He was afraid of James' wolves. Btw...kind of shocked they don't have divided showers. Call me naive but I'd figure a pro team would go that route.
Two most interesting things he said to me was: 1.) "We have the most cap space going forward for any of the good teams". This makes me believe they can and will pursue LMA, Love or Rondo in summer of 2015, and Parsons will not be given a big contract next off season. 2.) "We will have a better idea of our gaps in January". Looks like Morey is not quite sure of the product he has even with his advanced stats and there are still unknowns which will have to be addressed.
1) This comment is basically the fallback position in my mind. I think Morey will try to trade for a third star before Summer 2015. I don't expect the Rockets to make any move that will prevent the Rockets from clearing max cap space in 2015 unless a move for a third star has been made already. 2) I think there is a lot of guesswork still with Motiejunas, Jones, Casspi, Williams, Covington, and Brewer. Also, Rockets will probably have a better idea of PG rotation by then.
You know Morey pretty much never is set on doing anything. If he can use the 2015 cap space as some sort of leverage in trade talks to make a significant deal this trade deadline, this upcoming summer or next season deadline, he'll do so. Of course he doesn't know. Nobody knows just quite how good Terrence Jones or even D-Mo will be. Can Lin keep his post-All-Star production going or play even better? Does Beverley take another step? Will (one of) the minimum role players step up? Can Dwight and Asik co-exist for extended minutes? Etc... Also, this time of year most GMs & owners are pretty content with their roster, meaning you are likely to pay premium if you want somebody good from another team. By February or March it'll be clear that quite a lot of teams aren't as good as they thought or hoped to be and thus lots of deals will be available that aren't now.
(Guys going off - does it affect how you do things?) We lost some very good people. I thought we would lose some assistant coaches. We had some good people behind them, we'll promote them. We might bring in some lower level folks to back fill from that. We got good processes in place. Losing people sucks but it's been fun. It's given us a chance to re-think what we do and make more improvements. (Why not a non-compete clause?) We do. Actually all those guys put in a lot of time with the Rockets. Gersson - 10 years, Sam - 8 years, Arturas - about 6 years. I get upset when guys come in one year and move on to something new. I was happy for the opportunity for them. (Charles Barkley, what he said about Sam Hinkie/Philadelphia) That's really good radio and TV. I don't know where to start. Charles is the best entertainer in basketball. It's hard to know where to start. Maybe it's the fact we didn't pay James Harden, we traded for him and there were 14 moves that led up to it. That would be one. I don't know where to start. Sorry. So unintelligible, it's hard to react. (Back when you were on with Carl Dukes. You stood up and said this was my deal, took the blame and now look what you have done) It's a team effort. We had great people put it together. We haven't accomplished anything yet. I'm very uncomfortable talking about it right now. On paper, we have two of the top ten players in the league, a lot of youth, a lot of draft picks, the most money in free agency of all the top teams going forward, so we look great on paper. Last year, I would have told you the Lakers would have been one of the better teams in the league. Right now, I'm uncomfortable talking about it. We're excited but I want to make it happen on the floor before we get too excited. (You say that--you want to make it happen on the floor--but that's part of what you do, analytics tells how good the team is supposed to be. Any moron can tell you the team is better with Dwight than without. What do the numbers say?) We feel like we're absolutely capable of getting home court in the West, which is no easy task with teams like SA and OKC and others who are very good. We feel we are a title contender. I define that in a nerdy way, if you got a 5% chance or more of winning the title, you got a real chance. It doesn't sound like a lot but only like 6 teams in a given year who have a real chance. I think we do. We're not gonna be a favorite, we shouldn't be. We're there where we have the ability of young guys stepping up or moves we can make to get ourselves all the way there. We're all focused on this year, 100%. These chances are precious. We had things set up when Yao and Tracy were here. We thought the run would be a long ramp and it really wasn't. They were really healthy only 2 of the playoffs the whole time where they were both available. It's precious. We're gonna do everything to get ourselves to the title this year and hopefully win it. (Pending injury, no home court is a disappointing season) That's our goal going in. That's the goal we're gonna tell the players. McHale thinks that's the right goal. That's not our ultimate goal. For the regular season, our goal is to get home court and disappointed if we don't advance one if not multiple rounds in the playoffs and even much farther than that. Not taking the tweet back. Anyone knows how to read a tweet can read through the lines. ... Two big criticisms I got was people didn't realize I meant two guard(which to be fair I didn't say) and people complained I went down to one name with Vince Carter. He's like McGrady, a very underrated career. A much better career than people give him credit for. ... I thought Bill Simmons' piece was good. McGrady is definitely a HOFer and Vince is in the conversation. Vince didn't have the heights of McGrady but not too far off. Vince is still very effective, hidden in Dallas' .500 season. (McGrady-HOFer) He'd be in the Daryl Morey Hall of Fame. McGrady, Dikembe, Carter would all be in my Hall of Fame, at least at the first level of the pyramid. I think McGrady will be in there in 5 years. (Royce White) What a talent. We took a gamble and lost. It happens. We were looking for talent at the time. Character stuff, all that stuff, I didn't care. We needed guys with his talent, which is immense. I hope all the best to him in Philly. Philly is looking for high upside guys like we were. He fit there. They also got a really good, young Turkish kid we drafted, so Sam got the better end of that deal even though fans here are saying "Thank God he's gone." (Character stuff, is it fair to say measurement of character vs. talent changes as you get more talent on the team?) Yes. ... ... When we have our foundation, I'm going Popovich on this roster and we're gonna get guys who can contribute, have high character. We need to be careful and not rush into that. We'll know about our gaps and problems in December and January and we'll have a lot of opportunity to address those needs during the season. We want to be the best in mid-April, not on November 1st. We're focused 100% on mid-April and getting home court. (More over-valued: vet who can step in with a team like yours or that young so with so much upside?) I think that's a fabulous point. I think they're both terribly over-valued. Rebuilding, you need high upside guys. It almost doesn't matter when you're terrible because you should be throwing stuff at the wall. I think the most overrated guy is a vet who can't play anymore. Let's bring him in and he'll talk...they don't respect him. If they're not threatening your minutes, you don't get respect in the locker room. Camby adds that for us but he can still play. I'll take a guy who can still play. Without that, it's overrated. (Terrence Jones situation) He definitely, that was, I'm not gonna comment much on it. It's a pending thing. The media's run with the most extreme version of that story, when that comes out I think people will see he got a bad rap. (Les Alexander-believing in you) It should be talked about more. He gives us every resource. Besides giving $90 million to Dwight, he spent $7 million to upgrade the locker room which I told him we needed to do to attract free agents. He just did that without question. He's been an owner for a long time. He's a very smart guy. He's the key to your point, he gives me the money, people, and resources. Fans don't like to hear this but he really knows basketball. People might disagree. He brings ideas and has me look at them. It's a good relationship right now. As long as we have success, hopefully I'll be around but if I don't, he'll move on and I won't blame him. (What do the showers look like?) We added some wiener walls. Instead of a big gaggle in the same room together, there's at least little divider space. ... We had guys unnamed who wouldn't shower because they're afraid. Whatever their body's got, it's not what they want to show. ... We call it the wiener walls. We have another name for it but trying to keep it family here. ... No one asked for it. We got some feedback from James, Dwight, Chandler and Jeremy, they all gave us feedback but it was minor otherwise. I hope they like it. We just built what we thought was the best thing. (Next on your schedule? How involved are you with cut-downs?) We lost the Vipers head coach so we're looking to replace him. As I mentioned, we're hiring some junior folks. Cut-downs, I like to be with the team early and see first-hand what's going on and help make that choice. ... We're gonna have a very competitive camp. We have at least 2 very hard cuts with large money. We signed guys knowing we're gonna have to waive that salary. Les said do it. If it's a good bet, take it. Fans have the check book out. We're gonna set the all-time record for sales over an off-season in any continuous building. Toyota Center, we're gonna have the largest sales ever. (Do you have Comcast?) Of course I do. It's the greatest cable network. (Not all of us do.) You might wanna work on that. Such a good product, not sure why you don't have it. (Does Tad have it?) I'm not sure what he has. (Dwight rally) Dwight was so overwhelmed by that. (Season opening rally downtown?) Do you have something against homeless guys? We're saving our city rally until the end of June. (This year's theme?) I'm not sure. I think they might stick with 'A New Age'. That's not my department so I don't know. Maybe we'll go with 'Expect victory!' Not doing it for you? (If the Rockets finish 2nd in the league, it'll be one heck of a season) It'll set us up for next year. I'd take making the Finals.
Much appreciated, J.R. What struck me is urgency they feel about getting a championship soon. "These chances are precious. …. "
podcasts are up: http://stationcaster.com/player_skinned.php?s=741&c=5691&f=1848051 http://stationcaster.com/player_skinned.php?s=741&c=5691&f=1848041
This was my favorite quote "We're saving our city rally until the end of June." I love the urgency to bring a tittle to H-Town !!!
For little black bean Brooks? I think we just need to go back to the post-game interviews and see who hasn't showered
