Do you feel the emergence of Jones makes up for drafting White?

I was referring to Morey having Patterson 6th on their draft board. And they stood pat when it looked like Patterson was going to fall IIRC. Forgot the exact details because it's been years since.

 

Missing on a single mid-first rounder doesn't really require justification in my opinion. Recent selections at #16 include Luke Babbitt, James Johnson, Nick Young, Rodney Carney, Joey Graham, and Kirk Snyder. Would any of those guys be doing us more good than Royce White currently is?

I'd be more concerned about Morey being 0-for-8 (arguably about to be snapped by T-Jones, but for now, 0-for-8) in drafting and keeping players who turn out to be top 100 NBA players with his first round pick, but that's not to say I'm concerned about that either given the picks he's had to work with (and his second round performances). On the scale of concern Royce White is a 0.4/10 and Morey's collective draft performance is like a 2.

 

So I don't disagree with your general point. Morey has a very good track record at mid-teen draft pics.

That said, your list above is not the best way to look at it. If you want to do the historical view you really should look at every draft pick 16th or worse and then decide whether there was a reasonable expectation of finding talent at that pick.

Then again, far be it for me to throw stones unless I post the analysis the way I propose but on my iPhone holding a dozing 4 month old this is the best I can do!

 

I say no, but due to a different reason. I still feel the Royce white pick was the best pick. He turned out to be a bust, but he was the highest upside pick to be had at any point. TJones fell for work ethics reasons, also the best pick to make at the time. RW failed, but drafting Jones doesn't make up for it because it was still the right pick to make (we didn't have Harden yet, RW was star or bust pick)

 

Exactly!

 

Why does this even really matter when whoever was drafted with the 16th pick would have been traded away anyways to clear cap for Dwight Howard?

 

To be fair to morey, i think a lot of ppl praised the pick at first due to the sheer raw potential that Royce possrssed. I highly doubt anybody could have foreseen the unmitigated disaster that he turned out to be.

I think w/o his anxiety disorder, White was a lottery pick and with the 16th pick in a pretty weak draft class you'll take a chance on a player with that much potential.

 

i feel like we won on that draft night.

We had three picks between 10-20 and we turned one into a major part of the James Harden trade, One is currently tearing it up for us and the other we traded away and is out of the league right now... that is making the most out of mediocre assets if you ask me.

Royce White was not our fault, he is his own worst enemy.

 

Not really becuase we took a risk on Royce because we had already picked one first rounder and we knew we had a shot at another... if we only had one pick we would of not drafted Royce.

 

I don't know. I think Morey still would've. The problem is that at the time, the Rockets accumulated assets to move up to top-5, only they failed to do so. That was probably among the most desperate times in Morey's search for his franchise guy.

That was certainly dark times in Rockets history.

 

The Rockets DID have Patterson 6th on their draft board.

But guess who they had in their top 5?

Remember that the Rockets tried to trade up to #9, #10 and #12 on draft night. They were ecstatic that Patterson fell to them at #14 because they had previously tried to trade up to get him...but they never said they tried to get him at #9 or #10.

That's all I'll say about that. As you were.

 

Paul George IIRC

Oh yeah and I think he was trying to get up towards the top for Cousins. Paul George was lower on the plan.