Convincing owners to let you make moves to improve the team is absolutely part of the job - whether it's a big part or not depends on the particular owner involved. Each GM has a unique situation - different players, different financial resources, different ownership constructs, different starting points, etc. The GM's job is to look at that situation and work within the constructs to improve the team and work towards building a championship contender. Sometimes, that'll involve adding small pieces. Othertimes, it will involve blowing up the whole thing and starting over. Or re-tooling on the fly. Maybe Morey simply has a harder job than every other GM in the league and he's the best GM but simply can't ever improve his team. If that's the case, that's unfortunate for him - but, in general, it seems unlikely. From an outside perspective, he seems to believe his goal is to do what you describe: assemble teams that outperform expected win totals and are more than the sum of their parts. At that, he's really good. But that's not really anyone's end goal - that's only a piece of the puzzle. No one cares if your team is really untalented but outperforms what it is. That's exactly what gets them into this perpetual mediocrity problem. The goal is to build towards championship contention. If he's not doing that, I don't see how I can judge him as a great GM. He might be bad; he might be average; he might be fairly decent or pretty good. But it's hard to argue he's great when he has produced no actual on-court improvement in 5 years, and when there's nothing on the horizon to suggest that is going to change anytime soon. 5 year sis a a lifetime in the NBA where you can (and he did) completely rebuild a roster - but on the court, we're exactly where we were when he started, and where we were 5 years before that.
Suppose Sam Presti had became the Rockets GM instead of Morey. He has the following lineup: T-Mac, Yao, Battier, Rafer, JHo, Deke, Hayes... and probably no one else mentioning. Do you think he would 1. Win? (bringing in better players than Scola, Landry, Brooks, Artest, and Lowry that Morey brought in) 2. Position your team to win in the future? (I'd imagine he does this by trading away Yao/T-Mac in their prime rather than trying to win around them like Morey did)
So then who are the best owner-convincing-to tank GM's and how should we evaluate this? (for the record, neither Buford nor Presti did anything remotely similar to this to land Durant or Duncan).....or do we just look at W's & L's and assume....? Or maybe we can just look at what actually happened. It's not "unlikely" that he's hamstrung by not being able to fully jettison and rebuild, it's pretty documented if what he says in public is true, By all accounts, Leslie, who has always been very hands on, explicitly said no to tanking/rebuilding. Morey by his own admisson has said this is the most efficient way to land a big player. And by contrast, the guys being cited in this thread as visionary GM's, and who apparently are the tops according to your criteria, inherited teams that were explicitly tanking and managed to hit the absolute jackpot, landing an HOF player for their troubles. Where is the disconnect here? Maybe Morey isn't the best GM in terms of wins and losses, but his deal sheet is pretty solid, and probably better than most, which is all you can really judge him by given the incomparability of circumstance as you've acknowledged.
I would presume he would try to win. Whether he'd be able to get better players - or better fitting players - I have no idea. When it failed due to the health of the stars, whether he'd do what Morey did or implode the team or just let the whole thing collapse under it's own weight, I have no idea. If Morey was in OKC's position, I have no idea if he's draft the same or better or worse surrounding pieces or be able to convince the stars to sign long term deals, etc. In both cases, the GMs didn't face that other circumstance, so each can only be judged based on the circumstances they did face. We know that SA took a good situation and maintained it for a decade even with the aging of their stars. We know that OKC took a superstar and build a very talented team around him. That's something that, for example, New Orleans and Cleveland and Orlando weren't able to do around their stars. In both cases, that's what their teams needed out of their GMs. We know that Houston is going in circles, which is exactly what the team doesn't need out of its GM. I didn't say you have to convince the owner to tank - but you have to convince the owner to let you make the moves you want to make. Or if you don't, that's part of how you get evaluated. But as far GMs that blew it all up, NY and Miami did it a few years ago by clearing the decks. Ed Wade finally did so last year with a stubborn Drayton - of course, he sucked at every other part of the job, so that's not terribly helpful by itself. The White Sox, a few years before winning their title, controversially blew up their WC contending team at the trade deadline. Those are examples of teams that at least have a plan to try to contend. Will they succeed? The reality is most won't - failing and hitting rock bottom is not a sure-fire way to success and it fails more than it succeeds. But I would argue it succeeds more than the alternative we're pursuing. Those GMs didn't just hit the jackpot - they then put pieces around their star players that complemented them. Lots of teams get superstars in the draft or by trade or free agency, but not all of them become great teams. In the Spurs case, they successfully did so for more than a decade now. In OKC's case, it's too early to tell, but they at least will be a #1 seed and are well positioned for the future. Ultimately, at some point, there has to be some accountability for results. If Morey keeps doing what he's doing, and keeps making good trades to get good role players, and we keep getting stuck as the 8/9th best team in the West for the next 5 years, is he really a good GM? Or did he fail at a critical part of the job? At what point is it fair to judge him on results - or since the owner is stubborn, does he just get a free pass? I think people are stuck on this idea that because he makes good trades, or signs value players, he's a great GM. But that's not the purpose of a GM - that's only one piece of the puzzle. The larger goal is to have a plan and guide a franchise on a path towards a goal. He seems to just rotate pieces around with no real end game in mind and no long-term vision of where he's trying to take the team, at least from what I can see from the outside. I would love to hear an inside scoop of what his ultimate strategy is here.
If Sam Presti was the GM of the Rockets, he would have already agreed to work under Les' directive. Otherwise, he wouldn't be the GM. Sam would be putting together the exact same trades that Morey is......because Les demands that the team compete to make the playoffs.
The Yao/McGrady/Artest Rockets were better than any Thunder team so far. We didn't even see it at full strength. That was a Morey built team. Its funny that you say "win" because the Thunder haven't won anything. How are we not putting ourself in a position to win? We have our amnesty, we have no bad contracts, we have plenty of young guys and picks. We had a deal lined up for Dwight this year. We have cap space. You people's criteria is r****ded. No one would of done a better job than Morey has done.
The fact that you cited the Knicks and the Isiah/Dolan plan as an exemplar of good GM'ing is well...wow. So Morey isn't good at getting complementary players? He's arguably the best person in the NBA at it. In fact he's so good at it that it keeps the team from being able to rebuild, as you stated above. The problem is that the jackpot he inherited turned out to be more of a chamber pot.
To me, the best GM in the game isn't Morey, Buford or Presti (although they're all in that 2nd tier). Its definitely Mitch Kupchak. Morey wants to rebuild while being competitive and some people keep saying it hasn't been done. Well the fact is the Lakers have done that several times already: 1. Shaq and Kobe 2. Bynum and Kobe 3. Gasol and Kobe 4. Bynum, Sessions, Hill (Lakers next gen) If the deal didn't get STERNED, they'd be in an even better position to rebuild, with CP3, Kobe, Bynum this year and CP3, Kobe, Howard the next.
Ya - but you have to factor in that LA is a Destination city. Id give credit to GM's from .. I really hate saying this - Utah; Aslo -Indiana; Oklahoma; Philly
When did the Lakers have to deal with career-threatening injury to Kobe? And when did Morey get a chance to have his former boss trade him an all-star PF for a 2nd round pick?
Isaih Thomas left the Knicks in 2008. The fact is the Knicks, for the past decade, have been circling the drains - in cap hell and unable to obtain a superstar. The blow it all up strategy gives him a chance at success. Complementary players are, by definition, complementing other players. I have no idea whether he can put the right pieces around a star or not because he hasn't had a star as of yet. He's no doubt good at finding talent - but that's a very different thing than finding talent that fits with the stars you have to build a championship team. You need very different talent if you have Michael Jordan as the centerpiece of your team than you do if you have Olajuwon or if you have Steve Nash. Like I said, he may be a good GM or a bad GM - I have no idea. But 5 (?) years after taking over, his teams have shown zero net improvement. No way I'm going to call him a great GM at this point. He simply hasn't proven anything. All we know at this point is that he's been able to build a plug and play team where you can flip around coaches and players and end up at the same general number of wins. And by doing so, in part, he's created a situation where the team is stuck where it is - so who knows if we'll ever get to see if he can do more. I ask again: if the next 5 years are the same as the last 5, with the team remaining an 8 seed type without anything to build around, is Morey a good GM?
#2 and # 3 are the same team. Rebuilding doesn't include keeping your superstar, who was the best or second best player in the league. And that not only it that next generation not that great, but it hasn't happened, so you cant give him credit as rebuilding success.
Not really - Dolan has retained him as a paid consultant, and together they overrode Donnie Walsh on the Carmelo deal....that's why he quit. This was a big deal last year when people figured it out. Then you simply haven't been paying much attention to the Rockets the last few years, unless you think the complement of Lowry-Landry-Scola-Battier-etc isn't superior to Alston-Bonzi Wells-Luther Head-Scott Padgett
