.

* We had our two stars go down to injuries, so we lost a lost of talent without much compensation. Sure, but the Rockets chose to hitch their wagon to Yao and McGrady knowing the injury risk. They gambled and lost on that one.

* We don't have the assets to get a superstar? Then why are we trying? Tank the mother.

* Stars don't want to come to Houston. One, again why are we trying then? Two, we were willing to take a rental and still couldn't get the trade. Three, I think that stuff is overblown.

* Other teams like OKC had a lot more time to rebuild. They rebuilt through the draft. It's the Rockets who want to rebuild without losing. If they rebuilt from the draft, of course they'd get a few years grace for those players to mature.

But, I don't think any of this has to do with the statistical stuff Morey is known for. That stuff seems to be working. It's the strategy of trading multiple assets for a relocating superstar that isn't working. I think this offseason is his D-Day. He's got cap space and trade chips. If he can't do it this offseason with all that, then how can you hold out any hope?

 

He would give us a player who is a black hole with the ball who thrives playing isolation basketball...hence why he isn't working in Adelman's system.

So, not much but a name

 

Can you imagine the hellish harpies that would come out if we did actually tank?

And the draft day threads about how Morey is drafting the wrong player?

And then how we still manage to keep losing even though we got a stud rookie?

Tracy McGrady wanted to come here to play with Yao Ming. It's not the city, it's the lack of a star to pull in other stars. NJN was a joke until they landed Deron Williams. They were serious frontrunners for Dwight Howard before he decided to waffle on his ETO and leave everyone scratching their heads.

Eventually a star will become dislodged, whether by being disgruntled and demanding a trade, or for major salary cap management issues (as we may see in 2013/2014 as major penalties kick in). There's not enough superstars for even one to each team.

Chill out.

 

Unless said team were after dwill and the Nets opted to try to convince him to stay. I wasn't truly against Gasol but the lakers were more than likely persuing other avenues and everyone knows teams are more open to trades near the deadline. As the lakers, what do you do? Add to gasol a capable point guard? Or take Houston's offer? I'd do the former considering neither move truly nets you a star.

 

After all this, I'm even more convinced the front office doesn't know what the hell it's doing.

I just don't see how any of these moves help us in the short or long term. Morey may not be stupid but he's far from being a "genius."

 

This is not entirely fair, as it was told to LAL and us by the NOH front office that it was a done deal. That the NOH front office had the power to execute such a deal, and that they had already passed it up the chain of command for approval, including Silver's.

Then an unprecedented/once-in-a-lifetime-because-it-would-only-happen-with-the-worst-conflict-of-interest result pops up. That's not predictable. That's a black swan.

How many franchise players are there in the league? Five? Ten? How many are even remotely movable in a given year?

Look at NYK: do they have any franchise players? I would say no, yet look at their record with all of their purported star power. Game-changers are not that easy to get.

This one is not unfair, but what else do you do with legitimate but risky stars? You build around them and hope for the best.

Not when your boss, the owner, says that you can't.

I don't think that's an indictment of the city or team itself. Stars are what attract other stars. Getting the first one is the challenge.

Giving a few grace years for young players to mature is exactly the same as a few grace years for contract and salary management to swing trades and sign FAs/rookies.

So let's say that no stars are available. From where are you suddenly going to conjure one? We're in position to pounce. A stray star still has to cross our path. Apparently being in good position to strike, but being forced to wait is totally intolerable, yet flailing with young players is okay? It's the same result.

We already know that true max players are worth more than the max contract. How do you effectively trade for a supermax player with limited salary considerations in return? You have to bet on them with young players and draft picks.

 

Great post OMR

I don't think Morey overvalues accumulating assets and turning them into something better. I don't think he has any other choice. You have to take what you have and improve it. There really isn't any other option other than to take what you have an devalue it, right? Improving your assets and managing the cap allows you opportunities in the future and that is all we can hope for.

I would like to have Batum back as well but that really turned out ok with Meta coming here. Saying we want Batum now is extreme hindsight anyway so I think he did ok. Jury is still out on Morris over Leonard but if you throw in the Parsons pick and DMo, that was an amazing draft for Morey.

Anyway, I agree with you that having a really smart guy that works very hard for us makes Morey ok by me.

 

Spot on JV. Morey seems to be able to aquire good talent. He seems to know what he's doing on that end. But the strategy is not working. Excuses are one thing, but if it's not working, don't try and make excuses for the strategy ...freaking change the strategy. I do think it's fair to wait till draft night to be disappointed again before grabbing my pitchfork and rope. But my patience is wearing thin.

 

I was tired of him 3 years ago. Too many people in here are die hard Morey fans over Rocket fans. He'll never build a contender and always make cheap cost friendly moves

 

So what should the contingency plan have been? What other star was available? Star players are not available very often. There was an opportunity to acquire Gasol and we took it. It's not like we sat by and watched other stars get moved for next to nothing once the deal was overturned. We can't force teams to trade their star players.

Yes and so has most of the NBA. There's only a handful of franchise players and everyone wants them. The Laker's tried to get Chris Paul and failed. The Lakers took a run at getting Howard, that's what teams do. If your managment isn't trying to acquire those type guys whenever they can then it doesn't bode well for your team.

The fact is that we had two stars. Yes they were injury prone but two injury prone stars were still a better option than having zero stars. It's not like we turned down a trade for a superstar in order to keep Yao or TMac. At least there was a chance that they could stay healthy and make a run in the playoffs. What trade did we turn down that would have been guarenteed to reboot the franchise quickly?

We do have the assets that's not the problem. The problem is that there few superstars in the league and even fewer are available. Of the ones that are available many of them control their own fate due to the threat of them walking away in free agency. Howard will end up wherever he likes and what we can offer has no bearing on things at all. It's not different than Lebron and Bosh they were going to Miami and there really wasn't anything that was going to change that.

Stars don't want to come here because they want to form a duo or trio of stars ala Lebron-Wade-Bosh or Kobe-Gasol-Bynum.

Are you really complaining about not getting Howard when he didn't even get traded? Nobody got Howard. The offers had nothing to do with it, Orlando didn't (and still doesn't) want to trade Howard unless they absolutely have to.

Yes OKC/Seattle built through the draft but they also started that rebuilding following the 1998 season. Unfortunately for them that few year grace period wasn't long enough and they ended up having to move the franchise. Despite what many people like to think building through the draft is no sure thing. Yes OKC had 3 very good drafts in a row but that came after almost 10 consecutive drafts that didn't work out for them. That hardly sounds like a sure strategy to me.

Again, what superstar are you expecting him to acquire? Who are all of the stars that are going to be available? Maybe Deron Williams? If no superstars are available then we should fire our GM because he can't force a team to trade their star? That's a ridiculous criteria and similar to people who are so upset because we didn't acquire a franchise player today when no franchise players were traded in the entire league.

 

I blame all of you and those 'Morey screws over another GM' videos a while back. Probably went around the league and everyone decided we ain't getting **** from here on out.

 

This much of your post I agree with. But why has he been unable to land the big fish? What bait has been available to him? Does anyone think Les would have ever consented to trading Yao when he was healthy? Or even TMac for that matter?

Considering where he has drafted at and who he has had to trade I really have a hard time thinking any other GM would have done better. Remember when DM took over it was Yao, TMac and a bunch of guys that were simply not NBA worthy.

If you grade each move he has made individually then I think he gets a bunch of A+ grades. His achillies heal continues to be his inability to land a star player for one reason or another. He has kept a very competitive team on the floor but a team that was meant to be role players for Yao and TMac.

Now the hardest part of his job is left and that is to acquire a Star. Les does not want to tank, that is not DM's call. Is DMo going to be a star? Sergio Llull? Who knows but I think DM has done an admirable job.

 

It wasn't hindsight for me. Batum was my pick before that draft. We had a contest here and I was the only one who had us taking Batum. Of course we traded before we ever got him but he was my pick. I also clearly wanted Sanders over Patrick and Leonard over Morris none of that was hindsight.

I think Morey's formula doesn't value defensive play enough. Under values character and heart. I think he does much better at evaluating apples with apples as opposed to college prospect with non NBA stats and that has caused him some problem in the 1st round but not a major deal. And I also think he is constantly montitoring trends to make his system work better. For instance after all these teams with TE made out like bandits Morey wanted some of that. Turns out that cap space and TE's weren't as valuable later.

He spotted a trend of having young assets can help and he loaded up on those. Now he sees how 1st round picks are over valued and can help close deals because not as smart GM's want to be able to go to their boss and say hey a got this and another 1st to help as rebuild. And maybe also because he knows how to get more value out of his picks. In all the while he is making us younger gathering assets and picks and always looking for a way to nab that elusive superstar to truly turn this squad around. While still managing to keep this team competitive.

As much as I wanted Mory to scrap this team and give us a high lottery pick he seems to have a plan to do it differently and he is sticking to it. I respect albeit not always agreeing with him. But I also admit that I do not know even a fraction of what he deals with to get things done and if I did I might be more inclined to agree.

 

It seems perfectly obvious to me and many others here that it's Les Alexander who is unwilling to strip mine the team in order to get a top 5 lottery pick. So if you remove that strategy, what else can you do but try and maximize returns on every transaction and hope for an opening? Unless you're leading your angry mob to the owner's box, nothing's going to change except that instead of having a competitive team one superstar away from being a true contender, you'll have an aggravatingly bad team like Milwaukee or Golden State that's tied up in big contracts and bad draft picks.

 

No option for 'I know its Les' idea and I'm cool with it?"

 

I tell you what, give me a list of players Morey passed on trades he rejected, then compare them to the moves he has made and draw a conclusion. I personally think he is a top 10 GM.

 

The IDEA of what Morey and Les are trying to do is nice but how long do you wait for it to happen? Will it ever happen? Nobody knows but I do know that eventually you have to take action instead of waiting for a "superstar" to come available. You have to go find that star!! The only place you can proactively do this is in the draft. I commend DM for finding solid players like Bud and Parsons who flew under the radar but eventually all this waiting catches up to you as I think it just did.

 

Nobody can give you this, because unless it 100% with hindsight judgements like "we shoulda' drafted De Andre Jordan" there's no way any GM would have done a significantly better job.

I mean just look at Juan Valdez's post that lacks any coherent thought and is just mindless complaining and belly aching. DM's doing a terrible job because he knew Yao Ming's writing was on the wall and he's been looking for a replacement franchise player for a couple of years now. Well duh, everybody's looking for franchise players, but I'm not sure you can get a franchise player when 20M of your salary is going to an injured person. But somehow It's HIS FAULT that he can't wave a magic wand and get Howard and Durant to sign on the team, and I'm sure if we replaced him with another GM we'd be able to tank while still becoming contenders