Wait...whoaaaaaa...all I read at Clutchfans is how Morey is a genius by assembling this cast of great contracts and high value players. They were less of a team than they ever were a collection of assets that could be flipped. Morey did not acquire either Yao or T-Mac. If these players we drafted and acquired can't be flipped for something of value, then the emperor has no clothes. It's the only work product we have from Morey at all.
If we can't give Morey credit for building around Yao and TMac, we can't give Morey too much fault for the house of cards tumbling down. Looks like we haven't yet found out who the real Morey is. Or is that not as entertaining as picking sides?
I'll give him credit for building around Yao and T-Mac...how far does that get us? Again...our "team" is nothing more than a collection of assets. I've been assured time and time again here that these are great moves because they're good contracts with high value players that are flippable....that we can convert to something else. That was the stated genius of Morey according to at least a few of you who post here on this website. Time will tell.
I think a lot of it arises from what we experienced with Kelvin Cato, Mo T, etc when CD was at the helm. It has been a breath of fresh air to know that we really have not overpaid for anybody. Morey has done a decent job of trying to add pieces around a core that ended up failing, but yes, he is not deserving of the enormous amounts of praise given to him.
As far as I'm concerned giving a GM credit or lack thereof doesn't get us anywhere. So I'm not sure what you mean. I'm with you on 'time will tell'. I'm not convinced that we haven't made good moves; I think our players are generally desirable pieces. One of Morey's flaws seems to be that he is a tough negotiator and won't settle for low returns on his investment, but can we fault a GM for the sake of not making more bad moves? We don't have a lot of contracts (Brad Miller excepted) that will make trade partners cringe. I think it's true that our team has underperformed and lowered everyone's value, or in other words I think the net value of our team on paper is much higher than the results we see on the court. This has pros and cons, obviously.. as I'd rather get to the playoffs than tank and deal with GARM trade-thread explosions (so I will fault Morey for building too much around glass-man Yao Ming the last 2 years).
ultimately, GM's steer the ship...they are held accountable for the big picture. and, no, i'm not saying we should be firing Morey now. i'm not there. but there needs to be some tempering of the Morey-God equation that we see here at Clutchfans. i'm happy we don't have bad contracts...but if we had a team of bad contracts that was winning games, would any of us honestly care?
Can we please stop using the T-Mac excuse? T-Mac is GONE. Morey traded him for Jordan Hill who is a bust, Jared Jeffries who can't get off the bench, and the Knicks draft picks that are now not worth all that much. Again, Morey made the decision, Hill, Jeffries, and those draft picks are his. The last excuse Morey has left is Yao's contract. If Yao is re-signed, he is now Morey's guy. If Yao is traded, who we get are now Morey's guys. This is Morey's team, he basically acquired everybody on the current team except Yao and Chuck Hayes.
how much do you think t-mac was worth bro? no way to know what else was on the table. even in retrospect (the picks and hill having not worked out) it could have been the best offer out there.
I'm not saying TMac was worth more, I'm saying that the TMac excuse is gone. Morey traded him and now has to live with the "assets" we got back for him. If those "assets" don't work out, Morey absolutely deserves criticism for it because that was his decision. When decisions Morey makes don't work out, he deserves the blame. Way too many people on this board keep giving him passes and keep acting like the TMac thing has still handicapped him. The TMac thing is over, he has nothing to do with the team now.
And he acquired many of them with nothing. Two franchise players rendered useless, no lottery picks, didn't have to trade any superstars in their prime, no benefit of being a free agent destination, no salary cap room because of aforementioned franchise players in wheel chairs. Yet he still managed to build a team with a winning record (in the west) with basically nothing but late first round picks, second round picks, undrafted players, and MLE signings. Teams with multiple years of lottery picks have had less success.
IS Josh Smith available? Only for an upgrade at Center or SF i imagine. Would be a steal if we get him for Miller, Battier plus one of our youngs.
I think is to the point where Morey is goin' to end up making a trade just to make a trade. Just to change things up .... but force into doin' something that might not favor us like losin' a draft pick.
I guess we just hold the team to different standards. For all of what you said, we're gonna have the 2nd and 3rd worst seasons the team has had in several years. Until Morey delivers a legit team worthy of at least getting out of the first round again, I'm not going to give him a pass and a laundry list of excuses. The GM of every bad team in the league can give you excuses for why his genius plan didn't work out, doesn't mean they should all be given passes. We shouldn't be content with mediocrity and comparisons to "teams with multiple years of lottery picks."
I'm fascinated by what Morey is rumored to be doing today, not sure what he is trying to do but it will be VERY interesting to see how the team looks at about 3 central time.
I would absolutely care. A winning team full of bad contracts is the nightmare scenario. A winning team full of bad contracts is the Atlanta Hawks. 45-50 wins every year, a 5 or 6 seed in the playoffs, and no chance whatsoever to win a title. You can't upgrade via trade because nobody wants your junk contracts, you can't upgrade via draft because you're picking too low, and you can't get better free agents because you're capped out.
Whatever happens we have a GM who does everything he can to make this team better exhausting every trade to get the most in return.us
No we don't. The difference is you think a team should be back on it's way to contending almost instantly after losing two franchise players to injury...I realize that will be very difficult for any team/GM to overcome and will most likely take years. Especially for a team that resides in a city that isn't viewed as "attractive" to free agents. Sorry, that's just too lazy of analysis for me. Tell me what we should have done instead without having any cap space or high lottery picks? I bet you none of them can come up with any excuses close to losing two franchise players. I also bet none of them can say they've done anything as impressive as building a winning team with the constraints of nothing but late draft picks and 40 million of cap space in wheel chairs.
KBerg_CBS If HOU/PDX can't get better now with deals, will be tempted to get under tax line. Both teams deep-pocketed, but $ is $.
It's up to Daryl now(on Thabeet). He would have to get a pretty good sweetener -- a pick -- to make that move. Nothing new on the Lee thing. That has been going back and forth all month. Bulls want Lee, Rockets want Asik, neither has blinked. The first the Bulls would offer is pretty lousy. Late last night I was told that was not likely to happen. Too soon to say if they are moving Brooks or just collecting an asset, or for that matter if it is just the Wolves looking to move Flynn. I think either deal, for Flynn or Thabeet, has to be more than just that. If the Rockets give up Jeffries in a Flynn deal, however, why not?-- Jonathan(Feigen)
