It's nice that Alexander's saying this during All Star Weekend, with Houston the focus of the NBA's collective attention, and the attending media. Morey certainly deserves it. Morey's body deserves a diet!
This... Washington, Cleveland, and Charlotte had their chance to get Harden but didn't want to pay him the 5 year max. Morey saw the worth in Harden that others didn't and Presti had no other option but to trade with the Rockets (and that Toronto pick isn't looking good). GMs go their careers without landing a player of Harden's caliber.
If Daryl Morey were fired today, he would be have a line of job offers waiting for him tomorrow straight up. And not only from basketball teams. Maybe some teams would even be lining up at his doorstep at 12 am with an Ipad. One or two will straight hand him the keys to their cities too. Seriously, some folks here do not know how to appreciate a 50 carat flawless diamond when it is in their hands. They will only realise their losses when it is gone. Everyone, give Morey your heartfelt appreciation, yo!!!
Then we'd have a 50+ win team (health permitting, as it is with all teams) with Lowry, Nene, Gasol and other additions with "win now" in mind.
I think Morey is more than GM of the year. He is changing the game of GM'ing. I've read many articles about how Morey is bringing the Moneyball approach to basketball, but it's more than that. Moneyball/Sabermetric is about: My understanding of that is that Moneyball is about at looking at existing stats in a different way and place an emphasis on what really wins games instead of the more traditional measures. Morey goes beyond that. http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/success_comes_from_better_data.html He realizes that the data we have on players, the traditional statistics, are not enough to yield the kind of analysis and basis for decisions that will lead to better results (at least better than other teams). So he collects better data, which he rarely talks about. Only thing I've heard him mention once is that current defensive statistics are almost worthless (he was more diplomatic). If the lesson the other teams learn is that they need to hire analysts to work with existing data, then they already lost. They could hire 10 PhDs to analyze existing data and it wouldn't provide the competitive advantage that 1 PhD can do with the data that Morey collects. If this was a game of poker, other teams would be looking at what they have and what they see on the table. Morey is looking at his cards, at the table, and even though he doesn't know the exact card others have, he can see the suit and whether it's a face card. He won't win them all, but he'll be able to make smarter gambles. Other teams may already be collecting data, but probably not to the extent that Morey does. It's interesting that the new camera system (SportVU) by Stats LLC, IIRC the former employer of Morey, is the basis for the recent analysis at Grantland (http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/50343/the-height-of-wonkery-an-in-depth-look-at-the-nba-with-the-most-innovative-technology-available) about drives to the basket and about how good Harden is. Morey saw that before anyone else because of the data that he has. What Morey does now, perhaps by hiring people to watch games and record the stats (Mechanical Turk style), Stats LLC is trying to automate using the new camera system (http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670059/moneyball-20-how-missile-tracking-cameras-are-remaking-the-nba). Who knows if Morey came up with the idea himself or if it was an idea developed at Stats LLC. They seem to be doing similar things. Morey's success is the best ad for this system. It also means that the competitive advantage Morey has now may not last for long assuming the data they collect are the same. Soon (a few years?) other teams will have access to the same data. Or maybe the automated system cannot determine if a player pulled another's jersey but Morey's army of mechanical turk can and it turns out this statistics is relevant. Morey's future success is not guaranteed. His competitive advantage may also be gone in a few years. One day, we'll look back at this time we'll see the impact of his approach, one that only works because he can find talent better than anyone else using data that others don't have. Whether or not he's the first doesn't really matter, he's the most prominent. The guy should get paid for his work thus far. Expect other teams to follow.
Judging a GM is all about the long term results. Every move Morey has made has been a gamble. Some were almost sure-fire winners, some were 60-40 winners. The thing you have to accept with gambling is that sometimes you are going to lose. If you are good at it, then over the long term you will wind up winning overall, but you have to have enough time for there to be a long term upside.
in morey we trust. man flipped rubble into trouble, and found diamonds in the rough while calling other GM's bluffs.
We would still be able to acquire Toronto's pick because we would still have Lowry. Also, since we would have Nene and Pau Gasol, I guaranteed Presti would be more than willing to trade Harden for one of them (plus the Toronto pick if necessary).
McHale was hired because he is a Yes-man who is willing to play along with Morey's unconventional statistic driven approach. There's a reason why Presti is GM of the Thunder, Kupchak of the Lakers, and the Warriors recent turnaround when they brought in Jerry West. Creating salary cap space is not difficult, any GM can dump contracts to get draft picks. A good GM knows how to create an environment where the player feels like a valued member of the team, instead of another trading chip to move. Of course all players are pieces, but at least they can have a relationship with the franchise. Promote loyalty, cooperation, and respect from the players and other teams. This will boost the chances of signing big name Free Agents and re-signing players.
Yes, the Lakers are currently the epitome of loyalty, cooperation, and respect within their players. Just listen to that kumbayah between Howard and Kobe! And same with Presti! Man, he showed great loyalty when a sixth man told him, "I'll sacrifice minutes and a chance to be a star to stay with the Thunder if you can give me a trade kicker which ensures that you won't trade me in the future."
Okay, let's play this game. If the Pau Gasol trade goes through, then (quite likely) each of the following things happens: --The Rockets sign Nene --By keeping his cap hold on the books, the Rockets are able to re-sign Chuck Hayes as their third/fourth big --Jeremy Lin makes the 15-man roster and eventually sticks as Lowry's primary backup So, the Rockets are left with the following roster: Kyle Lowry / Jeremy Lin / Jonny Flynn Courtney Lee / Chase Budinger Chandler Parsons / Terrence Williams / Marcus Morris Pau Gasol / Patrick Patterson / Jordan Hill Nene / Chuck Hayes / Hasheem Thabeet / Jeff Adrien Also, since we are now in a completely parallel reality, let's say that Nene does not sprain X or twist Y because he was not in the same exact situation he was in with Denver/Washington when he got injured. Let's also say that Lin gets enough playing time to develop nicely as a legit NBA point guard but not enough for "Linsanity" to explode onto the scene, making Lin an easy re-sign in the 2012 offseason. Maybe Lowry doesn't contract a bacterial infection. We can also assume that Greg Smith still goes to the RGV and eventually is brought in over Adrien. Also, with the Rockets capped out, one can safely assume that Morey would have worked even harder to use the expiring contracts of Thabeet and Flynn to acquire something of value (i.e., another team's salary dump, either short-term or long-term). Remember, cap flexibility would not be a concern for the capped-out Rockets. But Les Alexander would be glad to take on a good player from a salary-slashing team. Without Kevin Martin or Goran Dragic taking any minutes away, Budinger has an even better season that he actually had for Houston. After the season, a trade of Budinger for a mid-first rounder is not hard to imagine. Maybe the Rockets stole a few games from the Grizzlies, and that pick that Minnesota traded was actually #15 or #16 (instead of #18). The Rockets make the playoffs with that roster, so they convey their first round pick to New Jersey and are subsequently free to trade their future first round picks. Lee, having put together a very good season as a two-way player and full-time starter, now has significantly more trade value. If Lee is still pissed about not getting an extension and demands a trade to Boston, perhaps the Rockets get even more than the Charlotte second rounder out of the Celtics. Perhaps one of Boston's future first rounders. Or maybe the Rockets just re-sign Lee on a decent-sized (but still reasonable) long-term deal. Bottom line: It is not inconceivable to believe that the Rockets could still have amassed the assets necessary to acquire Harden, perhaps at this week's trade deadline. They would be able to trade Courtney Lee (locked up on a reasonable deal) as a solid replacement for OKC, plus the pick from Lowry, the Dallas pick (the Lakers gave Houston that pick as a Fisher salary dump moreso than because they believed greatly in Jordan Hill's abilities) and a variety of young players (perhaps including Motiejunas). Oh, and also up to 3-4 of the Rockets' own future first rounders. So now you'd be talking about a lineup that included Jeremy Lin (maybe locked up long-term for a song), Harden, Parsons, Pau and Nene, with Chuck Hayes, Greg Smith and at least a couple of other solid signings backing them up. (Remember, by being over the cap, the Rockets could use the MLE to add other players.) However, none of this actually happened. And anyone claiming to KNOW what would have played out under an entirely different set of circumstances is either full of it or lying to you. (I'm in no way saying whether anything above would actually happen or not.) Oh, well. I think I'll just stick with our current reality.
