I get so annoyed at this whole concept that people blow up. Every sports team since professional sports began has treated players like assets. Heck, Baby Ruth was SOLD for push cash to pay for god-forsaken musical!!! As players who see all these transactions and discussion and rumours throughout the media 24/7 all the time for the past 2 weeks, none of this should be new, alarming or a red flag. If anything, someone who cuts through the bull**** and tells you like it is would be breath of fresh air instead of someone sugar-coating and putting on a show with polite courtesy and comme-il-faut colloquy. If anything, the stars that truly have the mindset of true winners, Garnett, Dirk, Kobe, Jordan, Bird, Hakeem, etc., have that attitude and would probably prefer it.
Yeah -- young CD gets handed championship seasons and 2 studs that everybody loves. DM gets 2 emerging studs that make max money and never play any games. Here Daryl, build a team, you get 2 max contract blackholes hampering you the entire way... now build me a contender! Yeah right.
Superstars aren't treated like "assets" anyway as long as they are playing like superstars. The players who are most likely to be treated like assets are the players like Camby and Dalembert both of whom seem quite happy to be here. CD gets some credit for pulling off the aquisition of several all star level players during his tenure. I agree with those who say that having Dream and later Yao on the roster had more to do with stars wanting to come here than the GM did though. Does anyone really think that players wouldn't want to come to Houston and play for Morey, if we had Hakeem in his prime on the team? Stars want to play with other stars, and I suspect most of them don't care much one way or the other about who the GM is unless they have personally had negative dealings with them in the past.
Morey was given the keys to a Ferrari. Only problem was the engine was cracked, the transmission was shot, and the body was retrofitted with KIA parts.
The problem is how long it will take for you to fix this. 5 years? 10 years or 20 years? someone can do it within one or two years, some will take forever. This is 6th years.
It's not really. Technically Yao retired LAST season, 1 year. Now there were certainly signs to say that he might not ever make it back, and I wanted them to move in a different direction from Yao and Tmac as far back as near the start of Morey's tenure. But seeing how difficult it is to get a star, it is understandable that they take a shot at the ones they already have under contract coming back, rather than selling them for pennies on the dollar. Neither Tmac nor Yao was likely to net a superstar in return by the time there was question enough about their health for the team to seriously consider it. Besides I challenge you to find a team that looses 2 superstars to injury and returns to contender status in 2 years. There is also a lot of hindsight flip flopping by fans here as quite a few who now say they should have known, were convinced Yao would make a full Žydrūnas Ilgauskas type recovery. I know that I was one of the minority in doubting we would be contenders going into the 2011 season, because I didn't think Yao would come back at full strenght and even if he didn't get hurt again I figured his minutes would be severely limited for quite a while. It was also unfortunate for the Rockets that the amnesty provision was about to go into effect and no doubt the owners and GM's knew it was going to be something they were pushing for under the new collective bargaining agreement, further reducing the value of Yao's expiring contract. No need to give something of value up to get rid of one of your bad contracts if you can amnesty it. So the question is would another GM have us contending right now, and/or with one or more superstars on the roster, and if so how?
It's Morey's 6th season with the team, but he hasn't had 6th years to recover from Yao/Tracy's injuries. First, during his 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, the order of the day was to build around the still relatively healthy Yao and McGrady. He did a very good job adding complementary players like Scola, Brooks, Landry, Lowry and especially Ron Artest. Those were not "rebuilding" years. Second, after 2009, the Rockets didn't just lose the services of McGrady and Yao, they still had their max contracts clogging up the cap situation for several years more. McGrady would be under contract until 2010. Yao's contract actually just expired in 2011. This limited what the team could do in terms of making a big move. Morey did as well as he can be expected to do under the circumstances given the salary handicap. The 2011-12 season was the first one in which he is fully free of the significant salary handicap caused by the Yao/McGrady's injuries. Over the past few years, the team has tried to trade for stars and only gotten close (thanks to Stern's veto). They have, however, gotten some good to very good players like Lowry, Parsons, Dragic, Lee, etc. with limited resources and, just as important but often ignored, have managed to do so without blowing their salary situation or at the cost of giving up the future.
2 things: Herrera is killin it DM > CD as GM Now where is Frank Caliendo AKA DD's cliche assanine comments??
Les isn't cheap. I mean how many teams would spend like 3 mil to buy 2nd round picks. Morey has this team on the treadmill of mediocrity. We would be better off with a terrible GM who make us get off it and maybe get a lucky ping pong ball. Otherwise I don't see us ever getting off because morey is too good.
You think it's Morey who is insisting on not tanking? You think that, if Les wanted to tank, Morey would have been willing or able to defy his wishes? The "not tanking" order is coming from Les. This has been stated many times by multiple people, including Les himself, JVG and Matt Bullard.
This is the only reason to fire Morey. Morey is a quality GM, but he is handcuffed by the owner, and by these spoiled stars who think there are 4-5 teams out of 30 that are worth playing for.
