NBA front-office sources told ESPN.com that Ariza made a verbal commitment Tuesday night to sign a five-year deal with the Rockets on Wednesday -- the first day free agents are permitted to sign new contracts -- not long after the Lakers and Artest reached terms on a three-year deal worth an estimated $18 million. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4303862 Im confused now.
You've basically reaffirmed my entire point in these two paragraphs. He gets lauded for NOT screwing up and for simply having the dumb luck of having the #2 pick in a draft when Kevin Durant was available. As far as the former - is the bar really that low now that GM's are praised for holding off on moves that even fans recognize to be foolish? And what if some scrub like Stromile Swift was the second best player the year he held that corresponding pick? I don't think Presti is a bad GM by any means, but would really like an explanation as to why the experts are collectively fellating him.
They both are: http://hoopshype.com/salaries/la_lakers.htm I thought we only signed Ariza for a 3 yr deal. Who knew?! haha
Ariza has a player option for the last two years. We had to agree to that because of the heavy interest in him. Daryl made mention of this being against the norm for the Rockets but they had to agree to it in order to get Trevor.
Not saying you are wrong because I am just as confused as some others about the length of Ariza's contract. But hoopshype doesn't have his contract listed with any player options. It's listed as a 5 year deal with no options in the last two year. I honestly do not know for a fact but I thought it was a 5 year deal with no options when I first heard the deal myself. Either way though, Morey is a great GM and should be considered one of the top 3 in the NBA easily. He has made great move after great move. All his deals are low risk deals which is what any team should be after. I'm personally very happy to have him running the Rockets and I trust any move he makes.
I respect what Prichard has done, I think his team is closer to winning the championship than the Rockets at this point. His draft maneuvre to blind side the Rockets to got Roy was a stroke of genius (one could argue he outmaneuvred Morey as Morey was already in the organisation and did not see it coming). He also Fernandez (a pick that that Rockets were rumoured to be after) At the start of this offseason he had a team that just lost to the Rockets (to me it was due to a lack of playoff experience), finished 4th in the reg season AND 10M in capspace. Hard to argue with that. Us Rockets fans can only dream of being in that situation. Pity his FA moves did not work . But he still has an outstanding young team loaded with talent. To me, Morey's done really well, but we can't take away from what Pritchard has done.
Well obviously, but that's not reflective of a performance disparity between the two. A GM should be judged by what he does with the circumstances he has been dealt. Pritchard has done great, but the fact that the Rockets won't be good this year due to injuries to Yao/Grady isn't an indictment upon Morey. How so? He certainly screwed us, but I fail to see how he outmaneuvered Morey - the Blazers had the seventh pick in that draft (via trade) while we had the 8th. So he was in the position to make the trade for Roy while Morey wasn't. If that's outmaneuvering, then so is any other scenario where a GM takes a player one slot ahead of the GM following him. I don't recall the details here so I should refrain from comment. I could be mistaken, but we were after Rudy with our own #26 pick, while Pritchard nabbed him with a pick that Paul Allen bought for him. Huge props to Pritchard for identifying the talent that is Rudy Fernandez, but again, this isn't proof of his superiority to Morey - he just had more assets at his disposal. Again, this isn't really reflective of anything when making a comparison. It just proves that Pritchard has done a great job which has already been established. If you are making team success the final indicator of a GM's performance in respect to other GM's, you have to take into account the circumstances which they were dealt. Pritchard had a clean slate and a blank check while Morey started off with the remnants of CD's garbage. Huge difference.
buford @ 1 has to be indisputable. but i disagree with presti or pritchard being better than morey. the thing that writer doesn't seem to realize is that the hardest jump to make is the jump from good to contender. neither the thunder or blazers have even won a playoff series yet. obviously they both have really bright futures, but that's what everyone said about the baby bulls when they had kirk, BG, deng, and eddy curry. at some point presti/pritchard will probably have to pull a move to get better. when they make that move and it pays off, then they'll have really proven something. until then, I'll take the guy that fielded a 26th pick, 3 players acquired through trade, and a undrafted player and took the eventual champions to 7 games.
also, we wanted fernandez and had a trade with miami to jump up to grab him on the table, but then miami decided to trade picks with the 76ers instead. miami drafted cook and 76ers took jason smith.
That's fair enough. Who knows how Morey would have done if given the hand that Pritchard was dealt. All I am saying is, it's hard to argue with Pritchard's result given the hand that he was dealt - actually it is hard to imagine anyone else doing better. My memory of the 2006 draft was not only how the Rockets got scr**d, but also how Portland did it. As per Jonathan Givony from Draftexpress' words: "The highlight of the night for me personally was seeing Portland single handedly destroy a trade the Timberwolves and Rockets had in place (#6-Brandon Roy, for Luther Head and #8-Randy Foye) by forcing Minnesota’s hand and taking Foye a pick early at #7. That ensured that the Timberwolves had to trade arguably the 2nd best player in the draft to the Blazers for Foye and cash considerations, a move that was entirely lost on ESPN at the time but should go down as one of the most ballsy ever." http://www.draftexpress.com/article/2006-NBA-Draft-Report-Card--Part-One-1-10--1389/
i was referring to luther head, rafer alston, juwan howard and friends, all who had either no trade value or negative trade value.
I see what you're saying. He's definitely done a fantastic job. I'm only arguing that I think Morey has comparatively done a better job, but I get your point. This was the most significant trade in modern Rockets history.
I think what's really nuts is how much the T-Wolves wanted Randy Foye.. really Randy Foye? Not that Foye is that bad of a player, but to them he was better than Roy (i.e. they like Foye but know that others value Roy more, so they drafted Roy and then trade down to get something extra).
I'm sure all Ron's cylinder are all still firing accordingly. Man he can still play a good "D" and descent offense. But it was a bad money for me if you asked me!
I might be the only guy here who thinks so, but I think that although Buford is number 1, number 2 should go to the Lakers GM. I think that guy is really under the radar, however you cannot deny the bang-up job he did rebuilding after the Shaq-Kobe era. He's not perfect, I mean he traded Butler for Kwame and I think signing Artest instead of Ariza was a really bad move that could implode the team, but you cannot deny that getting Gasol for leftovers has got to be the biggest steal since Dallas got Nash and Nowitzki for Tractor Traylor. If I were ranking GMs based on past performance, I would say the list goes: 1) Buford 2) Lakers GM (kupchak?) 3) Ainge 4) Morey 5) Presti If I were ranking GMs based on my perception of their ability, my personal ranking would be: 1)Morey 2)Presti 3)Buford 4)Ainge 5)Pritchard Why do I like Presti over Pritchard? Simple, because Presti is a better evaluator of talent than Pritchard. Pritchard messed up on the Durant pick, and while he can acquire talent he can't seem to put it all together in one neat package (going after Turkoglu, Utah's man and Miller all in succession seems to me like the dude doesn't have an overall plan in mind). Presti on the other hand has been getting nothing but gems-Durant, Westbrook and Green is a better core IMHO than Roy, LMA and Oden.
Yeah I'd put Morey ahead of Presti as well. I'd put Pritchard ahead of Presti as well. Morey IMO should be 2 or 3 (toss up between him and Pritchard)
From DaDa's recap of Mr. Morey's interview recap on the radio recently... http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=4693644&postcount=61
I don't think there is any argument that Buford is number one. He has consistently made amazing moves for many years in a row now. I don't think Ainge or Kupchack deserve any consideration. For the great moves they have made, they probably made just as many if not more horrible moves.
