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[Chron] Rockets trust Morey to make the right move

Discussion in 'Houston Rockets: Game Action & Roster Moves' started by dingaaa, Jan 28, 2010.

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  1. dingaaa

    dingaaa Member

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    Sometime in the next three weeks, Daryl Morey will face what might be his toughest decision as general manager of the Rockets.

    Here's the rub: There's probably not a right answer. At least not now, which makes every answer the wrong one — or maybe the right one. Take your pick.

    Good thing Morey got that contract extension. He went days without sleep around the trade deadline this time last year, and those moves were easy compared to the stakes he's dealing with this time.

    These decisions could impact the franchise for years to come. If Morey does something stupid, there's five years of second-guessing column material.

    Let's go to the big board and review Morey's options before the know-it-all columnist offers his usual helpful advice.

    Stay the course and play the free-agent market this summer.

    From the moment Morey knew Yao Ming wouldn't play this season, he has tried to position the franchise as a championship contender for the 2010-11 season.

    Morey refused to patch the roster with older players to buy an extra victory or two this season. His goal wasn't to be competitive. It was to be a champion.
    Boys of summer

    To do that, Morey must acquire an impact player to go with Chase Budinger, Kyle Lowry, etc. His original blueprint was to add that impact player after this season when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Joe Johnson would all be free agents.

    Now, as the Feb. 19 trade deadline approaches, there's skepticism around the NBA that any of those players will change teams. James seems to be the most likely, and if he goes anywhere, it's probably to the Nets or Knicks.

    Should Morey stay the course, wait for the summer free-agent marketplace and gamble on getting Bosh or Johnson? If the Rockets get either of them to play beside Yao, they might be one of the three best teams in the Western Conference.

    Let's consider Yao. His recovery from foot surgery has been normal, and the Rockets have no reason to believe he won't return and be as good as ever.

    If he is, the Rockets are going to be a playoff team. But there will always be the possibility of another injury. That's life with the big fella.

    Yao is worth the risk because there's no one they could acquire nearly as good as he is. His health will always be an issue, but the Rockets are proceeding as if he can still play at a high level.

    Yao's rehabilitation has gone well so far. So well, in fact, that he walked into Toyota Center on Wednesday night in a restrictive boot, saw coach Rick Adelman and said, “I've still got time to put my jersey on.”

    Adelman smiled.

    “Don't tempt me.”

    Now back to free agency. If Morey waits for the summer free-agent marketplace, he could be left without a good fallback position.

    So should he make a trade now?

    Morey's options are less attractive, but he could still make the Rockets better. If he adds an impact player, he might have to give up one of his core guys — Carl Landry, Budinger, Aaron Brooks or Lowry.

    His best trade option appears to be 6-6 swingman Andre Iguodala of the Sixers. He's 26 years old and averaging 17.6 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.7 assists this season. To make that deal work for Tracy McGrady's contract, Morey would have to take 6-11 Samuel Dalembert.

    No problem there. Dalembert, 28, would give the Rockets the low-post presence they need, and he's signed for only one more season ($12.2 million).

    Morey's poker game with the Sixers is two-fold. One is that the Sixers might still want Landry or Budinger. Then there's the money.

    Iguodala has four years and $56.4 million remaining on his contract. Making that deal would eliminate the Rockets from making a run at Bosh or Johnson this summer.

    And perhaps most importantly, it would put the team far over the luxury-tax threshold, delivering a big bill to owner Leslie Alexander.

    If Morey makes that kind of financial commitment, Alexander would want to know the team has a chance to go deep into the playoffs.

    That's the dilemma for Morey. How good would that deal make the Rockets? Should he make a run for Washington's Caron Butler instead? Or should he continue to play the market and hope economics forces teams to make other good players available?

    The Cavaliers, desperate to make the franchise more attractive for James, could be in the Iguodala discussion as well. If there's a bidding war, how far should Morey be willing to go in terms of giving up players he would prefer to keep?
    Keeping the faith

    Here's the advice portion of today's column.

    In Morey and Alexander we trust.

    Check the track record. They've done almost everything right in their time together. From the hiring of Rick Adelman to the trade for Lowry to the drafting of Budinger, the Rockets are on a roll.

    Alexander has given Morey resources other general managers dream of having. Morey, in turn, has overhauled the Rockets without a high draft pick or big-ticket signing. To still be in contention after an offseason in which the Rockets lost their two best players is a remarkable accomplishment.

    This team's weaknesses have been highlighted these last few weeks, but if you told Morey last summer the Rockets would be (25-20 or 24-21) after 45 games, he would have taken it in a heartbeat.

    Nothing Morey does now will be perfect, but perfect may not be possible. So he'll spend three exhausting weeks weighing hundreds of options.

    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/6839267.html

    And when he makes a move, it'll be the right one.
     
    #1 dingaaa, Jan 28, 2010
  2. brian_chapman

    brian_chapman Member

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    at what point do we question him? 1 lottery season? 2 lottery seasons? 3? I hope it doesnt turn out like Kubiak where we keep saying "next year is the year" over and over and over. (havent we been saying that about the rockets for the last 8 years)
     
    #2 brian_chapman, Jan 28, 2010
  3. rockets88MT

    rockets88MT Member

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    haha Rick should have injected yao into the team ;)
     
    #3 rockets88MT, Jan 28, 2010
  4. brian_chapman

    brian_chapman Member

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    this article was obviously written on purpose to calm the fanbase . doesnt matter,fans will quit going to games for a losing season. rocket fans are fickle,its hard to have sellouts even when they are GOOD much less this years lotto team.
     
    #4 brian_chapman, Jan 28, 2010
  5. LifeisButaDream

    LifeisButaDream Member

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    I do too. morey's a very smart man. :)
     
    #5 LifeisButaDream, Jan 28, 2010
    1 person likes this.
  6. meh

    meh Member

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    I think Morey will make a move before the deadline. There's no better timing now. For someone who relies so heavily on information, there's no way Morey takes a chance in the offseason, which will be crazy and impossible to predict. Plus many things has to go right for the Rockets to land an impact player.

    You simply can't compare the NBA from the NFL. Roster turnover rate is not nearly as high. And draft position is so much more important in the former than the latter. Reloading in basketball is nearly impossible when you lack high picks for franchise cornerstones.

    Morey will be questioned when he starts making the team worse rather than better. But until then, I will trust Morey's decisions, whatever they may be.
     
    #6 meh, Jan 28, 2010
    1 person likes this.
  7. Sooner423

    Sooner423 Member

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    What a worthless article. There are at least a hundred guys on this board that could put out something better than that.
     
    #7 Sooner423, Jan 28, 2010
    1 person likes this.
  8. brian_chapman

    brian_chapman Member

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    they should have just played tmac 30mpg to boost his value and then trade him for more than what you can now

    i dont understand this "tmac will mess up chemistry". this is a rebuilding year,tmac is your trade piece, makes no sense to play him 7 minutes. (unless he was really bad in practice and i just havent been told yet)
     
    #8 brian_chapman, Jan 28, 2010
  9. larsv8

    larsv8 Member

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    Chris Bosh or bust.
     
    #9 larsv8, Jan 28, 2010
  10. sephiroth.hk

    sephiroth.hk Member

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    Agree, they think fans are fool...
     
    #10 sephiroth.hk, Jan 28, 2010
  11. smoove shoez

    smoove shoez Member

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    IDMWT
     
    #11 smoove shoez, Jan 28, 2010
  12. Rockets Jones

    Rockets Jones Member

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    They wrote it because they know there's no move in the making, they even come out and say it with the Iguodala deal. What a bunch of nutjobs work for the Houston Chron, indeed a lot of posters here could've written something better. Morey is not going to do anything and it's going to cost us. It's not our fault they mishandled the Tracy situation so it's a waste of $20 million I will not forgive Morey. Next year with the salaries going down and the very probable lock-out it's time to make a move. I don't care who goes, just fix the right positions and they don't even need to be 'stars'. Just do something !! They owe it to us fans because they are not playing Tracy who could help this team 10x better than Ariza can right now.
     
    #12 Rockets Jones, Jan 28, 2010
  13. sephiroth.hk

    sephiroth.hk Member

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    Morey is GM of the Year
    - Sign Ariza with MLE who become our GO-TO guy for lottery.
    - Sign DA with 2M who cannot defend or block shot.
    - Buy several 2nd round picks and do not give them playing time.
    - Do good communication between TMac and team.
    - Sign some 10-day contracts and let them sit on the bench.
    - Ask chron to post some article to help him make a good image...
     
    #13 sephiroth.hk, Jan 28, 2010
  14. Rehabstudios

    Rehabstudios Member

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    *signing TA to a MLE is good. Morey didn't make him the go-to guy. Thats a coaches call.
    *DA was brought in for his jumper not his defense and he is worth 2mil in NBA terms
    *How often do 2nd round picks get playing time with any team? If they give anything its nothing but a plus. If they dont it was only a 2nd rounder.
    *TMac made his own bed.
    *How often do 10-day contracters get playing time with any team? If they give anything its nothing but a plus. If they dont it was only a 10-day contracter.
    *DM doesn't need help from the chron, his work speaks for itself.
     
    #14 Rehabstudios, Jan 28, 2010
  15. Hball

    Hball Member

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    Morey's a genius, he sent 23 million home and now were 10th in the west.
     
    #15 Hball, Jan 28, 2010
  16. meh

    meh Member

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    Fixed
     
    #16 meh, Jan 28, 2010
  17. Hball

    Hball Member

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    ^Dead weight?... the guy was more productive than battier and ariza in 7 minutes...lol
     
    #17 Hball, Jan 28, 2010
  18. sephiroth.hk

    sephiroth.hk Member

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    - signing TA with 3m in 3 years may be good.
    - DA is worth 2m but i wonder if other nba team will sign him.
    - they were not rockets 2nd round picks, he bought them by 7m and some will become next Newley or Dorsey who will not play in toyoto center.
    - it is horrible drama between them and dont want to discuss more.
    - he sign some 10-day contract because he need to prepare some answers for les if les ask him "what are you doing now?" XD
    - he has done something good in the past, like Artest, Scola, ...
    but he has made some wrong decisions obviously this season...
    he should do something now to avoid Rockets getting the lowest lottery pick next summer.
     
    #18 sephiroth.hk, Jan 28, 2010
  19. lunaticrocket

    lunaticrocket Rookie

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    Yup, my thoughts exactly. Reading this article was like watching an episode of Seinfeld, an article about nothing.

    Article sounded interesting at the begining because he said he was going to give his opinion at the end. And at the end all he said was "In Morey we trust".

    It would be much better if he said something like, do not trade, gamble at a sign and trade during the summer, miss the playoffs in hopes of a high lottery pick, etc... A real proposal for a strategy, whether wrong or right.
     
    #19 lunaticrocket, Jan 28, 2010
  20. joesr

    joesr Member

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    - Guess all those other teams are gms of the year as well since they were offering more money. He probably would have played better there with other stars and all though.

    - He has height and he can score. Thats a simple solution.

    - I care less about this situation either, for better or worse.

    - Your dwelling to deep put a blame on someone.

    - Realistic output is how did we all REALLY feel we would do this year?
     
    #20 joesr, Jan 28, 2010
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