So you think Flynn, Parsons, Patterson, or Hill is clearly better than Morris? We can't even bring up positions of need with Mchale here. We've seen him run 4 as 5 2 as 3 or 3 defending 5 4 defending 5's out there. It's a total chaos.
That's a strange title for the article. No where in that article does Feigen quote Morris saying anything close to he's OK with it. In fact, the only quote was from training camp where Morris says he is not OK with it. It's a bunch of quotes from staff and Patterson saying how it should help him. So what is it? Is Morris not OK with it and Feigen is spin doctoring, or does Feigen have an actual quote.
Actually, that's the title of Feigen's article. I was too lazy to come up with my own. Yeah, but the title is a bit misleading.
The article says Morris' agent said they were okay with it. That's just PR, but that's probably the quote that justifies the title. Anyway, I don't care if he's okay with it or not. He just needs to make the most of it.
I guess if they weren't OK with it he wouldn't go there. Belinelli turned down his team's request to play in the D-League.
Yep, and Feigen is likely helping with the PR spin. Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but Feigen will usually get a quote. Seems weird he couldn't get one from the player, so he had to go to the agent for the PR spin.
i just have to say ... This guy was a lotto pick last year. He was a senior. He was supposed to be "NBA ready". We have very little competition at the 3 position and this guy can't get in our rotation? Chandler Parsons and Bud (two 2nd-round picks) get plenty of minutes at the 3 position, but Morris goes to the D-League? Am i missing something here? Where's the BBS poster who was calling Morris a "franchise player"? I'm sure the D-League will help his career, but lotto pick seniors on below average teams, with a big vacancy at the position, should be seeing NBA floor time.
McHale likes Parsons height. Bud has been with the team. Therefore, Morris didn't stand a chance from the beginning.
He was a junior who was playing the 4 for the last few years. I believe this is mostly so he can get game speed at the 3 position as he is not ready for that yet. I do not believe there is a lottery pick having to go through the same thing. Maybe Jimmer and not having to shoot it 2 seconds after crossing half court. Playing the 3 is very different then playing the 4, when you pick a guy up, you general body positioning, how you react to a pass, how you react to a pick, etc. I am not saying it is completely different but he has years of doing X and now he has to do Y... that takes time for him to think about that... so he is thinking not acting. I think it is mostly about defense that he is in the D league. So he might not be Paul Pierce. There I said it. Fierguard Bleed Red Rockets Red.
This. Aruba, please note that Morris was a junior and is trying to transition back from being a college PF to a pro SF (which most experts believe is very rare to do effectively, although David Thorpe--whose expert opinion I trust--seems to think that Morris can be a legit pro SF). With Patterson's ankle injury, Morris played nothing but PF in training camp (or very little SF, at the most). Meanwhile, Chandler Parsons is not just some "second round pick". He WAS a senior last year. He played SF/PF all four years at Florida, in much the same role as he has been asked to play for the Rockets. He also got to play pro ball in France during the lockout. The Rockets viewed Parsons as an undervalued pick, likely in the mid- to late first round on the Rockets' own draft board. Combined with Morris's need to make a tough positional transition--and further given the franchise's investment in Morris doing so--it makes all sorts of sense that Morris (not Parsons) is going to the D-League. Remember, the Rockets run all basketball operations at RGV. They can completely tailor the team around Morris and his transition to the SF spot. Do people realize how valuable that is, to be able to cause an entire basketball team to revolve around one player's development, without it costing the "big league club" any games? If anything, this should show just how MUCH the team values Morris. This is not a demotion. This is a franchise wanting to maximize its return on an important investment in its lottery pick.
Goog points, Bimathug. The way that the Rockets operate RGV makes the assignment of players there quite a big different than the kind of D-League moves where a team just throws a end-of-bench kid to a D-League squad which it shares with a couple other teams and hope that the kid gets some burn on a team that doesn't necessarily run the same system as the big-league team and teach the same skills emphasized by the big-league team. The Rockets very much care about what they do at RGV and have sent other rookies there who seem to have benefited from the experience (Patterson, etc.).
