Yes, but I can understand passing on it. From what I recall Amare refused to take a physical, and with 2 injury prone stars already, taking a risk on a 3rd would have been career suicide for Morey if Amare did/does get hurt again. Plus on the radio today they were saying that Amare refused to sign a contract extension here which further pushed the deal out of consideration. I'd vote for the Miller deal as the one that is the most costly and least effective contributor so far, though it has been said that was a deal Adelman pushed hard to get done. Overall none of his deals have been crippling, in fact most of his deals have been net positives. It's just that he hasn't been able to get the star player the team needs to be contenders. Of course it's not like he has been GM for a decade with multiple lottery picks wasted and stars begging to come to Houston that the team is turning away like some fans who want to make him out to be the worst GM in the league make it seem like.
So everyone kept raving about Shane all the time.... -Glue guy -Great defender -Excellent locker room guy -team player -the guy every team wants on their roster And all you can get for him is a broken pole vault and a unprotected pick?!?! Shane is probably one of the most over-rated players in Rockets history but he wasn't worth more than what we got from him?!?! We should have gotten more just based on the reputation alone! And folks on this board need to take off their Morey underpants and smell the streak. Collecting cheap and bargain assets is not going to get you anywhere if all you do is turn it over for other bargain assets or something worse.
I believe the deal he sabotaged was for Vince Carter. If I recall correctly, we would have taken on a bad contract. (Or was it vice-versa?) Regardless, the principle players involved would have been Carter and McGrady.
Definitely selling low on A.Brooks, not many, or any teams would pay high dollars for starting PG and a wanna-be starting PG.
DeMarre Carroll Was in tha trade with Thabeet also..just lettin ya guys know..I don't know him really.
I would have liked to have seen: "not pursuing Carlos Boozer with the same vigor that we did Bosh last offseason"
Same mistake most GM's make they do not sell high and buy low. I think Yao and TMac were terrible fits for the direction Adelman took the team both could have been moved alot earlier on once Van Gundy was fired and Adelman came in. Right after Adelman came here I had the opportunity to have lunch with him and he told me straight up he wanted to use Yao like Divacs, I've yet to recover from that conversation. If Morey knew that also he should have moved Yao for some big time assets. TMac didn't like Adelman from the get go, he should have been moved. Morey is a good GM but like all GM's he drinks the kool aid or he mixes it.
Ah, but there you only trap yourself. If it should have been obvious to Morey that McGrady and Yao had no value as star players, then it should have been equally obvious to the rest of the league, and there would be no one offering anything of value. Either they had some redeeming potential as top guns on a winning team, or they weren't even worth shopping. This is why I have hated and railed against this argument. You can say all you want that he had plenty of time to ship them out, but FACT: by the time anyone was calling for them to be shipped out, it would have been for fifty cents on the dollar and any deal that would have been available for them would have been universally panned had Daryl pulled the trigger.
Amare deal of course. Thats no brainer because then you could get Carmelo and Chris Paul. Super friends right? To the signing aspect? Well for Carmelo and Chris Paul to come I dont care if Amare blew his knees out three years from now. If he would have resigned? I think he made it known whoever offered him a max contract could get an extention. We offered max contract at trade deadline? He resigns with us period.
Everyone forgets that Amare was an unrestricted FA last year. That means that, given this strange mystical appeal the Knicks have all of a sudden acquired, he would have simply dumped Houston rather than Phoenix. Table 1: No Amare or Table 2: No Amare and No Scola + No Battier (to trade away this year) I don't know about you but I'll stick with the status quo on that one. His biggest mistake by far was not trading Brooks at the trade deadline last year. A lot of us were calling for it. Steve Nash might have actually been get-able last year with the kind of numbers Brooks was putting up. Now we get Goran Dragic instead.
I'd hold the same sentiment a few years ago but Shane's an unrestricted expiring this year. I also doubt the idea that Morey wouldn't have taken the better trade if it was available or that he didn't look enough. The contenders, who would have wanted him, probably weren't willing to part with anything more than what we got from the Grizzlies.
Morey's biggest mistake was that he did not realize that Yao Ming would never stay healthy and trade him while he still had values. This is what led to the current situation of the team (being mediocre and stuck with a few big contracts). However, it is probable that Morey's hands were tied because Les did not want to lose his money cow. You could argue that Morey also made mistakes signning Scola, Lowry, Miller etc. to big contracts and holding onto players like AB too long but those were the direct results from the Rockets' failure to recognize that they could not build around Yao and needed to start rebuilding. I am more optimistic today than I was a few days ago because from the trades today I think that the Rockets have admitted that they needed to rebuild from draft. That is the right direction to take the team. The next thing for Morey to do is to get rid of the contracts of Scola and Miller in the offseason and get value for Martin while he still has value.
Two dumb things (mostly sins of omission): - Not getting a serious back-up for Yao after Deke retired. It should have been the priority over guys like Ariza - Not trading McGrady when the chance was there. I liked the proposed Detroit trade (I think it was for Billups and Hamilton), but there were other choices.
