Anyone who wants Morey to get fired is a *insert a more appropriate word*

Does the team look like it is on top?

So you like the current composition of the team? If so, how do you explain the way it is playing, if it is so well constructed?

[quoteThis talk of people wanting him to get fired annoys me so much. If Les fires Morey, this franchise will be set back 10 years or more.[/QUOTE]

I get your point, but isn't the team playing as if it already is?

 

This isn't a front office issue

Our players who are in their primes inexplicably got worse

 

Morbid fear...quit exaggerating. NBA players don't fear getting traded. Do they not like getting traded? Probably some times, but "morbid fear". sigh Your analogy to our jobs is about being fired. We fear that. We don't get traded.

It's a silly analogy to compare jobs of professional sports players to our jobs. A player's "resume" is completely in their control and not ruined by being traded. They only thing that ruins it is giving up under pressure. The majority of NBA players who love the game would play their best all the time.

I don't like making analogies to our job environment and theirs. Quit trying to identify with NBA players and tell us what they are thinking or what they would do. You can't.

 

I agree that NBA players don't "fear" being traded. But I do believe that most players don't want to be traded unless they really don't like the team. Otherwise, why would some players demand a no-trade clause in their contracts?

The perception of being traded any time is distracting and does take away the sense of belonging. It makes a player care less about the team. Theoretically, any player can be traded any time before the trade deadline. But Morey is perceived--fair or not--to be constantly making deals.

 

^^ it's an exaggeration to say the business of trades affects the psyche of players enough to affect their play on the court. If it does, then they are weak-minded players who allow distractions to affect their effort on the court, which can only work against them by bringing down their market value. They have a vested interest in themselves to never quit or whine.

Let's not forget that when Horry got traded, then rescinded, he used it as motivation to become even better.

That said, trading away chemistry players can affect the chemistry of a team, for sure. And feeling like you play for a team that treats players like assets can make free agents like Parsons, Dragic and Lowry bolt. I'm just questioning that players would let it affect their play on the court.

Which further reminds us that giving FAs big, long contracts like MoT often leads them to coast and not care to try any more. Quitters and whiners suck. Best to find out sooner than later.


 

 

I don't disagree with you on this. I was thinking more about chemistry than about effort--effort in a vacuum anyway. Chemistry is built in trust and care. It's hard to have chemistry if the players don't think they are part of the long term plan of the team.

And chemistry does affect effort. Yes, the strong minded players play hard no matter what. Good chemistry makes it a lot easier to be motivated. Bad chemistry makes it a lot harder to be motivated.

 

So now our issues are because players are afraid to be traded?

We had great chemistry last season, good enough to take a team with lots of injuries to the #2 seed and the WCF. So what changed? We pretty much brought back the entire core of the team. So why would they be afraid of being traded now?

I'll ask the same question that I ask everytime somebody mentions this:
Who are the teams that don't trade their players when their team isn't a contender?

Do you believe that the Spurs players are in fear of being traded because Splitter and Corey Joseph were casualties of the acquisition of Aldridge?

If you have a contending team you usually only make small changes, otherwise you do whatever is necessary to become a contender. That's always been true for all team, but it doesn't even apply to us this year because we pretty much stood pat with our core guys.

So what changed? We traded more in past season and yet we still had good chemistry last year. We don't make any major trades except trading several end of the bench guys and all of a sudden our players are so much in fear of being traded that they can't play well? Are they all suddenly thinking "If Joey Dorsey can get traded then anyone can" ?

Coming off of a season where we kept the core, this makes no sense. I guess the idea that it's the lack of midrange shots got shot down, so now we're moving on to the next idea. Ok.

 

Um, we're not getting open looks accept for Harden iso's

 

We're getting plenty of open threes

 

Or, as athletes, they don't know how to discuss CHEMISTRY any longer because Lin is gone? :grin:

 

Simply not true, the team is missing tons of wide open 3's and are even missing some uncontested layups.

 

That is incorrect. Houston leads the league in open 3 point shots at 23.6 per game. We only take 8.1 contested 3's per game. Further, Harden takes 3.2 of those contested 3s per game and he's good at them. In fact, Harden is shooting a higher percentage on contested 3s than he is on open 3s.

If you remove Harden's contested 3's then the rest of the team is taking 4.9 contested 3s per game.

We get tons of shots that we have in hit in past seasons and we are missing them.

 

Wow. Just what has happened to these players that they seem to have forgotten how to shoot? What are the odds of a team wide, extended shooting slump?

 

If it is any consolation, Harden is shooting .465 FG% and .404 3s since the Firing (5 games) scoring 36 ppg. And if you don't count his horrid 3 of 32 start on 3s in the 0-3 start of the season, he's .365 3FG% from Game 4 on.

 

Yet he's getting blamed.

 

Watching both Rocket eras, I have to agree. The sets look similar to the Adelman offense. The difference from what I see is the player movement, back picks, cutting. Instead of movement we tend to stand around waiting to shoot the 3. The problem is that has become too predictable and teams have figured out how to play it. My question is why exactly haven't we countered?

 

That is quite a turnaround.

 

What is it that you want to counter? We are getting bunches of open shots but we are missing them.

Our offense has always been predictable but that doesn't mean that teams can stop it. It's a pick your poison situation. You can try to stop Harden or you can try to shutdown our 3 point shooters but you can't do both.

We are leading the league in open 3 point attempts so it's not like defenses have taken that away we just can't hit those shots right now.

Unless you can devise an offense where we get nothing but shots at the rim, then we are still going to have to hit shots in any offense.

 

You really seem to be missing the very simple point here.

People aren't countering us.

We are not hitting open shots.

No system works when you cannot hit shots.

 

I get your point, but isn't the team playing as if it already is?[/QUOTE]
In all fairness, at the beginning of the season most people were talking about us as serious contenders.
We made the WCF last year and continued to win more reg. season games 3 years running.
In fact a lot of the media (more than normal) were talking about McHale as coach of the year and that we had one of the deepest benches.
Whilst none of that has panned out, we can't just go slagging Morey for this now.
Somethings gone wrong - FOR SURE. But its 10 or so games Vs the past 3 years.