GATER, Which part of "Ron Artest" says "safe pick, avoidance of risk" to you? Being "risk taking" or "risk avoiding" has nothing to do with whether you evaluate a player quantatively or by more traditional means. One can look at players in terms of advanced/new stats, form an opinion as to which player is the "higher upside but risky" pick and which is the "safe pick" and decide to take the higher risk guy because the reward is, on balance, worth it. Morey's history certainly doesn't indicate his methods favor safe guys. You might have formed your opinion based on the Battier decision, but that's not what he did in later moves. He hasn't always opted for the "smart/mature" types: taking Artest as a rental for 2 picks is not a "safe" choice, Terrence Williams is another one being talked about as having "character" issues. He's also widely known to have interest in DeMarcus Cousins, another "high risk" guy according to NBA rumors.
I just don't understand what some of you think a different GM would have done so much better? I think Morey has done a great job up to this point with what he has been given to work with. That doesn't mean every move he makes is going to be the right one, no GM is right all the time. It just means there aren't any other GM's out there who are clear cut upgrades, and there are a lot of GM's who would do a lot worse. NO gm in the world was going to get Bosh to come to Houston after both he and Lebron and made up their mind to play together with Wade in Miami. After the health issues with both Tracy and Yao there is wisdom in being cautious with Amare who has had a number of injuries himself. It's been a while, but I believe I read he refused to take a physical which killed the trade? If we don't get Carmello it is likely to be heavily influenced by his demand to play in NY, and I wouldn't want make a trade at any cost for him just on the hope that he might change his mind and resign here. It's hard to say what a reasonable price is to offer if you are only getting him for a half year rental. Now if any one of those stars had been reported to have Houston as their top choice or one of two to three top choices and we failed to get them, then that would make the expectations significantly different. But I don't think their desire or lack of desire to come here would have changed one bit based on who the GM is. Personally I appreciate not making moves just for the sake of being able to say you did something, like the Astros getting Carlos Lee for example on a ridiculous contract when the Astros should have been trading for draft picks and rebuilding. I could see going after the GM if things were like the Texans where Rick Smith is having mediocre drafts on a regular basis, let's his best cornerback walk and replaces him with a rookie who has a horrible year. Then the team has one of the worst defenses in league history in a year when they were expected to go to the playoffs, but declines to sign Schobel as a free agent defensive end to help out unless he takes pro-rated minimum wage when the Texans are one of the most profitable teams in the league. Follow that up with both the coach and GM keeping their job and the owner saying we are on the right track after having a worse record than last year where we also underachieved, and I can understand and share in the fruststration there. On the flip side, Morey took over a team full of unatheletic, older role players and oft injured stars with minimal cap space and did a complete youth movement into one of the best supporting casts in the league without tanking to the ground and with minimal assets. It's not his fault neither Yao nor Tracy could stay healthy for any length of time, neither were his picks in the first place. I just don't see this plethora of super stars that some other GM would have brought to the Rockets that Morey has passed on.
This was your quote. And mine I'm not sure what did I say that was out of line, besides changing contending and championships. Basically the underlining point is the same. I just said it in a more straightforward manner. Your allusion to McNair furthers the point, as all the criticism on Kubiak has been that he had too many years and only one non-playoff winning season to show for it.
I think it's flawed to argue this point in the first place. If Indiana trades Granger, they'll either want a boatload of picks + young players, or they want to package Granger for a superstar. Granger for Martin as two main pieces of any trade would result in similar win totals for both teams. If Indiana's offering Granger, I'd think they want some combo of Patterson/Hill, Budinger/Williams, Lowry/Brooks, Knicks 1st round pick next year(likely 10-20 range) and one of our own future picks, plus expirings and cash. I don't think Indiana's going to want our veterans.
Quality post. Small problem with your Astros analogy is that you can't trade or trade for draft picks in MLB, but your point is correct. It would have been nice to see what Morey could have done during the JVG era. JVG was great at getting his players to maximize effort, but terrible at planning for the future, and CD facilitated that with acquiring aging veterans that were assets of diminishing value. I'm still undecided on Morey, but he really was dealt a mediocre hand.
gee I guess there's nothing left for you to do but cry into your champagne coolie.... poor little guy, first the comets fold now this....
Since this thread has not died yet, I want to get some reflections from y'all...... How can Daryl Morey justify the last 1.5 years of knowingly going into regular season NBA games without a center or post player capable of providing consistent defense, rebounding and size. I understand that moves in the NBA are hard to make, but when does need justify over spending if you are Morey?
You "over-spend" on stars, or if it takes over-spending to become a contender. The Rockets were too far away from contender status without Yao Ming to justify over-spending on a non-star.
Agreed. It's just a size thing with me. I am counting the days to when we get bigger on the perimeter as well as on the block.
Durvasa, Sorry, that was unclear on my part.... What I mean when I say over-spending is not necessarily meaning monetary spending. I mean asset spending. Us overvaluing Chase Budinger or some other low level asset to the point that we don't flip them to fulfill our glaring need for size.
What sort of player do you think we could have gotten for Budinger or another low-level asset that would have vaulted us into contender status? The point remains -- without Yao, we're too far away being a contender and trading some low-level assets won't get us there. Alright, so you say it will put us on the path to getting better. Perhaps. Or maybe the net result is we give up a little offense for a little defense, and we're no better off for it. In which case, it could be that we're better off showing some patience and flipping those assets (especially if we think their trade value can improve over time) when a better deal comes along. I'm not saying that Morey shouldn't be thinking to make a trade for a plus-size center at this point. But I don't think it was some awful mistake that such a trade wasn't made before the season or before last season. IMO, making a deal for a low-tier player just because that player is tall would not have gotten us much closer to where we want to be.
Durvasa, I don't mean an all-star brute, nor even Marcus Camby. What I am saying is that The Post Dikembe Mutombo era has been the David Andersen(girl),Chuck Hayes (tiny and doesnt get big boy rebounds)and Brad Miller (Is Brad Miller). It can be a stiff or semi stiff like Dampier.
That is my point. You acquire a stiff or semi-stiff to plug in at center, and what have you really accomplished? Are we suddenly in the thick of the playoff race? Are we a contender? Is our future any brighter? Like I said, without Yao and plus with AB missing a huge chunk of the season we're so far away from being a contender that the addition of a semi-stiff will not have much of an impact. That's why I don't see it like its a huge blunder, as you do.
You don't make moves just to make moves. Morey knows this team needs a roster upgrade and he went for the "right" pieces, not any pieces, despite impatient fans throwing tantrums. Making impulse moves leads to bad teams that are stuck being bad teams. We may not be great, but we are in a position to make a good move and get ourselves back on track. He went after Chandler (defensive center), he went after Varejao (defensive big), he went after Bosh (superstar), he considered Amare (superstar) , he is pursuing Melo (superstar). As of right now Chuck Hayes is superior to any big we could realistically "Easily" acquire.
What part of low-dollar risk are you people struggling with? Ron Artest was a low cost, one season rental. One year @$5M playing for a coach (Adelman) who had already kept him in line SAC and a roster full of vets. To coin a phrase "show me the risk". Let me re-phase your articulate response into one of less rhetoric and more reality. Morey was brought in to save Les Alexander money by evaluating basketball in the methodology formerly used in baseball by Bill Bean. More specifically, so there'd be no more Kelvin Kato (or Mo Taylor) type of contracts. From the standpoint of not overspending...what Morey does works. From the standpoint of puttting an elite WC team together? The verdict is still out. As I've already mentioned in this thread...any NBA team can hit the media with "we're interested in moving up in the draft" or "of course we're interested in Joe Superstar". You're smart enough to distinguish hype from possibility. It surprises me you still go for the hype. I've NEVER...to my knowledge...said any GM could have done better. All I've ever said is some combination of these 4 things... 1) Morey gets deified on CFans disproportionately to what he's accomplished. 2) It was foolish to overpay for Battier-level talent with a Lottery pick. 3) $Ball is risk averse and void of vision. 4) The formulas used in Morey's $Ball overemphasize 3+ years in a college player and that $Ball was late to the table in understanding the importance of height and athleticism.
I can't believe I'm going to agree with Gater, but the Ron Artest trade was low risk, high reward. One, it was a rental. We knew he had one year on his contract and if things didn't work out we could trade that contract or let it expire ridding ourselves of him. Low risk. Two, in theory we had two stars in place and adding Ron was the last key to what could have been a deep playoff run. High reward. If not for Tracy's "injury" and Yao/Deke injuries in the playoffs, I have no doubt we could have gone to the conference finals at the very least.
