Jerome Solomon completely owned Morey about calling players assets.

Liar liar, pants on fire. Really, you call this journalism?

For the player(s) that are concern about trade talks, they are either delusional about their skills or they believe in fairy tales. Players should always be prepared to be traded just like we should always be prepared to be laid off. It doesn't matter how good you are at your job, there is always the chance that you will not be at the same office the next day.

People who complain about Morey treating the players as assets, I bet you are the 1st ones that will jump at the opportunity of trading Martin, Lowery, and player X for D. Howard. How are you any different than Morey?

I thought Blindbury (mispelled on purpose) was bad, Solomon is worse.

 

It doesn't matter what Morey calls his players, assets or not. The real issue is the Rockets organization was not good enough right now. The coaches were not good enough, the front office was not good enough and the players they put together were not good enough. So don't waste time on trivial issues. The organization as a whole needs to do a better job.

 

If I was an NBA player I would rather be referred to as an asset than a liability.

 

And it's about the most uninformative measure imaginable.

 

Do companies keep reminding their employees they could be laid off any time?

 

Very well said. Repped.

 

Those players keep their jobs under another employer. It's the nature of their line of work. The whole assets thing is way overblown.

 

Do you work public relations for the Rockets?

You have to have some type of ethics when your a GM. Yes, everybody is movable in the NBA but constantly publicly referring to you're players as nothing more than "assets" is classless. This is why we have a hard time getting players to come here, because our GM doesn't treat his players or coaches like humans. How can Morey sell players on Houston? "Hey, come to Houston where you can become a asset and get moved in half a season".

There is such thing as class. Adelman was the perfect example, but was let go because he didn't believe in Morey's ethics. Solomon's article was 100% justified

 

Are you people still acting like the word "assets" holds any meaning?

This is actually WORSE than all the r****ded banter about mediocrity's windmill.

 

ah you know it going to be a LONG offseason when bloggers (though solomon never really has anything constructive to say anyway) are talking about the GM's use of one word and people here are arguing over whats objective and subjective.

Fact: we finished last in our division
Fact: we finished 9th in the west
Fact: we missed the playoffs 2 years in a row
Fact: its not that hard to make the playoffs in basketball
Fact: everyone's bored now so i'll stop writing

 

youre looking for a moral vicory, and those are for losers

who cares we were in the top halfof the overall league standings? lmao theres not any awards or rewards for that

you play the schedule youre given

you play the division youre in and try to win it, then go after the championship

theres no silver lining in sports, either you win or you go home

 

Call me old fashioned but I'd like to see a little sentiment mixed in with team building. If I wanted "it's just business", I'd go read Forbes.

 

I never got the impression that Morey thinks of his players as "nothing more" than assets. There are clearly a number of players on the roster that he had great respect and admiration for (e.g. Yao, Luis, Shane, Chuck, Kyle). He was cheering on Scola during the world competitions last summer, for instance. He supports his players.

But, I think he believes that when looking to upgrade the roster, its important not to allow personal attachments override what you believe to be in the best interest of the team going forward. In the past couple seasons, he recognizes that the team is an unfinished product with big pieces that are missing. So he's frank with his players/coaches/fans -- they're looking to improve the roster by any means necessary. The alternative is to mislead them, or to just not try to improve the team.

Is that what people have a problem with?

 

Fact: Morey blatantly lied about his use of the word assets. As much as you want this to be about Solomon, it's not

 

That's fair and I agree with you, but who on the team are we so sentimental over? There is no one on the team who is untouchable, none of them are the superstar piece we want to lock-up long term.

There's also nothing wrong with Morey talking like every other GM when referencing assets. It's part of the GM vocabulary and not unique to the Rockets. Overall, the team has had player turnover on par with other clubs and can we say we'd prefer to have guys like Wafer, Alston, Ariza, etc?

 

Not sure why people can't understand a simple point. Divisions are unbalanced. Therefore "last in division" doesn't mean the same thing for every division. If there was balance across divisions, and therefore being last in division means you're among the 6 or 7 worst teams in the league, then "last in division" really says something. That's not the case here. Here, "last in division" simply means we're worse than 4 other teams that are all pretty good to great (heck, the 8th seed has a pretty good chance of beating the 1 seed in the first round -- and both teams are from the same division. What does that tell you?).

But how do we compare against the conference? That's what I care about. Not because I'm looking for small victories, but because that tells me more about how far away we are from being playoff contenders. There's virtually no difference in terms of schedule for teams in same division and other teams in same conference.

 

I'd like to really see hard evidence that shows that we really have a hard time getting free agents to come here, ESPECIALLY because Morey used the word "assets" and not because the Rockets are in trade rumors, which is the point of the topic I made. We got Ariza to come here with no problems at all, same with Brad Miller. We missed out on Bosh because Houston's not as attractive as Miami and he wanted to be BFFs with Lebron and Wade. I doubt if Morey didn't use the words assets, we would have Bosh.

 

I think its deeper than a play on words. Its arrogance. Outside of the fact he lied, he actually treats his players and coaches like nothing more than assets. His unethical way of running this team have not gone unnoticed

-JVG's firing debacle. Was fired without any knowledge of

-Leaking misleading info on Landry's injuries to devalue him so other teams think twice before signing him.

- Foolishly going public on Yao's minute cap, which infuriated coach Adelman. Gave teams ability to play the Rockets knowing Yao's minute limit

-Pushing his +/- theory on Adelman. FM's are supposed to let the coaches coach, not offer they're personal opinion on who to play based on they're unproven data. THIS is the reason they got rid of Adelman

 

a) Are we all really that dumb to not think that teams would catch on to Yao Ming only playing 25 minutes a night? I never understood that criticism. "WHY DID YOU TELL EVERYONE ELSE HE WAS ONLY PLAYING 25 MIN!!!" ... uhhh, what difference does it make? A small psychological advantage for a few games? It would have become apparent that Yao's minutes were capped after three games. Should we also not have told anyone that Yao wouldn't play in back-to-backs?

b) Again, not following your criticism here. GMs are now supposed to never talk with their head coaches and give their opinions? How does that make sense? Further, Morey never told Adelman who to play -- he did NOT interfere with Adelman's game plan, but merely suggested different approaches from time to time. If you have a problem with that, you have an agenda against Morey.

Adelman wasn't let go because he refused to back Morey's analytics 100%. He was let go because Morey told him how he plans to further turn the roster over to get to that championship core, which we are not presently close to. Adelman seemed to prefer to stay the course and try to push for the 5th-6th seed with the current group.

 

BS. BS. BS. This entire post is made up of false information.

1st- Morey does not regard players as nothing more than assets. He does regard them as assets, but he has also clearly stated that he regards them as basketball players too. So what you said isn't true.

2nd- Referring to your players as assets has zero affect on your team's ability to land players. As has been pointed out, we've signed plenty of free agents under Morey. And if you've read my previous posts, I have proven that many GMs have used this term referring to their players. It has not affected their ability to sign free agents, so why would it affect ours?

Dwyane Wade is finally ready to play. Miami's all-star guard, recovered from offseason shoulder and knee surgeries, was on the active roster for the first time this season last night, when the Heat faced the Seattle SuperSonics. "We have been as diligent and as careful, and he has been as diligent and as careful, as I think anybody could be with your primary asset," Heat coach Pat Riley said. "This isn't something that we haven't really thought long and hard about . . . but there's got to be a time when you go out there."


Pat Riley explicitly refers to Wade as an asset. LeBron James and Chris Bosh both signed in Miami last offseason. This clearly shows that they did not not choose the Rockets because they were avoiding any GM that thinks his players are assets.

3rd- Ethics had absolutely nothing to do with Rick Adelman not being re-hired as Rockets head coach. He was not brought back because he and Morey had philisophical differences on the USE of players and data, it had nothing to do with Adelman thinking Morey was unethical. And Morey is not being unethical, he's simply stating the truth when asked questions about upgrading the team. Unethical would be lying to your players and telling everyone that you plan on keeping them. You can say he should just shut up and never talk to the media, but then we'd have just as many people crying about Morey hiding from the public and never giving us any idea of what the Rockets are trying to do. Personally, I like the fact that our general manager is accessable to the media and willing to speak on the Rockets future.