This thread has inspired me to come out of the closet. And on a side note... I too am a Morey supporter. I am excited about the position of the the team and the prospect of it improving over the next few years. I think he's done a good job evaluating talent, especially late in the draft, and he's continually put together a competitive roster. The Yao injuries and Tmac turning out to be so... Tmac-ish, made his job difficult. Now, as the rebuild is clearly under way, I think he is approaching it in a smart way leaving multiple options available in the future. I think the next 4-5 years will be fun to watch, and I won't be surprised if his moves pay off.
Wow very well written, insightful posts in this thread. Surely doesn't happen often enough. It's surprising when people actually use functional English on the board these days. Who would have thought people who supported our GM were so articulate? I wonder if there is a correlation?
One of the biggest knocks on Morey is that he's kept this team wallowing in mediocrity. One year after Yao retired, he went out and traded for Pau Gasol. Now he's blown up the team and biding his time for Howard. He's not satisfied with the treadmill folks. I'm even thankful for Les. People hate this guy because he supposedly wants to make money. I'm just glad he chose a guy like Morey to run this team. Also, I feel like most of the arguments against him are based on speculation.
Ive bashed Les for a couple reasons , probably unwarranted now that the facts are out. Mainly his unwillingness to "tank" to keep asses in the seats and sell more $8 beers. (they are tanking without literally tanking by going young). But you cant say he's cheap or unwilling to spend to give Morey flexability .... He wouldnt have agree'd to Scola being amnestied if that were the case , basically he's paying one of the best players on his team .... not to play for him.
Agreed. And he's done nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt. Nothing. Morey has had a stellar summer. I'll give him that, even if he's like a chicken with his head cut off in chasing Dwight Howard. But all we want to see is results. And how are we just letting Morey slide with picking Kevin McHale as head coach? I wasn't too fond of Rick Adelman, but the direction of this team took a hit as soon as McHale came on board. I think Morey has a tendency to outsmart himself - look at all my assets and cap space and draft picks and .... nothing to show for it! I think the way to build this team, due to his intelligent scouting and drafting of young talent, is through the draft. He has to understand he's not going to hit the home run and get a superstar through free agency, and he can do it through trade, sure, but odds are that free agent will find greener pastures elsewhere. These are the cards he's been dealt, and he's taken a while to see it. With as intelligent and smart and as much of a boy wonder as Morey is said to be, how is it that even Carroll Dawson could get a Charles Barkley or Scottie Pippen or Steve Francis or Tracy McGrady here, and Morey's big get has been, who, Kevin Martin? Maybe Luis Scola? I don't understand it. Right now I give Morey a grade of a C. I just don't understand the fascination with him. I think he's a great guy, and yes I think he's witty, but he's made all these economical moves and has nothing to show for it, aside from his outstanding draft, which I've noted.
I don't consider myself a Morey hater. I've been critical at times...but not a hater. In spite of my criticism, I don't recall ever feeling like it was time to fire the guy. On the other hand, if you were critical of Morey going into last season for rolling out the same old same old, then you're not who most of us here would understand to be a "Morey homer" anyway. There are those who have defended every move...who freak out with regard to any criticism. There are those who, at the beginning of this offseason (particularly right after draft night) said, "I defended him over and over again until now..." My criticisms are born of out of frustration with the last 15 or so years of the franchise's history....with the Yao situation....with the constant comments here about how even after 17 seasons I can't judge based on actual results but only on process.....yeah, that crap disappoints me. And certainly that's not all on Darryl Morey. I do believe Morey is overrated amongst the majority of those who post on this website. (Incidentally, my defense of Morey is my criticism of Les...that Morey's hands were tied with respect to who he could sell off coming into this last season.) At this point, I'm just appreciative we have a direction grounded in reality...and not the fantasy that you can rebuild the Rockets to be a championship contender while trying to be a playoff team along the way. At some point, you have to take your lumps if you're not a franchise like the Lakers that seems to have zero difficult acquiring whatever player it wants, when it wants it.
I think I'm fairly impartial. And Morey hasn't lost me yet. I think he's positioned the team very well to land a superstar. Unfortunately the league has not sanctioned him a gun, so he can't point it at a superstar's head and force the guy to sign. I don't think a different GM could magically make that happen either.
1. I think it's a mistake to speak for the Morey homers (or the haters) as a monolithic group. Sure, some have been reasonable about it. Others employ revisionist history to construct a far-fetched tin-foil-hat theory of how Morey suffered reverses in the short-term for some undefined long-term victory because he's a supra-genius. With the mobs, though, I know it's hard to manage all the competing voices. 2. I think the distinction pretty much got blown up with the roster anyway. I haven't seen any really heated homer-hater arguments since the departures of Bud/Lowry/Scola/Camby/Lee/who-else-was-there? I know I haven't bothered to really criticize Morey since then. The whole paradigm has changed now and I think we need to wait a bit for a new Morey-hater bloc to form based on the perceived success of blowing up the roster. I still don't know which side I'll be on. 3. Dog balloon is awesome.
I'm neither a homer nor a hater. I've gone through times where I've been very happy with him as a GM and I've gone through times I've been appalled by his transactions. So I'm on the fence. I do believe he has some pieces that could pan out and make me a "Morey fan" but I'm not quite there yet.
So basically what could have been 3 years ago is being done now and all of a sudden that was plan A the whole time?
Yeah this is my biggest beef with Morey. We're all glad it's happening now but why the hell did it take so long to begin? You could ask the Astros and it would be an even more damning answer youd get. The point is is that there is nothing we can do about the past, and for whatever goals we have going forward, just like Luhnow in Minute Maid Park I doubt there's a better man for the job of rebuilding than the guy currently working the phones in Toyota Center.
Outside of the trade for Twill name one in which Morey didnt come out on top. CD had a guy named Hakeem that all those other players wanted to play with .... Who's Morey's Hakeem ??
Im curious , what moves in the past had you appaled ?? To be certain , there have been times - recent - that he had me scratching my head wondering what he's doing .... but appalled might be too strong a word. They didnt have the ability to absorb ~$30m in cap space .... Plan A has always been aquire that game changer. There just arent many of them and teams dont give them away.
This is the kind of ignorant idiocy that the typical Maury Hater likes to spew. I understand the people that have a wait and see attitude towards Morey, but BS like the above is what draws the line between reality and the Maury Hater fantasy world vision. Morey, one year after the end of the Yao era has our team young, flexible, cap friendly, relevant(Lin make us relevant), owning plenty of draft picks, and full of potential talent. Oh, by the way we happen to be the front runner in the Dwight Howard sweep-stakes, but we still have the peace of mind that comes with knowing our GM is not going to get bent over by Orlando or Dwight just to create the big SPLASH. I guess your right, Morey sucks.
Some of these are fair criticisms, others , not so much. My responses in bold. Bottom line , you have to look at each decision in context ....
