No playoffs since 2009 and the rockets aren't a lock to make it this year. With all of the supposed assets where still a mediocre team. Morey is doing such a great job but yet were still behind the jazz, warriors and nuggets. 6 long years of Morey and that's all the rockets have a fun team with no defense. All style no substance.
Since Alexander never let him fully rebuild, the fact that the future is as bright as it is now is amazing.
Youngest team in the league dude.... We have the soon to be best shooting guard in the league and we got him without tanking.
Sorry I can't trust a gm who picks Marcus Morris over kawhi Leonard, Nikolai vucevic and iman shumpert. P pat over Eric Bledsoe, avery Bradley and Kenneth faried. Montejunas over faried as well. Many of you don't realize how damaging these picks were. Then to compound the mistake and Draft two more pfs the next year. It's a shame he has more success in the second round then the first round.
Agreed... And not to mention that Presti should have kept Harden and traded Westbrook and the Lakers have only won rings with Phil Jackson (post Magic). Morey has set himself up in a position (now that they have Harden) that the sky is the limit. He hasn't been perfect by no means but he is in a can't eff up situation. Whatever he does from here on out to add to this team is all gravy.. Now Morey has a super star player to work with just like the other big name GMs and so far so good.
You can't sit and grade a GM's performance based on who they didn't draft. Out of the dozens of responsibilities a GM has, the draft is by far the least statistically reliable, but it's the one people focus on because it's the most visible and video game-esque. For the record I agree Morey hasn't had an A+ first round draft record, but that's a piece of the puzzle, not the whole thing...
I know what you mean man. Morey has to be an idiot to flub on those mid round picks. Just look at those superior teams, like the Thunder who picked Patrick Patterson instead of Cole Aldrich, or the Spurs who picked Chandler Parsons over Cory Joseph, or the Lakers who picked Chase Budinger over Patrick Beverley. That's what the elite teams do.
I agree with your post as far as his draft picks are concerned. He has let several very good players slip through his fingers. But none of those players are star players and now Morey has one. That's all that matters at the end of the day...
The Warriors and the Nuggets both have good teams from a development perspective, though I would certainly argue that ours is better. Building a team is strategic, not just tactical. Graphically, you are very concentrated on the Rockets' current point, rather than their trend... We are certainly not where we were in 2009 from a potential perspective.
Most the teams that drafted those guys had no idea they'd turn out to be as good as they've been. Morey can't see the future. And of the teams that drafted those guys, only one has a future potentially brighter than the Rockets. And I don't think they're into that position thanks to Eric Bledsoe who will probably be moved by the trade deadline, or this offseason at the very latest.
Before the Harden deal, he appeared to be cluelessly shuffling players. Now I think the team is going some where. Yes, he should be extended. On the other hand Bottomline Bob should not have extended Kubiak and Schaub. (had to get that in)
It's the biggest piece of the puzzle. The Thunder are great but without getting ibaka at 24 their not the same squad. The spurs ginobili second round Parker late first and kawhi Leonard at 15. Pacers Paul George Roy Hibbert and Danny Granger all mid to late lotto. Nuggets faried, ty Lawson late first round and late lottery. Morey has had many chances in the Draft and he continually fails in the first round.
Presti had missed out by getting Cole Aldritch (10th pick) and Jeff Green (6th). Oh what a bad GM, wasting two top 10 lotto picks. It's funny you talk about continually failing in the first round because he's never had a lotto pick higher than 14th. What about the guys he drafted that everybody passed on, Chandler Parsons is playing like a top 5 lotto pick and everybody passed on him. I dunno why you're even bringing Ginobili and Parker into the discussion, Morey wasn't even a GM yet at the time. Why don't you also blame him for missing out on Rodman, Gilbert Arenas, and trading the 2nd pick instead of drafting Jordan?
Of course everybody would still be complaining, that's because as someone who isn't really running the team most fans can just be arm chair GMs and complain all day long. MJ probably looked at Jerry Krause and thought he was overrated...until he started being a GM himself and found out how hard it was. Rebuilding is one of the hardest things to do in the NBA, I believe only Boston, OKC, Miami, Clips and Lakers were able to do it properly, other teams like Kings and Raptors were rebuilding when we still had Yao and Tmac at their prime and are still rebuilding to this day, while teams like Atlanta, Pistons and Wizards have already gone through a failed rebuilding cycle and are starting over again. The fact is, Harden was already Morey's 4rth try to get a superstar, he whiffed on Melo, Bosh and DH prior to this. The good thing with the collecting assets strategy is even if you miss out, you have something to build upon, unlike say if you tank and get Tyreke Evans and Brandon Jennings. If we missed out on Harden then we'd have built the asset base more and probably gone after DH, LMA or Kevin Love during the summer. It was only a matter of time.
Maybe thats why we didn't end up with Howard. We know the Rockets could have fielded a better offer than the Lakers.
This time last year, I'd be critical of extending Morey. Now, after blowing up the old team and picking up Harden, I've got nothing to complain about. He saved his job this summer.
