A Few Thoughts Regarding the Team's Approach and Morey's Tenure

I never said that he didn't have the ear of the owner, I said that Les has specific goals and one of them is not to tank. Morey's job isn't to decided overall approach, his job is to work for his boss and do what he is asked to the best of his ability. Isn't that your job no matter what field you work in?

Unless you are the top cheese... the rest of us all have someone that we have to listen to for directives.

I'm not sure you understand how business works. Sure he could "be a man" and go against what the owner says but unless he's saved up enough money to buy his own franchise... no one wants to hire someone who doesn't listen to the money man.

 

Portland got the #6 pick for gerald wallace. Had the rockets traded battier when he was the kobe stopper,I'm willing to bet they would've gotten more than thabeet for him.

Denver traded nene for a guy most people were laughing at and still made the playoffs and got rid of nene and his dumb contract they gave him.

If you didn't think it was over for yao when he hit the ground vs lakers in the play off, I have an island south of houston to sell you. The guy missed an entire season again and you continue to build around him? Gimme a freakin break. Yeah,but I'm hating though,lol. Maybe I'm not dumb.

 

I think you overestimate that extra yr to a guy who has been payed max for 5 or 6 yrs. He's 26 or so and will get another max deal before his time is up. If was traded to the rockets, that extra yr wouldn't mean anything. Not only that,if a team had the straight up cap room,they wouldn't even have to do a sign and trade. He could sign for 4 yr and hit the market at 30,31 and get another max deal. Lebron and Bosh were going to miami regardless of a extra max yr. Guess what? Both have an out in their contract in another yr or so if they want. I call it the tim duncan contract. The guy never signed for 6 or 7 yrs,just 4 yr max deals. That way it kept the spurs in win now mode and trying to put the best tlent around him. They almost lost him to orlando in 2000,but he backed out. They cleared room to match manu's contract from denver. They thought about trading parker until TD had that secret meeting that very few knew about. He's always held the spurs accountable for the team around him. Dwight and all the other superstars in the league should do the same. In the end,they're gonna get their money anyway. 1 yr for howard wasted with the rockets avg talent isn't going to convince him to pass up the chance to win titles with lakers,clippers or teams that are on the cusp (bulls) or playing with a superstar like d-will. Jmo

 

Where is Dwight going to sign after next year??? All those teams will not have room to sign him. Even if they clear a few contracts they in all probability will not have room to sign him. The only major market teams with cap space in 2013 will be Atlanta and Dallas, and Dallas depends on who they sign this summer. So in the unlikely event we do trade for Howard, there is a good chance he stays because he is not going to sign with a Charlotte, Sacramento of another small market with cap space. The Knicks, Chicago, Lakers and Clippers will not have room. Brooklyn will need to spend its room this summer to hold onto Deron.

 

Um, chicago can amnesty boozer and with deng coming close to the end,they could sign him. Teams will clear room to sign howard just as they did when lbj came loose and bosh came free. When the lakers trade gasol, I can almost guarantee the players in return will have contracts that end when howard is free. That's the way teams operate who know they can get a prize like him. I highly doubt howard will stay because no other team has cap room.

 

A number of teams will have cap room next summer, but not any major market teams. And has Rose signed with Chicago?

http://hoopshype.com/salaries/chicago.htm

 

Even if the amnesty Boozer, Deng will still be under contract and Gibson will be up for a contract along with Asik this summer. The Bulls will be out. The Lakers will have Kobe under contract for $30 Million ALONE, before any Bynum extension. Yes teams will try to clear room, but their high salaried players they need to move are the very ones that Dwight wants to play with. You may doubt it but I think the odds are decent, not great, but decent he would.

 

Yes Rose resigned with Chicago and is on the books for $16,669,629 for that year. Like I said no major markets will have room but Dallas and Atlanta.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>You have to love @<a href="https://twitter.com/dmorey">dmorey</a>. Every time I check in w/sources close to a big free agent the last few years, Houston's name is always mentioned</p>&mdash; Chris Mannix (@ChrisMannixSI) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisMannixSI/status/216745082613792769" data-datetime="2012-06-24T04:10:29+00:00">June 24, 2012</a></blockquote>
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Chris Mannix ‏<s>@</s>ChrisMannixSI Rockets don't always get the big gun, but they are always fighting to stay in the mix.


Chris Mannix ‏<s>@</s>ChrisMannixSI
You have to love <s>@</s>dmorey. Every time I check in w/sources close to a big free agent the last few years, Houston's name is always mentioned

 

Good job, good effort Morey.

 

I have my own business but that's besides the point. If you read the transcripts, its cleary points out how morey had to convince les that trading the #8 pick for shane was the right thing for the franchise. Now we all know how les likes the percieved talent of players. We've heard him use terms like the best team assembled multiple times. Morey wasn't even the gm yet and he used his stats,charts,and whatever else to win the trust of les. Now,7 yrs later, we're gonna say les is handcuffing morey? Its les who doesn't want to get in position to get better players? I'm not buying it and if that were true,he should find an owner willing to buy into what his vision of the franchise should be. Isn't that what gms do?

I was waching that season thing with denver nuggets and their young gm who's name slips me at moment. They show him going through possibilities of how to help the team now and in the long run. Trade deadline come up and there is a chance to trade nene for javele. Through the process, before this happens,he has to get clearence from the higher ups. He sells them on cap flexibility,mcghees upside and the future while still competing for a playoffs spot. The deal allowed them to also sign wilson chandler. Now they got smoked in the playoffs,but the gm sold a vision. To me,that's what a gm does,he sells a vision of the franchise. If the owner,who don't watch 1 game tape or isn't connected in the pro or college scouting is handicapping the gm,then you need to move on. Just like morey wanted to put finch on as an assistant as his successor. Adelman said no, and went to minny to coach. That's called man the kcuf up. No excuses,no crawfishing,he just felt like it was an unreasonable request. When you know you're good at what you do,you're not job scared. What adelman did, mo cheeks couldn't do. He's not job scared.

 

You think chicago is gonna risk howard to sign gibson and asik? C'mon,be real. I'm pretty sure chicago will take howard as a rental as much as anyone. They have the players (noah,deng,gibson) to give up . The problem that they have is the interconference thing. That could be huge.

 

So you would have blown up the team immediately after the 2009 playoffs. Obviously in hindsight this would have been the ideal course of action to follow up on, but the team had just broken through to the second round for the first time in over a decade, and if I recall correctly, they got a pretty good sized spike in season ticket orders for 2009-2010. You can't really blame them for not waving the white flag before the season even started. Additionally, there was literally no window to ever trade Yao; the Rockets applied for the Disabled Player Exception early enough so that they could sign Trevor Ariza immediately after the July Moratorium. I would assume that information would be made public to all teams; fat chance any other team gives away anything for a player that would miss the entire next season. In 2010-2011, they tried building him up with a strict minutes limit; a move that managed to preserve T-Mac's value the year prior, but ultimately failed to keep him healthy enough to build up any semblance of trade value. I believe the best deal they got for him in the end was the Baron Davis + #1 deal that Cleveland eventually accepted; can't blame the Rockets for not wanting to pay $29M for the #8 pick in a lowly regarded draft.

Why exactly do you think that betting on Brook Lopez is any safer than betting on Yao was? It certainly looks like the same story all over again, and at least Yao was a great player before his injuries; Brook's rebounding has been pathetic, and he's never been the most efficient shooter from the field.

If you judge every move by how it stacks up to the Gerald Wallace deal, you're going to be tremendously disappointed with any GM who takes the job. Reasonable fans don't expect that all-star centers like Pau Gasol can be gotten for virtually nothing, and reasonable fans don't expect their GMs to get high lottery picks for 20 games of a declining, injury prone non-star.

Again, Denver was able to dump Nene and get a fairly valuable player for him very easily. If the Rockets had been so disenchanted with his play after they signed him, you have to think they could have gotten rid of him just as easily. No harm, no foul, except that they would have had a sizeable trade exception as well as a young 7 footer. The Nuggets created something out of nothing; it's how Dallas built it's championship team last year, and it's been a hallmark of the Rockets under Daryl Morey.

The Nuggets might have had slightly better results than the Rockets this year, but overall the teams were pretty comparable. I think the Nuggets have been run very well since Masai Ujiri took over, but I can't fathom how you look at their team and come to the conclusion that their direction is so much better than what the Rockets have. They've clearly chosen to try and steadily improve, but if you think that Denver team is ever going to make the finals without either drafting an all-star in the 20s, or by getting a superstar to force a trade there ala Carmelo, I've got a ski-resort timeshare on your island that you should check out.

 

They did get more than Thabeet for Battier (even if it's only a 1/2 season rental). Specifically, Memphis traded Thabeet + their own 2013 first round pick (lotto protected) for Battier.

This 2013 pick was packaged on draft night with the 23rd pick of the 2012 draft (acquired from Phoenix in the Aaron Brooks/Goran Dragic trade) in a trade with Minnesota that landed the Rockets Donatas Motiejunas and Jonny Flynn. Jonny Flynn was then packaged with Thabeet in a trade to Portland that landed the Rockets Marcus Camby.

If folks are gonna have discussions about these things, it helps if we get the facts right.

 

I believe that Morey has sold the vision to Les that the Rockets can build a mid-00s Pistons, or late 90s Pacers/Blazers. These were teams largely constructed through consistently getting better in each transaction, resulting in having 10 of the best 15 players in most playoff series despite no homegrown superstar that required tanking to acquire. I believe that he would have catapulted this team way forward with Gasol/Nene/Lin, and after David Stern vetoed the deal, he was left where he was after Yao went down in 2009; a bunch of pieces that don't fit together and an overstuffed roster.

Would Morey rather build traditionally, through stripping away the value of a team by consistently giving up excess value in trades and picking high in the draft? I don't really know. Inherently, I do believe that Morey knows the odds are against him pursuing this strategy, but he wants to do it this way because no one else is doing it. You can't get ahead by copying what other teams do, but if you choose something different and fail, you look doubly stupid. That takes some guts in my opinion; he staked his professional reputation on this, and in the end it wasn't a bad trade that will fail his strategy, but the commissioner using unprecedented power to bend the league to his whims.

Everything Denver has done so far though has been right in line with the Morey model. Trade a long contract for a cheaper one at the same position? (Nene/McGee, Ariza/Lee). Draft super productive upperclassmen who don't have ideal physical tools? (Faried/Too Many to List) Trade expiring guys you don't intend to sign for comparable players + Picks? (Felton/Miller + 1st, Brooks/Dragic + 1st, Battier/Thabeet + 1st).

What's the one major difference? Denver's been locking up their core with extensions; for better or worse, Afflalo, Gallinari, Chandler, Harrington, Anderson and Koufos will likely be on the books for about $39M over the next two years; add in extensions for Mcgee or Lawson, and this is the team the Nuggets will be going forward. A team that while really fun to watch, wasn't all that much better than the Rockets this past year; a Rockets team which has more draft picks, more international prospects, more salary cap space, more flexibility going forward and just as young a core group of key players.

 

Some nice quotes from Morey:

http://blog.chron.com/ultimaterockets/2012/06/rockets-facing-uncertainty-heading-into-free-agency/

Doesn't sound very hopeful and the excuses are endless..

 

If the plan involves trading for a star, who doesn't want to be here, it's a freaking flawed plan.

 

What do you expect a GM to say? That "we are on a 1 or 2 year deadline"? Publicly setting a schedule only weakens your hand in making deals.

 

There is only one big free agent out there, so Mannix sources are probably someone close to Deron Williams, maybe even his agent, Jeff Schwartz.

That said:

http://espn.go.com/new-york/nba/sto...ng-brooklyn-nets-dallas-mavericks-sources-say

I would presume that Williams still might consider a third team if that team just traded for Dwight Howard.