Obviously, I blame the owner for our lack of depth in the past two years. I think Morey is good at getting the right pieces around the stars. The first job he did as our GM was to build a team with great depth. We used to have 4 - 5 NBA players in our team back in the beginning of Yao/Tmac era. Morey acquired Scola, Artest, Landry, Brooks, Lowry, Wafer, and we suddenly became one of the deepest teams in the league. Rumors says Morey even reached a deal trading Tmac for Billups and Prince with the Pistons, which was killed by Les because he loves Tmac. Imagine how deep/good that team would have been if Morey was allowed to do what he needs to do without interference from the ownership. In the CP3 trade, we did lose some depth, but that was more than compensated by signing Tucker and Luc. If Luc didn't get injured, we would have a good 8-man rotations who are playable against GSW (they had 8 as well in that level of competition). Not extending Ariza after that season hurt our depth and limited our to get better significantly, and it was obviously because of LTS more than anything else. Even if Ariza was not a good fit, that extra 10M salary is crucial for trading because we were over the cap. Suns got Rivers and Oubre for Ariza. If we had Oubre or Ariza that year, we would be 7-man deep agains GSW (they played only 7 players as well), this could have made a huge difference because that series was very close too. Morey has a lot of flaws, in fact I really don't like the way he enforced the Morey ball philosophy in the team. But building a team is actually his strength, and he has a good track record doing this.
Russell Westbrook asking a trade and 29 other teams don't want him. Russell really needs look at himself in the mirror and say to himself. "Why can't I shoot 3s." Hire a Personal Shooting Coach. As Soon as Possible.
is russell westbrook really a star tho. We could get the same production from a derrick rose or a devonte graham. Too me a star is defined a player thats irreplaceable.
I think Morey’s value dropped as the league got smarter, but he built something that we’ll benefit from for a long time. He made Houston relevant, full stop, for the entire 2010s. Ultimately, his greatest strength was finding bargain players to fill out the roster and I’m worried we will struggle to find the PJ Tuckers & Pat Bevs of the world moving forward.
The samr Lebron that went to 7 finals in a row? That Lebron? The only time lebron missed a playoffs was when he was injured. Did you really put D mitchell on that list over Lebron? LOL. The Lebron hate is unreal with some people.
Did you just say Dwight/Melo/CP3 were fine every where else? And you expect people to take you seriously, LOL. There is a reason both Dwight and Melo had issues getting a job and there have been multiple articles detailing all the issues CP3 had with Doc and others on the Clippers. You are funny.
Doc is not the greatest coach. He is much like MDA. No actual coaching just riding his stars. CP3 is still playing at a high level so what are you talking about??? He was probably coaching Doc. I love Russ only because he is a Rocket but CP3 did outplay him that 1st round last season. Dwight is still a viable pick and lob threat. Melo is still serviceable. I guess it's everybody else and not the common denominator. Even Morey signed Dwight again. SO WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? You want people to take you seriously?
Dude, that is revisionist history. Morey never wanted to trade Cp3. Russ sucks we both agree. Dwight went through like 3 teams after the Rockets and no one wanted him. He then signed with the Lakers on a minimum deal. And Melo has sucked for a long a time. He was trash with us, trash on OKC and still trash on Portland.
Trash coach, MDA. Even lesser coaches/GM's makes use of these so "called trash players". No revisionist history. I never said Morey did want to trade CP3 maybe you "ASSUMED" it was implied. Just for ***** and giggles, honestly you don't know what Morey wanted all you can do is assume. Tilman said "some people got cold feet". Implying more than one person. The throw away statement was made more in relation to suggest Morey's lack of ability to control the monster superstar diva he created by simply saying no to James. We don't want your trash friend, but it's too late. Morey had already created a diva at that point, Tilman felt he must appease. Also, I never said we had superstar Melo. He was on a minimum deal. He is still useful even if you call him trash just because he doesn't want to sit and watch dribbling all game. Basketball is a team sport, even beyond the 7man rotation.
MDA was not a trash coach, that is objectively false. We have stuff from insiders here, beat reporters, and TILLMAN himself saying he forced that trade. Saying his ops got cold feet is basically code for they didnt want to do it so I had to push this through. Think about it, if they got "cold feet" that would mean they were able to tell James no in the first place. Melo is not useful, he cant hit the three and is trash at defense. He's not useful. And btw, that 7 man rotation was the only reason we even got to game 7 in the first place.
7man rotation is why we lost too. Lack of adjustments. Mainly. Morey knows this. He won't admit he was wrong about MDA for reputation reasons. Every chess player knows the goal is to get the Queen. Every chess player has a plan on how to do that....except that also depends on the movements of your opponents. MDA never understood this concept and still doesn't. I bet if I had Nash and Harden as the center of my PG heavy system I could be a HOF coach too. Wait....probably better because some of us on this planet know about adjustments and counters. Silas a 20yr assistant even knows this.
I think its possible to admit MDA could have been better with adjustments and rotations while still admitting he put our team in the best position to succeed for the most part. MDA is a HOF coach. And its not simply because of the HOF he's coached. Every coach only has real success with HOF on their roster.
I thought I had read the most ridiculous basketball take possible when the Lin trolls were running rampant around here, but this thread might have the take that tops them all. Westbrook. A top 10 player. 1 of a few guys, that doesn’t include Lebron, who can carry ANY team to the playoffs. My dear lord....
Did Lakers really have great depth? Everyone was saying clippers were going to win because of depth. I think depth is pretty overrated in the playoffs. Once warriors got Durant they had to get rid of a lot of depth.
This is insanity. Defensive Rebounding % With Westbrook 17.1 19.3 16.1 15.4 13.9 14.8 Westbrook leaves 24.0 Adams got out of the way for Westbrook, when he left he rebounded like a big man again.