There are some interesting tidbits from that conversation. This stuck out to me, for instance: [rquoter]4. There are some analytics you can use to analyze coaching but you primarily want a leader who can help you win games and is aligned with the organization. It is early in Kevin's coaching career but over time I believe people will see how good he is.[/rquoter]
What Morey really meant was to 'align' or go along with all the moves he makes, and so far, McHale has aligned w/ the 'organization.' And people will see how good I (Morey) am....I am just reading between the lines.
pretty honest ...but marketing Lin here and overseas had nothing to do with the acquisition...really?
CP3...hmm... Another interesting tidbit: He said it wasn't part of the recommendation...technically it's probably true. Les only need basketball recommendations from Morey, he already knows business.
Something I've mentioned since the day McHale was hired, that he's a company guy who won't yap to the media, something that both Jeff and Rick made the mistake of doing.
Except he did yap to the media pretty much to the same degree as the prior coaches. McHale's feelings about various subjects and players have Beemer made very clear.
And I commented on that in the thread it was discussed. To summarize, I said McHale wasn't doing himself any favors by openly whining about the youth movement.
Being a "team guy" does not mean you don't disagree with the owner or GM, or even that you don't talk about your opinion in public. As long as McHale is doing his job and preparing the players, I doubt Morey has an issue with him. Adelman, remember, was not "fired" in the middle of a contract but rather didn't return after his contract expired and could not work out his "creative differences" with the front office when it comes to roster stability vs. Taking chances on "assets.". If Morey wanted someone who would not talk, McHale would be the wrong guy to hire from the start. Instead, he should have hired a younger assistant coach type who would not want to be seen as "trouble maker" at the start of his career. McHale is too old, too rich (mostly from his long GM career, I think) and has too big of an ego (Hall of Fame playing career does that to people) to be quiet and docile.
did anyone catch this? sounds like he's saying the A's and Moneyball are a bit of a fraud, all they have to show for it is one winning streak
Spoiler Q: Plain and simple, would you ever consider setting up an AMA with one of your players for us? Jeremy Lin would be an incredibly popular player to do so. Since you have been a lurker, have you checked out /r/nba yet? Good luck to you this season. And as a Raptor fan, thank you for the Lowry deal. Should work out for both teams. DMorey: I would definitely encourage them to do it. Q: If you had to pick a starting five of all retired players in their prime, who would you pick? DMorey: I am going to include current players. My five would be CP3, Jordan, Lebron, Duncan, and Olajuwon. Q: Do you have a favorite memory in your time with the Rockets? DMorey: 22 game winning streak. Tougher to do than win the title. That is what I tell myself when I get depressed at all the work we still have to do to get back to being championship contenders. Q: Hey Daryl! Can we get new uniforms, please? Ketchup and Mustard or go home. DMorey: Not my area. I don't know of any plans for new uniforms. I like our current uniforms and the classic uniforms that we still sometimes wear. Q: Where do you rank Hakeem Olajuwon in the greatest centers of all-time conversation? Why do you rank him in the said position? DMorey: Best center. Q: How good is your basketball game? Could I take you? DMorey: I am pretty decent. I would win but it might be just because I would insist on having control of the venue and rules so it is to my advantage. DMorey: We obtained a pick in the 31-35 range for Courtney Lee. This is as valuable or more valuable than a first round pick which directly squares with our goals. Q: I think you mean more valuable than a late (20-30) first round pick. Certainly not a lottery pick, correct? DMorey: Right, 31-35 is arguably as valuable as a late 1st round pick. Q: If Mark Cuban and Jeff Van Gundy got in a fight. Who would win? DMorey: Jeff. He would get hold of his leg and take him down. Q: The new CBA allowed you to offer restricted free agents Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik "poisin pill" contracts for their respective teams who chose not to match but fairly reasonable contracts for the Houston Rockets. By taking advantage of a lesser known technicality in the CBA have you potentially damaged your reputation and ability to negotiate with other GMs? DMorey: No. Q: What would be your advice for a young professional with a Finance degree and working background looking to eventually break into an NBA front office? DMorey: Apply for our full time opening. Q: Who was better in their prime, Tracy McGrady or Kobe Bryant? DMorey: McGrady. Q: How do you justify a basketball player making more than someone who actually gives a service to the community (surgeon, doctor, an honest cop)? DMorey: Supply and demand has no morality. Sort of like evolution. Q: Where would you rank Mitch Kupchak as a GM? Were you shocked/surprised when he pulled off the Dwight Howard trade? DMorey: I was not surprised Mitch pulled this off. Not only is he a great GM, I was in contact with them throughout the process and I knew they were trying to obtain him. Q: Can I get an internship with you guys? I'm a junior majoring in stats at Duke. DMorey: Yes you can! Q: Why did you push so hard to trade for Dwight Howard in the offseason when he did not include the Rockets as a team he wanted to sign with long term? Did you think he might change his mind after playing in Houston for a year? Or did you think that you would be able to get enough assets in a sign-in-trade next year to justify the cost? DMorey: We thought it was low odds that Dwight would sign here long term but even low odds at a top 5 player in the league are better than the odds we can get anywhere else, including being crappy . Also, we would have been very good for the season we had him. Q: Who are your favorite and least favorite teams to negotiate a trade with? DMorey: This fantastic chart on basketball-reference sort of has the answer. Q: Hello Mr. Morey, just a couple of questions from me. I love the new draft picks, Royce White especially, but from a GM standpoint, why pick White? With his anxiety issues and all. Also, thoughts on the Lakers acquisition of DH12? Huge Rockets fan & you've done a great job so far! Edit: spelling DMorey: White has elite talent. Q: I'm a big Spurs fan. What moves are you making to end our Texas dominance? DMorey: We are waiting for you to get old but unfortunately it feels like when everyone was waiting for Nolan Ryan to stop being a good pitcher. Q: Hey there! Greatly respect the work you've put in into furthering the advanced statistics cause in basketball. I know you can't really answer in full, but where does advanced stats go from here? Kirk Goldsberry's CourtVision seems like an incredible tool, and there are tons of people out there trying to refine +/- in order to try and tune out the noise (5 man lineups, adjusting for pace, etc). Do you think a moneyball-esque revolution is going to come eventually? Thanks for taking the time to answer! DMorey: All the action in all the major pro sports is in the XY data that shows the position of the players and the ball multiple times per second. Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Houston? Have you ever been to Yao's restaurant? DMorey: Vic & Anthony's is my favorite. I have been to both of Yao's restaurants - I prefer the one downtown. Q: What paddle do you use? Do you go with a high-end pre-created paddle, or do you assemble higher quality materials yourself? DMorey: Assemble a paddle. Joola blade and rubber. Q: Hi Mr. Morey, I have two questions for you! I was at MLG Raleigh and I saw you speaking. As a fan of the Rockets, sports analytics, and MLG obviously, I was extremely interested and noticed that you predicted that eSports would soon become the biggest/most watched "sport" in the future. Were you just playing to the crowd or are you really buying into the upcoming popularity of it? Also I gotta know, how much StarCraft do you watch and do you wish there was more analytics in it? If I wanted to start a career in basketball analytics, what would be the best way to get into it? Thanks! DMorey: I believe eSports will be the largest sport in the future, yes. Not sure when but you don't have to do much analysis past seeing what is winning the mindshare of anyone under the age of 20 to know. Q: 1. If they made a movie about you (or perhaps Jeremy Lin), which actor would you like to play the role GM for the Houston Rockets? 2. In your opinion, who was the best head coach in the league last season? 3. How difficult is it to deal with other GMs who are keen on using advanced metrics to evaluate players? Do you ever get the impression that any of the other GMs are reluctant to work with you? 4. With the benefit of hindsight, are there any trades you would not have made? 5. Conditional only on information available at the time, who would you have drafted first overall in 2001? What about 1996? 1984? 6. Did you buy your daughter that mac? Finally, I would like to say that I am a huge fan of yours. I grew up in Houston and have been watching the Rockets since the late 90s. The work you are doing is phenomenal. Thank you for doing this AMA, and thank you for putting together an exciting team for us to cheer on! DMorey: 1. Chris Mintz-Plasse 2. Popovich. 3. Every team pretty much deals well with every team in the league. It is a small group so relationship are generally very positive all around. No one is reluctant to work with us. 4. If we knew Yao Ming was never going to really recover from his injury in the Lakers series in 2009 then we could have shifted into our current strategic mode faster and there are many transactions we would not have done. 5. 2001 draft : that was a hard draft to get right, I have empathy for the GMs. I am not sure who we would have taken. I was not in the league at the time so hard for me to answer. 1996 draft: I think we would have taken Iverson. 1984 draft: that is easy. Olajuwon. 6. Yes. it was her birthday today and I broke down and bought it. Q: Did you always want to work in the NBA? Did you feel that you were at a disadvantage without an elite basketball background? also. Besides the popular sites like basketball-reference.com and 82games.com what other resources are there for advanced statistics that are available to the public? DMorey: I always wanted to be a GM. When I could not get a job in sports after my time at STATS, Inc. I resolved to earn enough money to buy a sports team. About year 8 into this plan (which was very slow going) I got fortunate enough to work with Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca while I was at Parthenon. Wyc and Steve gave me my first shot in the league and hired me at the Celtics. After a few years working with Danny Ainge (a great GM and mentor), Mr. Alexander (owner of the Rockets) gave me my big chance as GM by hiring me away from the Celtics. Mr. Alexander had developed the blueprint for everything we are doing now before he hired me. I am still amazed by that. I hope I can live up to the belief he showed in me by getting him and Rockets fans another LOB trophy. Basketball Value is great for raw PBP data. We don't need it as we can get the data ourselves but everyone in public domain uses it so I am told. Q: Clutch or Turbo?? DMorey: Clutch as the audience is kids and kids like bears. Q: I know it's still 6 months away, but what can we look forward to seeing at the upcoming Sloan Sports Analytics Conference? DMorey: Michael Lewis Q: I just wanted to let you know that we have the same last name, Moreys in the house! DMorey: huzza Q: Best show on television right now? DMorey: Modern Family and Breaking Bad Q: I hope you are of the opinion, like much of the APBR community, that there are numerous better ways of understanding player value than Wins Produced. Please oh Please... DMorey: I follow the APBR community closely. Very good work done there although we keep trying to steal the best analysts which hurts the public domain work! No one has figured out predictive player level analysis to any solid degree of certainty that can reliably predict team level future wins. There are methods that predict themselves serially YOY and there are methods that are solid retrodictive but predicting what will happen in the future if you assembled a random collection of 12 NBA players is still very unreliable in the public domain. We hope we have some of the best methods for this internally but it is really difficult as basketball is a much more complex sport than baseball. Q: Have you attended, or plan on attending any eSport events in the future? DMorey: Went to MLG Charlotte. Q: Why haven't you signed Lil B? DMorey: I prefer Lil A. Q: I noticed you are branching out as an executive producer for a Broadway based reality web series on Sethtv.com. How do you go about transitioning over to media? Is your venture successful? Are you a big Broadway fan? Do you to expand into television and films? DMorey: I think Seth Rudetsky is extraordinarily talented so I decided to back Seth TV . Sign up today! Q: What are your thoughts on the Wildcats' chances to contend for the B10 championship this year? DMorey: Fitz can do it. Q: Who is your favorite player of all time and why? DMorey: Mark Price. The Cleveland Cavaliers were my team growing up. Q: Who's the best GM ever in your opinion? DMorey: Red Auerbach Q: What would you rather fight, one horse-sized duck, or one hundred duck-sized horses? DMorey: Hundred duck-sized horses if I had a Colossus Q: When do you think we will see the first openly gay NBA player? DMorey: I imagine very soon. I hope we break that barrier down. Q: Mark Cuban--is he off the walls? Do you have an opinion on his style of managing? DMorey: Mark is easily one of the best owners in the league. I am a big fan. Q: What body organ could you live without if it meant getting another Hakeem Olajuwon? DMorey: Anything I have two of -- kidney, testicle, eye... Q: Any chance I'll get to play you in table tennis? Can we have a table tennis charity event?!? DMorey: Would love to have a table tennis charity event. email Nelson at nelsonl@rocketball.com to get it set up! With that, I have to say goodnight reddit, this is an amazing community of people.
Says a lot about the objectivity and honesty of the guy considering everything that happened between the organization and Tmac.
hey DM, stop being an internet dork and get us a starz!!! ( really cool that he did that. wished for better questions but oh well)
