actually, in market research the most often used delineation to discriminate between small/medium/large/enterprise businesses is employee headcount, not value. so as an anecdote, lucasfilms is counted as a small/medium business. its worth a pretty penny as well how many layers are there? i don't know how the org is structured but i can't imagine there are too many chefs making soup in a basketball franchise.
It's a silly to criticize Morey with the blunt argument that stats guys don't make good managers. Morey is far more than just a "stats guy." Morey is not just an accountant nor even just an actuary. Rather, he is someone with a strong management background, who happens to be extremely facile with statistical analysis. He's more like the CEO of an investment bank. Banks make money by making smart decisions, informed by statistics. That's what Morey does. Regarding the argument that he doesn't know the game well enough -- think about it: he has as much NBA playing experience as some very successful NBA coaches. The include Jeff van Gundy, Stan van Gundy, Lawrence Frank, etc. Like them, Morey has been obsessing about sports his whole life. Is it really so hard to believe Morey could understand the game?
You obviously are struggling to convince yourself of your own argument. If something is "helpful," that means it helps. Feel free to launch into a tangent explaining why something that is "helpful" does not "give an advantage."
..........................the rest of Morey's quote was you have to be top 10 in both, and right now we are 2 in defense and 17 in offense. SO OBVIOUSLY WE NEED TO IMPROVE OFFENSIVELY, AGREED?
Spurs, Pistons, Celtics, Suns, Jazz, Mavs, and Hornets are mostly in the top 12 for both FG% and 3P% with the exception of the Mavs and their 3P shooting. Rockets are shooting at below the league average in FG% (20th) and 3P% (23rd).
Absolutely. We're already very good on the defensive end, thanks to a solid defensive philosophy that has already been established and some very good team defenders. The offense is what needs work. But don't forget, he also said you need to be especially good at one of them. Just being 9th in offense and 9th in defense probably isn't going to cut it. So, I think defense should still be our calling card, but we need to figure out a way to mix in some better offensive players and get that side functioning better.
I can understand why some people insist a GM being ex-player or coach or have other extensive basketball knowledge, but I don't get why we would absolutely need a "business-minded" GM? I thought most NBA clubs have both: a GM, whose main job is mostly basketball related and CEO, who is responsible for the business side of things. And most NBA owners are business people, and have(or at least had) those infamous "decision-making skills", that made them rich. Another thing is we cant really know, at least yet, if these statgeeks are better or worse GMs than those more traditional ones. IF Daryl Morey really knows some groundbreakingly important statistical evaluation systems, which really give him competitive advantage, wouldn't he keep it to himself? Why would he exactly give his secrets away? You could compare it to sports betting: If bookies keep systematically undervaluing some things and giving too good odds, do those who take advantage of it call them and say, please stop, you are giving too good odds! Even if you don't appreciate stats as much as Morey, give the man a chance before you come here telling anybody can do his job. I think he has done a good job so far: Brooks (why Adelman should get the credit for this solely?) Landry (seems to be a genious pick) Scola Hayes (locked up for a very reasonable price) To people who keep blasting the Mike James and Steve Francis acquisitions, what exactly where you expecting for Juwan Howard and 1/3 or something like that from our MLE? Go read some old threads and see how much fans liked Howard last year? Also, I don't get is the hate he gets for Battier for Gay/Swift trade? We don't even know for sure how responsible he was for that. People are also IMO evaluating the trade the wrong way. Even if we would take Rudy Gay and not trade down, there was no way anybody could say for sure how Gay would play in NBA, so what he essentially did was: A proven roleplayer with reasonable contract, who fits our need and chemistry, lessens the burden on T-Mac and is a KNOWN commodity, although with limited "upside". = BATTIER FOR A CHANCE (historically bad) that very talented but "lazy" and "unmotivated" guy becomes a star. = GAY and ironically the result of the risk, when taking athletic but unproven "studs" with high draft choices. Quite terrible contract also. = SWIFT It's too easy to now say we shouldn't have traded Gay, but We didn't and COULDN'T KNOW. IMO, the logic behind the trade is very sound. Too much emphasis is being placed on potential and upside, especially, when not in need of a franchise player. A good example is a guy like Landry who fell behind some lesser players, who had that "potential". Let's also remember that the reason we are still lacking talent, or atleast were before this season, is the BAD DRAFTING and ABSURD CONTRACTS we have been giving in the "basketball guy era(Carroll Dawson and RUDY T)". And for the guy dissing Morey for cutting Jackie Butler: "Step away from your crack dealer."
Actually, How market research defines small business has little do do with conversation here. Point is, you wouldn't rely on one guy doing stats/marketing/finance and all sort of thing as you suggested for a multi-million dollar franchise. In reality, they don't. On the basketball side, you have GM, president to basketball operations/head coach/coach/head scouts/scouts etc. Although duties may cross depending on organization, but jobs are relatively well defined. Notice I'm not on either side of this topic.
Good post. Calling Morey a "stats guy" is totally missing the point. The way he got the Celtics job, for example, was partly by impressing them with his ability to master the Collective Bargaining Agreement in a short period of time. It was not neccesarily a "stats" thing. There is also a fundamental false dichotomy between "stats" and "business"-- as if there are two types of people, and no one can have a high mastery of both. Totally wrong. Investment banks and other large successful companies-- from the financial institutions to drug makers-- hire people who master both sets of skills-- and pay them well for it. The important decision-makers at such places often have Ph.Ds in a quantatative field. Just because someone's half-ass "business background" doesn't allow him contact with such people doesn't mean they don't exist.
Your wish is my command. I drink milk. It's helpful. You drink milk too. Drinking milk is helpful, but it doesn't give me an advantage over you, because you are drinking too. My point is that everybody uses statistical analysis to help their team. The Rockets may be putting themselves at a disadvantage by having a decisionmaker that hasn't participated in the league in any active capacity.
I cant believe all these people complaining about morey. weve had our best draft since yao because of him (and that draft doesnt count cuz it was a no brainer) so if you dont count that draft you have to even further back to maybe the cuttino draft. made a lot of good moves with nearly no cap room and nothing to work with
I could have sworn the guy worked as assistant GM under CD for a year and "participated in the league" in an active capacity, and got paid for it too, with the Celtics.
instead of speculating out of your ass why dont you read up and learn a bit about the situation before you ramble on post after post alexander is a bean counter. his hiring morey is a direct consequence of the success of the oakland A's and Red Sox in applying sabermetrics in evaluating draft picks and free agent acquisitions. les alexander made his money exploiting inefficiencies in the bond market using statistical analysis similar to sabermetrics so yeah, obviously he had incentive to give morey a shot. you're not saying anything new, there's long been bias in sports that it takes a "baseball guy" or a "basketball guy" to evaluate talent. unfortunately, you're 10 years too late, this argument has already been concluded and most sports fans and analysts who've looked into this stuff now agreed that more efficient use of stats can help most teams assemble better talent this question has been settled in the larger world too. 25 years ago wall street had this exact argument. back them the old white shoe investment companies believed in hiring guys who had "a feel" for the market or the right background from ivy league schools. you could never trust something as important as your investment fund to some "math guy." what happened? the firms who had the balls to invest in math and science Ph.Ds cleaned up house in the 80s and now the entire industry is about derivatives and math models and ****. there's really 0 risk in hiring morey, at the end of it all he's a brilliant guy with a encyclopedic knowledge of sports. the worst GM in sports is Isaiah and there's no one more of a "basketball guy" than he is
Another thing ... as general manager Daryl Morey isn't only in charge of making personnel decisions. He's also in charge of "running the company" and deciding how to allocate resources to various problems. The Rockets probably devote more resources to data collection than most other teams. They probably have more software guys working on ways to organize and process that data and deliver more sophisticated reports for the scouts/coaches to work with. This can potentially help give us an edge when preparing a strategy against our opponents. Read, for instance, this interview with a Rockets advance scout: http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-29-0/The-life-of-an-advance-scout.html [rquoter]The Rockets are one of the most computer savvy teams in the league, how does it carry over to your job? Having worked for three different NBA teams, the Rockets are cutting edge with their ability to marry technology and basketball. Aside from the standard personnel database that teams have started using the past few years, the statistical and analytical work of the Rockets' front office technology team gives the coaching staff and personnel department every possible advantage. This goes back to our (general manager) Daryl Morey and (vice president of basketball operations) Sam Hinkie, they are two of the best in the business at it.[/rquoter]
