We all know that rebuilding is the toughest thing in the NBA. It takes multiple horrible years and plenty of moves, and if you are lucky, you might land a franchise player at the top of the lottery. Even after you get that player, it takes multiple years to put pieces around him, and then you have a playoff team, and eventually a title contender. Even teams with blockbuster acquisitions (Lakers, Celtics, Heat) had a foundation of existing star and role players (Kobe, Pierce, Wade) who made major contributions with the new team. Now enter Daryl Morey. He basically built a playoff team from scratch in one year, with the only exception in Chandler Parsons, who is only a sophomore. IN ONE YEAR, he pulled off all these amazing moves: 1. Signed Jeremy Lin for pretty cheap 2. Signed Omer Asik for amazingly cheap 3. Signed Carlos Delfino for incredibly cheap 4. Found and signed Patrick Beverley for dirt cheap 5. Found and signed Greg Smith for crap cheap 6. Picked up Aaron Brooks for vomit cheap 7. Traded for an expiring and contributing Francisco Garcia 8. Got a plethora of high potential players (Jones, Robinson, DMo) who aren't even playing 9. Oh, he got a franchise player in James Harden too My question is, who else in the history of NBA did what Morey did this past year - forming a playoff team composed of new players. I can't think of one. Can you?
TANK! jk, but seriously, these past few games have been great, can you imagine if we woulda tanked, we woulda been missing out on this, man!
To be fair the assets were built up over the course of several years, and last year the Rockets were a borderline playoff team (albeit with all different players). This year the stars aligned and Morey pulled every trigger
Good thread. I'm sure he has done even more. He really has us in a good place with our salary cap too.
It was pretty cheap based on what I believe Morey's plan was. He paid 2 players 8 mill/yr each in order to hope one of them turns out to be a star. Most teams don't do that gamble, they instead pay a role player who they know what they'll get (ala Salmons, Maggette, etc) for 8-10 mill/yr.
Lin is, for purely basketball reasons, an average contract. He only costs the rockets 8mm a year in cap space and that's average money for a starting PG. Bad contracts are: Amare, DeAndre, etc. Was a fair bet if he could even produce at 60% of Linsanity (which, for all intents and purposes, I think he has, at least 60%) Garcia costs the rockets 6mm a year and, although he's quite obviously been amazing and the x-factor for the rockets this whole playoff series, you can't possibly argue he's more valuable than Lin. Taking into account marketing and business, Lin is dirt cheap, ESPECIALLY for a team under the cap. I'm pretty sure if he plays 30 minutes a game and averages 6 pts / 3ass Morey is still raking in a net profit on him.
Exactly. Denver pre-Melo was also a playoff team. Even after the trade, they still had old players in Kenyon Martin, Nene, Chris Anderson and Ty Lawson as major contributors.
Keep in mind that FA in the NBA has not been around for a long time. And that the constant change of the CBA means that strategies are constantly changing with them. While I'm sure Morey is historical in this regards, but it's not really saying much.
yeah... i remember that. we traded our whole team for the start of this season. that was shocking. we were all like, WTF?!!! amnestied Scola, passed on Dragic, traded Lowry. we had no idea what was going on. now we're doing okay. been an amazing season.
Is that the only thing you picked up from the whole thing? Jeremy Lin? Don't ruin this thread please. Thank you!
True. I was thinking more along the lines of people expecting Denver to fall into rebuilding mode because of the trade, but they never actually ended up there.
Morey is great but he isn't better than Jerry West. It's debatable if he is better than Pat Riley. The Rockets need to win at least 1 title before we praise him so much. I believe his record as a GM is 1 playoff series win against Portland. The OP is right though. He pulled some minor miracles. Glad he is the Rockets GM.
