As we drink the Morey Kool-Aid...We are all Guilty

27-24 record

40 milllion dollars on the bench

= Win in my book.

 

One last point.

To be fair, I think DM has done a very good job identifying young talent. If you look across the league at the success of other GMs identifying young talent, the results are mixed at best where the "shooting percentage" if you will is easily less than 10%. i.e. I argue that the average GM will get 1 out of 10 young players "right" in the sense of proven talent and actively/majorly contributing to their team's success.

Under DM, we drafted Brooks, we got Landry, and heck, even Lowry. I think these 3 are terrific and would command great interest by any GM around the league - GMs who themselves are/were unable to determine talent. These 3 are now proven commodities and that's wholly to DM's credit. (Flip side, ironically, Ariza was proven to be a "busted talent" during his time with his Knicks; it's still a moot point if he's ever been that "proven" commodity.)

Yes - there have been duds. But imho 3 out of 10 is still far better than average. If you look at CBud, I'd argue that there could be 4th in the mix there soon too. And that's a stellar percentage no matter how you look at it.

Mistaking "decent players" for "franchise players" is perhaps the biggest sin one could make. And to a lesser degree, mistaking "decent players" for "more than decent, but less than franchise players." Ironically a lot of the players talked about in trades for T-Mac fall in this camp. Think about it.

Caron Butler
Iggy
Luol Deng
Kevin Martin

They were all talked about as more than decent - fringe franchise players at some point. I think expectation wise, Ariza was a mistake from this pov. He's just decent - at best. And imho, DM probably evaluated him to be something more before pursuing him. Hopefully, we won't repeat that same mistake again.



theSAGE

 

oh my god the sky.... look at it! It's falling before trade deadline! AAAAARRRGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!^&!^!^*&#@^$*&!^(#^!*&@^!*^#!#@ :grin:

 

Yes w/ no team option.

 

As long as we don't let Brian Cook walk, we'll be fine.

 

when you have spending restraints like Morey does by Les ,Morey is doing the best job possible. think back to cato,mo taylor,matt maloney and Morey is God.

 

Why don't we wait until after this summer to critize Morey? If he can't go out and deliver us the superstar we need after Tracy's contract expires, then we can say he didn't get the job done. If I recall correctly, Morey did say he wasn't planning on reshaping our entire team over this past summer, but continue to sign players that would help contribute for 2010-2011 season and beyond once Yao is healthy. He went out and got Ariza to be a role player who plays good defense and has some athletic ability that we lack, not an All-Star. Yes, we were hoping Ariza would develop into an All-Star or a go to guy, but at 5-6 mil a year, good luck. He's going to be a lot more comfortable once we have Yao back and another Star taking off pressure from him. So lets judge the Ariza move next year or in another 2 years.

Morey did however draft Chase Budinger who's been nothing but great for a 2nd round pick (mind you we went into the draft with 0 draft picks and came out of the draft with 3 players for a few million bucks that didn't hurt our salary cap). If the Rockets miss the playoffs, it'll be beneficial because we'll have a lottery pick. So now Morey will have a lottery pick + millions of dollars to throw at FA's. If he can somehow trade up in the draft and get us a top 5 lottery pick, that may be our best bet at getting the next All-Star (trade our lottery pick + 2nd round pick + one of our role players for a top 5 pick).

We need to be patient.... honestly a Caron Butler + Haywood or Iguodala deal would NOT put us over the top or help us contend for a championship. If anything, that would just keep us in the 2nd round of the playoffs for the next 3-4 years and then all of our players would be old and we'd have to start over again in 5 years. What we need is a guy that can give us 25 ppg (A Tmac type player from 2003.. sigh...) to go along side a healthy Yao who can put up 20 ppg and our current supporting cast, then we can talk contention.

So hopefully Morey can somehow get us a high lottery pick, sign some great talent in the Free Agent market and hope Yao Ming comes back healthy. If he doesn't come through after this summer when he has lots of options to play around with, then we can bash him. For now, just be patient and hope our current roster continues to develop as we wait for some All-Star level talent to arrive

 

Why Kool-Aid?... :grin:

 

Knee jerk city again. Patience my young grasshopper.

 

It's an expression much used in politics. It goes back to Jim Jones and Jonestown, Guyana. He and his followers committed mass suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-aid.

"Kool-aid drinkers," in politics, means people on the other side from you that just accept whatever they are told.

 

On Ariza, I think it was more along the lines of getting someone ready to take the defensive specialist position from Battier in the starting line up with more offensive potential in 2 or 3 years and if he was capable of being a SG, a bonus.

You can tell Shane has about a year or two of solid defense left in him but he is losing his step and if we didn't need a veteran leader, this season, he'd probably have already been traded for younger talent.

 

LOL @ ppl saying the ariza signing was good. stop smoking that crack

 

I'll drink that Kool-Aid until the deadline passes.

I'm expecting a move, whether it be small or large-scale.

 

my 3 complaints about Morey

1.i wish he kept batum (i know it means no 2rd last yr but i like him)
2.i wish he included cbud for butler be4 cuban stepped in
3.i wish he traded for Amare giving up landry and brooks(we have lowry who is better)

 

Exactly and were barely out of playoff contention and like 6 of the teams above us are only like 5 games apart..thats nothing

 

DON't BRING UR FACTS INTO THIS THREAD!!!!!!!

what R U GONNA TELL US NEXT??? Thaat von wafer IS HURT and couldn't pass a physicallll??????

 

Seems like DM is good at drafts, and I'll give him that much.

But it seems kind of true how his plays haven't been that great.

We need height the most, and the fact that Hayes is the starting C for the Rockets is just an embarrassment.

And yeah, with Ariza playing the way he's playing, I would've much rather have kept Ron Artest. We need the kind of competitive attitude that he brings to the table.

 

Stupid thread.

especially the Artest take.

ARTEST SAID NO TO $8 million for a year.

 

Yeah why not sign a 31 year old to a 5 year contact on a young team that''s unlikely to be a contender immediately. We went after a center in David Anderson; didn't work out to be exactly what we expected. You can't just go out and pick up a legit center without giving up part of our core.

 

Uh, no, Artest here would have been an absolute disaster this year. Do you have any idea what he was like in Sacramento before we traded him? He was being crazy, and not in the good way that we saw from him last year. Artest is possibly the last player you do want on a mediocre team, which we are for the moment. He would have asserted himself as the GUY even more than Ariza, as while Ariza does chuck up shots (an unfortunate habit which has gotten better as of late) has not gone around declaring himself the leader. Artest would have, and there would have been chaos and such. Artest is fine with Yao there being the alpha dog and Deke there being the locker room leader, but without him, he would have led this team to disaster.

And who is this tall center? We went after Gortat, but never would have gotten given that if the Magic would have matched an MLE offer by Dallas, they would have for us (and Gortat is not worth more than MLE by any margin). We got Andersen, whom I think is a perfectly fine center for 3 million, and has been a decent back-up. So no, I can't think of a tall guy who would have come easily. Can you?

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