Damn, dude. You're on fire today. Now, I've been a Morey apologist for years but I'm officially off the wagon. When it comes to managing the cap and manipulating the CBA in order to accumulate and later flip assets, Morey is exceptional. His eye for acquiring 2nd talent (and foreign players) is also very keen. But here's the issue. The entire operational philosophy of this franchise (from the Rockets on down to RGV) bears Morey's imprint. That includes style of play, shot selection, pace, etc. Suffice it to say, Morey is the architect. He's done a fine job of acquiring top level talent as far as players go. But it's clear he lacks the acumen to place qualified coaches (he hires all of them) to implement his design. This is a question of authority, and after the Adelman scenario Morey has vowed to only work with those interested in promoting his radical game philosophy. Regular season win % is one thing, but real basketball strategy dominates in the postseason. I'm not sure Morey's statistical models are built to forecast playoff success and that's the problem. By the time the organization figured it out, we were already down 0-2. Morey now has the opportunity to improve personnel, make corrections, and continue the growing process, but with today's news chose to stick with McHale. Could this decision be his undoing? I sure hope not, but I'm no longer touting his genius. One last thing, IMO players (especially stars) respond to leadership from their HEAD coaches. Assistants are important but without the authority of a head coach they'll never impose their winning personality on the team. I strongly believe that is why Sampson left. Just my .02
Morey is loving the attention. All stats geeks love the attention and he will keep making useless trades like Hamilton for brooks to get it. Loves threads like this cuz he knows he's not going anywhere, one of those corporate guys with all the connections but no talent or basketball IQ. Ur all suckers. Thanks for more McHale I'm sure hell be MIP nxt yr as one of the players cuz he doesnt coach. Coddle coddle coddle hope everyone lives me. Just do whatever you want out there and have fun.
Morey needs to go and take this b s money ball system with him. Three bad decisions now 1) trading a first rounder for TWILL 2) selecting Royce white 3) resigning McHALE
I do think Morey is a good GM but chasing out JVG and Adelman and signing McHale do make him seem overrated. Does he not use all of his advanced analytics to pick a coach??
Agree. Also on Sampson, I was thinking when he left in the middle of the season he was starting to see a sinking ship and got out at the first opportunity. This organization is in dangerous times right now.
when are people going to stop using this dumb reasoning? The guy has failed ever since he hung up his jersey. Terrible GM who single-handedly gave Boston their championship and winning years by giving them KG. Terrible coach for a young team. Playing well does not mean you can coach.
Well the defense did start getting even worse when he left, I think that's more than a coincidence. I also truly believe that good assistant coaches can be negated by bad, incompetent head coaches.
He will be our Isaiah Thomas, with the full backing and blind support of Morey. Knicks west is our future.
The biggest mistake he ever made was adopting the 3-for-all philosophy. Talk about the dumbest strategy. You need variety to win games. The shots are not going to fall all the time. You might as well make everything in the supermarket the same price with that logic.
There never was a defensive system under Sampson. Just by watching our PnR defense, you could see that every one of the front line was playing to his liking. Asik and DMo hedged? Ok, you hedge. Jones and Dwight iced? Ok you guys can ice. If Sampson had instilled a good system and he had 3/4 of season to do so, our defense should stay relatively the same AFTER he left. That's what a good defensive system will do for the team. Sampson never achieved that. Our defensive was 'patch work' all season. If something worked, keep doing until it stopped working, then tried another. He was way over his head going from college to NBA defense. I am just glad he is gone!
I agree that Sampson should not have been able to leave in the middle of the season and as a result our defense got worse. Houston will need some of the best aqssistant coahes in the league to play not just high scoring but more effective offense and to play good defense. If you watch Memphis, Atlanta and other better coached teams transition defense is emphsized. Also communication is constant, but not so much of what to do versus to making sure that the plan is executed.
Clyde Drexler was a HOF player, as well... with a championship to boot... How'd his coaching career go in UofH, again...?
Uncle Les (along with DaDakota) wanted JVG gone because he did not like the style of basketball Van Gundy espoused and Les wanted to see up tempo, fastbreak basketball. Well, McHale delivers what Les wants to see in spades which is why Morey will NOT be sitting in a warm chair anytime soon.
Bump. A disastrous off season so far. Absolutely disastrous. A-list free agents rejecting the Rox and their big money offers left and right even with Harden and Howard on the roster already. I really feel for Morey at this point because today's developments are a major blow to his plans of getting the team back to real, legitimate contention especially in the tough, tough West. But, again, professional sports are about results and its currently looking like the Rox are farther away from being a contender than they were last year, so basically they have regressed if Morey can't work any miracles the rest of this summer. Smh...
